Defense Department
-
In this edition of Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Executive Editor Jason Miller shares news and buzz about the IT and acquisition communities.
May 09, 2014 -
The House Armed Services Committee is marking up the Pentagon's 2015 Defense Authorization bill today. Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has a series of proposals that include some accounting finesse to appropriate more than $2 billion worth of unobligated funds into next year. He wants to balance that with some targeted spending cuts too. John Donnelly, editor of Congressional Quarterly's Defense Blog, tells In Depth with Francis Rose the balance in the 2015 Defense Authorization bill gets more precarious the longer the markup goes.
May 07, 2014 -
The Navy is scrapping a plan to overhaul one of its 11 aircraft carriers. The Defense Department says doing that frees up money to spend on the Littoral Combat Ship program. Everett Pyatt is leader of the Project for Defense Management and Acquisition Leadership Program at the McCain Institute and a former assistant secretary of the Navy. He's writing in Real Clear Defense about the Navy's budget plans.
May 07, 2014 -
The intelligence community, like the rest of government, is coping with a sudden budget decrease. But leaders say they're committed to not repeating the serious workforce mistakes policymakers made during the last budget cut two decades ago, when new hiring ground to a halt. Read the related story by Jared Serbu.
May 07, 2014 -
Today is markup day for the National Defense Authorization Act in the House Armed Services Committee. Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) has already killed the idea of approving a round of Base Realignment and Closure this year. But the Defense Department sees the potential for some progress on another round of BRAC. John Conger, acting deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, talked to In Depth with Francis Rose about the effort the Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) is making to push toward a BRAC round.
May 07, 2014 -
John Hickey, the mobility program manager for the Defense Information Systems Agency, talks about the status of DoD's commercial mobile device programs, for both classified and unclassified communications. Greg Wenzel, a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, discusses the findings of a recent survey of government employees about DoD acquisition.
May 07, 2014 -
The House Armed Services Committee releases a blueprint of the National Defense Authorization Act. The $601 billion measure hardly resembles the Pentagon's wish list. It rejects most of the department's ideas for saving money. Staff writer Martin Matishak has been following this closely for the Hill Newspaper. He provided insight for Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp.
May 06, 2014 -
Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has released a $601 billion spending plan that saves the Cold War era U-2 spy plane from the chopping block and also would force the Pentagon to keep the A-10 Warthog in storage. It's all a part of a plan resulting in smaller military budgets after 13 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, though, the plan also denies the Pentagon's request for another round of military base closures to get rid of unnecessary facilities and save $1.4 billion.
May 06, 2014 -
Congress is taking its first real action on whether or not to accept the cost-saving ideas DoD put forward in its 2015 budget proposal. And so far, it looks like Congress will shred those proposals. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu writes about the annual National Defense Authorization Act in the latest edition of Inside the DoD Reporter's Notebook. He described some of the initial reactions from Congress so far.
May 05, 2014 -
The military is putting more resources into covert programs. The Pentagon asks Congress for nearly $54 billion for classified, special access and intelligence programs. That would be an increase of 2.2 percent at a time when most other spending would be flat. Rob Levinson, senior defense analyst for Bloomberg Government, explained the "secret spending" to Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp.
May 05, 2014 -
"Inside the DoD's Reporter's Notebook" is biweekly feature focused on news about the Defense Department and defense community as gathered by Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu.
May 02, 2014 -
Congress takes its first real action next week on whether or not to accept the cost-saving ideas DoD put forward in its 2015 budget proposal. And so far, it's looking like those proposals are going to be shredded. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu is writing about the current process of putting together the annual National Defense Authorization Act in this week's edition of Inside the DoD Reporter's Notebook.
May 02, 2014 -
Better Buying Power 3.0 is coming soon from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. But sustained, measurable defense acquisition reform will require more stakeholders than just OSD. Jon Etherton, principal of Etherton and Associates, senior fellow of the National Defense Industrial Association and a longtime veteran of the defense acquisition field, ttestified at this week's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about defense acquisition reform. He told In Depth with Francis Rose his main message for the committee was why reform can work this time around.
May 02, 2014 -
More than half of senior executives surveyed by the Senior Executives Association are reporting "low" or "very low" morale with their jobs. The problem lies with a pay-for-performance system where some supervisors make less money than the people they lead. Increasing numbers of senior executive service members are ready to leave the federal government altogether.
May 02, 2014 -
The Pentagon has released its annual report on sexual assault. The report, which includes a multi-faceted strategy to prevent sexual assault, indicates that alcohol often plays a significant role in the commission of sexual assault. The report says alcohol impairs one's ability to identify a sexual assault threat and is sometimes used as a tool to reduce the victim's resistance or totally incapacitate a victim. The strategy against sexual assault includes five elements: prevention, investigation, accountability, advocacy and assessment of the program.
May 02, 2014