Federal Drive

Thursday Morning Federal Newscast – June 23rd

BRAC job grant awarded to Maryland, Acting ATF director dismisses rumors

Federal News Network Staff

June 23, 2011 10:08 am

4 min read

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

The Postal Service will stop funding the defined benefit portion of the Federal Employees Retirement System in an effort to free up cash to pay its bills. The Justice Department will now decide on whether USPS has the right to suspend payments and receive credit for $6.9 billion in overpayments. The Office of Personnel Management has refused to credit USPS’s overpayment to the fund. Postal Officials say the move will save USPS $230 million a month.
The state of Maryland has landed a nearly $8 million grant from the federal government to help more people find federal jobs. The Baltimore Business Journal reports Maryland will use the money to help connect the state’s residents with BRAC-related jobs. BRAC is expected to result in 60,000 new jobs in Maryland, including 20,000 federal jobs at Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade, plus another 40,000 private-sector jobs.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission joins the list of agencies asking the Office of Personnel Management for permission to offer buyouts or early retirements. NRC spokesman Scott Burnell says there is no timetable or specifics, but he confirms a Federal Times report that buyouts are in the offing. The Government Printing Office, the Agriculture Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution are also considering buyouts.
Federal News Radio told you Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, might be about to leave. But his spokesman says Melson is not going anywhere, at least not for the moment. Scot Thomasson is the ATF’s bureau chief for public affairs. He tells GovExec that Melson is focusing on the job, and refusing to comment on speculation published in several newspapers. Melson has been criticized on Capitol Hill for a gun-running surveillance program that went wrong. It resulted in tracked guns being used in the murder of a U.S. agent on the Mexican Border.
The Congressional Budget Office is warning of a debt explosion if there aren’t dramatic cuts to federal spending or tax increases. CBO released its 2011 long term budget outlook. In it CBO says the national debt will exceed the size of the U.S. economy by 2021. The debt could reach 200 percent of GDP in 25 years, if spending stays on pace. Most of that growth in government spending is attributable to the ballooning cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. White House and congressional leaders continue to negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling while slashing federal spending.
The bipartisan deficit-reduction talks led by Vice President Joe Biden are getting testy. The Wall Street Journal reports sources say both sides are growing more entrenched. Democratic lawmakers insist on tax hikes. Republicans insist on changes in entitlement programs. President Obama will quiz Democratic negotiators today. Negotiators are under an August 2 deadline to agree to raise the U.S. debt limit from its current ceiling of $14.3 trillion.
A new transparency bill has cleared the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011 has bipartisan support. That came after committee chairman Darrell Issa of California amended the bill. He responded to concerns of agency inspectors general, the Government Accountability Office, good-government groups and minority committee members. DATA, as the bill is known, creates a single web portal for all government spending information. And it creates a standard regimen for agencies to use in reporting their spending. Virginia Senator Mark Warner has introduced a similar bill.
New rules for how children are screened at airport check points. TSA workers are now required to screen young children repeatedly, without resorting to invasive pat-downs. Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that his agency has been working on a new policy for the use of pat-downs on children and an announcement will come soon.
An American diplomat in Japan will receive an award for constructive dissent. Joel Ehrendreich spent five years persuading powers-that-be at the State Department to let him attend annual ceremonies in Hiroshima. Each year the city marks the atomic bombing by U.S. forces in World War II. For decades, U.S. officials turned down invitations to the event. Last year Ehrendriech was permitted to attend. Now he’ll be honored by the Foreign Service Association for improving relations with Japan.