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The top Republican on the Senate Small Business Committee is calling for higher standards for federal small business contracting goals.
The biannual list of high risk federal programs, published last week by the Government Accountability Office, is both promising and discouraging.
Congress last week took up several issues close to the federal bureaucracy. There was the Small Business Administration and its struggles with defaulted COVID loans, the Veterans Affairs Department and its troubled Electronic Health Record project, and the [Government Accountability Office (GAO's) High-Risk List.
The State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy is on a mission to give diplomats across the world greater access to experts in emerging technology.
Among the longtime Native American tribes, consider the Muwekma Ohlone tribe. It once occupied land in what is now in California's Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. The Bureau of Indian Affairs recognizes nearly 600 indigenous tribes, but not the Muwekma Ohlone.
In a recent decision, the Merit Systems Protection Board confirmed that people are covered by the Whistleblower Protection Act, even if they blew the whistle before applying for a federal job. The board disagreed with a federal court, but upheld the board's own precedent.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's department issued a new small-business strategy a couple of weeks ago. It comes as more dollars are going to fewer smaller businesses.
OPM said the holdup on issuing final regulations is due to a conflict with rest and recuperation leave, but proponents of the legislation voiced frustrations with the years-long delay.
A bill before the House would create a new cadre of people to help the government in case of a serious cyber attack. The National Digital Reserve Corps would be managed by the General Services Administration.
A very old congressional procedure known as the Holman Rule has popped up lately. It allows a House member to amend an appropriations bill so eliminate a specific program or defund the salaries of those working on it.
Fighter plans and attack planes are known as tactical aircraft. The armed services have a lot of them, mostly old. So old, most of them are past their services lives. Yet they are still in the inventory and the Defense Department wants to spend a hundred billion dollars to refresh the fleet. The Government Accountability Office finds, DoD needs more detailed analysis before proceeding.
Federal employees will be getting a nice raise now. But federal contractors are not totally certain they will be able to get inflation adjustments from their agency customers. That's despite the fact that the defense authorization law specifically mentioned contract modification for inflation relief.
Like much of the legislation enacted in the past couple of years, the National Defense Authorization Act has something for everybody. That includes the nation's federal and military firefighters.
The omnibus spending bill would give the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget 120 days to come up with a plan to speed up the federal hiring process.