This is the Federal Drive show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Lynne Bernabei — partner, Bernabei and Watchel

The Supreme Court just made it easier for federal employees to appeal decisions of the Merit Systems Protection Board. It sounds like fine print, but now appeals on both administrative problems and real issues can both go to the same court. Before, they had to go to separate courts.

Michele Mackin — acting director for acquisition and sourcing management issues, GAO

More than 40 contracts worth more than $20 million each were awarded without meeting new guidelines. That’s according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The 2010 Defense authorization bill required the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council to provide a justification every time an 8(a) sole-source contract of more than $20 million was awarded. But the Council missed the deadline by nearly a year.

Dan Chenok — executive director, IBM Center for the Business of Government

Happy birthday to the E-Government Act. The 10-year-old law helped nudge agencies into the Internet era. As a former White House official, Dan Chenok saw the law’s impact on the executive branch up close. Now on the outside, as executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, Chenok says the law codified things that many agencies already were doing. More importantly, he says the E-Gov Act designated a leader to drive the IT agenda.

Melanie Ann Pustay — director, Office of Information Policy, Justice Department

Changes are coming to how agencies report their Freedom of Information Act request fulfillment. Now they’ve got to do it four times a year, not just once. The idea is to make information available to the public more current. We spoke with Melanie Pustay, the director of the office of information policy at Justice. She said Justice decided to zero in on the most persistent issues with FOIA request fulfillment.

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