• Some leading House Democrats are calling on President Joe Biden to fire the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Those calls come after the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) substantiated multiple allegations of wrongdoing by DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. In a new report released last week, CIGIE found Cuffari lied to Congress during his confirmation and misused taxpayer funds to hire a private law firm to investigate former members of his staff. House Oversight and Accountability Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) are now calling for Cuffari’s removal.
  (Ranking Members Raskin and Thompson call for removal of Inspector General Cuffari following damning report - House Oversight and Accountability Committee Democrats)
• The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to strike down the delayed citizenship policy for service members. The Biden administration continues to defend a Trump-era policy that delays military service members’ expedited path to U.S. citizenship. The ACLU said the policy is unlawful and should have been abandoned in 2020 when it won the case. While the Biden administration initially asked the court to pause the proceedings and develop a new policy after the ACLU won the case, the administration is now arguing for the reinstatement of original restrictions.
  (Biden admin continues to defend delayed citizenship for service members policy - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service is looking to borrow more money to support infrastructure upgrades. USPS said its current $15 billion borrowing limit with the Treasury Department was set in the 1970s and hasn’t kept up with inflation. The agency has committed more than $17 billion to upgrade its facilities. The agency is also investing billions in a new majority-electric delivery vehicle fleet. USPS is also calling on the Office of Personnel Management to reassess its pension contributions for some of its retirees.
  (USPS seeks higher borrowing limit from Treasury in 10-year plan update - Federal News Network)
• NASA's mentor-protégé program will be back in business on November 1. After a temporary moratorium for a strategic review of the program, NASA is relaunching its mentor-protégé program next month with an eye toward better serving small businesses and its 2040 vision. One big change, NASA said, is the program will now focus on addressing its supply chain gaps. Another change is NASA will prioritize subcontracts for protégés under specific North American Industry Classification System codes that align with the Space Technology Mission Directorate Technology Taxonomies, emphasizing areas such as research and development, software and IT and aerospace manufacturing. NASA put the mentor-protégé program on hold back in February. In fiscal 2023, NASA had eight agreements.
  (NASA to relaunch mentor-protégé program on Nov. 1 - NASA)

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• The Education Department has a new chief information officer. Thomas Flagg joined the Education Department yesterday as its new chief information officer. Flagg comes to Education from the Labor Department where he was the director of the Directorate of Business Application Services. He replaces Luis Lopez, who left in March after 15 months on the job. Flagg joined Labor in 2013 from the private sector, having worked for almost two decades with an assortment of companies. Flagg inherits a $1.6 billion IT budget at Education with about 81% spent on operations and maintenance. One of his big priorities will be to complete the website modernization project kicked off in 2023.
  (Thomas Flagg appointed Education Department's CIO - Education Department)
• IRS has been stepping up its customer service, but a bipartisan bill seeks to expedite those efforts. The Improving IRS Customer Service Act would require the agency set up an online dashboard giving taxpayers updates on backlogs and wait times. The bill would also require IRS to extend a callback option to more taxpayers trying to reach the agency over the phone. The legislation also requires the agency to give taxpayers more options to track the status of the tax refunds. Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) are leading the bill.
  (Warner and Cassidy introduce legislation to improve customer service for taxpayers - Sen. Mark Warner)
• The Defense Department’s one-year pilot program will provide no-cost supplemental health services to DoD civilian employees serving in Japan. The enrollment period for eligible employees to participate in the program will be during the Federal Benefits Open Season, which runs from Nov. 11 through Dec. 9. To be eligible, the employee must be enrolled in a health plan through the Federal Employees Health Benefits program. The services offered under this pilot will begin on Jan. 1, 2025. Participants will be able to access support through a call center, which will be open 24/7 and staffed with bilingual service representatives. Dependents of the participants are not eligible for services during the pilot.
  (DoD pilot program to provide health services to employees in Japan - Department of Defense)
• The Pentagon is putting its zero trust cybersecurity concepts through the wringer. The Defense Department is evaluating 18 zero trust proofs of concept. That includes environments built by major cloud providers. DoD has already completed assessments on Microsoft and Google. Les Call, director of the DoD's chief information officer's zero trust portfolio management officer, said proving out the proofs of concept will help the department meet its zero trust goals. “If we can come up with use cases that satisfy a particular need where we can just say, ‘Hey, these vendors have already accomplished this, or this group of vendors has already accomplished this,' absolutely fabulous, because that then gives people an opportunity to shortcut and get there faster,” Call said during ATARC’s Zero Trust Summit last week.
  (DoD wringing out zero trust concepts under assessment process - Federal News Network )

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