President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is promising to clear up delays in the regulatory process. Recently, Howard Shelanski laid out his top priorities for the job before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Some Congressional Democrats have accused the White House of hurting its own agenda by holding up regulations to go along with new laws. A coalition of public-interest groups say 120 proposed rules await approval from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. On the flip side you can find plenty of conservative lawmakers saying there are too many regulations already. Howard Shelanski may have to navigate these waters as head of OIRA. His confirmation hearing was yesterday.

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The latest revelations from self-confessed NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden are the U.S. government has been spying on Chinese citizens since 2009. In a recent interview, Snowden produced what the South China Morning Post newspaper is calling unverified NSA documents as proof. This adds to the difficulty in distinguishing Snowden’s actions between blowing the whistle and compromising national security. So what implications does this have for others in positions with access to sensitive information?

Budgets are always about choices. For the Defense Department, those choices are becoming tougher thanks to a sharply constrained budget outlook and sequestration. Instead of choosing among a platter of tempting weapons platforms, DoD planners instead are deciding how may days to lay off people. Yet poorer nations are boosting their military spending. What’s the long term prospect? Deloitte has just released its global defense outlook.