Senate
-
President Barack Obama signed the OPM IG Act into law this week. The law provides the agency's top watchdog with an additional source of funding to conduct audits and investigations of the security-clearance process.
February 13, 2014 -
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee gave its stamp of approval Thursday to a sweeping overhaul of the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service. In a bipartisan 9-1 vote, the committee approved the 2014 Postal Reform Act and sent the measure to the Senate floor. The bill, which is the brainchild of Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), presents a laundry list of proposals to revamp the financially troubled Postal Service.
February 06, 2014 -
Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) report on cybersecurity and critical infrastructure in the federal government examined more than 40 inspector general audits and revealed gaping holes in the security of agencies' systems.
February 06, 2014 -
Despite recent reforms, senators see holes in voting protections for military members and feds serving overseas. A new bill would add new requirements for both DoD and local election officials.
January 31, 2014 -
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduced the measure that includes dozens of provisions that expand benefits and hiring programs and grants advance appropriations to most of the Veterans Affairs' accounts. Senate Veterans Affairs chairman suggested paying for the changes by reducing DoD's wartime budget.
January 23, 2014 -
New bipartisan legislation is aiming to rebrand the 153-year-old Government Printing Office. But that doesn't mean you'll stop seeing the GPO initials stamped on government documents any time soon. The bill, introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) last week, would retain GPO's familiar initials, but change the official name of the agency to the Government Publishing Office.
January 22, 2014 -
Federally Employed Women released its annual Voting Record Scorecard. Now, federal employees can see which lawmakers are supporting legislation that helps them.
January 16, 2014 -
With the unveiling of the bipartisan spending bill this week, federal agencies are getting a clearer picture of how much funding they'll get for the rest of the fiscal year. Track which agencies will see sizable increases or which will be getting the short end of the stick.
January 16, 2014 -
Shunning the turmoil of recent budget clashes, Congress is ready to approve a massive $1.1 trillion spending bill for this year, a compromise financing everything from airports to war costs and brimming with victories and setbacks for both parties.
January 15, 2014 -
The House gave a boost to the Office of Personnel Management inspector general's office Tuesday, voting to provide the agency's auditors with access to new funding to conduct investigations. In a unanimous vote, the House approved the bipartisan OPM IG Act, introduced by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass). The Senate approved a nearly identical measure, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), in October.
January 14, 2014 -
In his nomination hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday, John Roth, currently the director of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations, said he aimed to turn around employee morale in the IG's office, which has been rocked by allegations of misconduct by the former acting head of the office. Roth, whose nomination has garnered near-universal support from both Republican and Democratic members of the committee.
January 08, 2014 -
President Barack Obama issued an executive order Monday approving the 1 percent pay raise for federal employees effective Jan. 1, 2014. This ends the three-year federal pay freeze.
December 23, 2013 -
By a vote of 78 to 16, the Senate confirmed Jeh Johnson as the fourth secretary of Homeland Security.
December 16, 2013 -
From super soldiers to stay-at-home feds, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) identified 100 programs that have generated almost $30 billion in wasteful spending by the federal government in 2013.
December 16, 2013 -
The bipartisan budget deal announced this week goes a long way toward clearing up the widespread budget uncertainty that has plagued federal agencies for the last two years. But it doesn't actually set individual agency funding for next year. That's the job of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the leaders of whom now must write an official spending bill that spell out exactly how much each agency gets to spend next year and on what. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the chairman of the House committee, said Thursday he would begin work on an omnibus spending bill to fund agencies next year.
December 13, 2013