Congress
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The 2009 reform aimed at ending the Pentagon's practice of overpromising the weapons systems it could deliver within the budgets it was asking for is showing signs of success. But DoD's acquisition chief says no amount of legislating will solve cost overruns.
May 01, 2014 -
When the House votes Thursday to approve fiscal 2015 budgets for a slew of legislative-branch agencies, lawmakers will get a chance to resurrect the small technology agency that once provided Congress with expert technological and scientific advice. A floor amendment from Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) would siphon off about $2.5 million from the House historic buildings fund to provide start-up funding for a reboot of the Office of Technology Assessment
April 30, 2014 -
President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law later this week that will require new levels of effort to make federal data more accessible. Now that the three-year effort to get the bill passed is complete, the hard work begins to make it a reality.
April 30, 2014 -
Tom Davis, director of Federal Government Affairs for Deloitte, what the government could do to become leaner and more efficient. April 29, 2014
April 29, 2014 -
Congress is back in town after a two-week recess. The House managed to knock out two good-government bills: the DATA Act and the Government Reports Elimination Act. But what about the big stuff? The divided House and Senate have a lot to accomplish in the coming months. Bob Cusack, managing editor at The Hill Newspaper, laid out the Congressional to-do list for Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp.
April 29, 2014 -
Your agency's annual spending bill is on the to-do list before Congress's August recess. They are back today for the longest work session of the year. Tamar Hallerman, appropriations reporter at Roll Call, tells In Depth with Francis Rose your agency's appropriations bill is on the clock in the House of Representatives.
April 28, 2014 -
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the chairman of a key congressional panel with oversight of the federal workforce says he wants President Barack Obama's pick for White House budget director to "possess a background in federal workforce and governmental oversight issues." Earlier this month, Obama nominated the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, Sylvia Burwell, to take over for Kathleen Sebelius as the head of the Health and Human Services Department.
April 24, 2014 -
Members of Congress aren't happy with the Air Force's proposal to cut entire fleets of aircraft out of its inventory. But the service insists it's the only way to comply with the budget caps Congress created, and the alternatives would be far more painful.
April 24, 2014 -
In the past three years, federal workers have gotten one raise, valued at 1 percentage point. Now a 3.3 percent increase in 2015 could be in the cards, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. So what are the odds? Can you say slim-and-none?
April 21, 2014 -
Changes come in the wake of a NASA-commissioned report on the issue of foreign nationals' access to sensitive information. The study, which has not been released to the public, found the agency had failed to establish a central management structure for those workers' access to data and didn't impose consequences when its policies were violated.
April 14, 2014 -
The Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is starting over on postal reform legislation and taking as its template a surprising source — the White House's fiscal 2015 budget request. Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told members of the committee and the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget that he intends to "embrace to the greatest extent possible" the entire slate of legislative proposals for overhauling the Postal Service included in the President's budget request.
April 08, 2014 -
Hitting a July 4th deadline for your agency's budget bill is getting tighter because Congress isn't going to be around much between now and then. David Hawkings, senior editor at Roll Call, tells In Depth with Francis Rose the hearing and markup list is long this week.
April 07, 2014 -
The House will soon vote on a measure making it easier for the Veterans Affairs secretary to fire or demote senior career executives at the department, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a Capitol Hill briefing Thursday. The VA Management Accountability Act allows the VA secretary to remove or demote members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) based on their performance.
April 03, 2014 -
Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) introduced the Veterans Information Security Improvement Act that would explicitly require VA to take steps to repair operational and procedure holes in its network and computer security processes.
April 03, 2014 -
The Pentagon's current proposals for wringing savings out of its health care system involve additional fees for beneficiaries, but also try to induce them to use less-costly treatment options.
April 03, 2014