The citrus industry is suffering from a greening problem that’s destroying plants and acres of crops throughout Florida. Now it’s spreading to California, Georgia and other southern states.

Osama El-Lissy is the deputy administrator for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s Plant Protection and Quarantine at the Agriculture Department. He explains how the department has created a multi-agency emergency framework to help combat the citrus greening problem.

As part of the Federal Drive series, Looking Ahead to 2014, Tom and Emily are exploring some of the big issues facing the federal government. One of them is procurement, particularly how the government spends $80 billion a year on information technology. Trey Hodgkins is senior vice president for public sector at the Information Technology Industry Council. He discussed IT acquisition reform and a few other important topics.

Federal managers haven’t had it easy in 2013. Shifting priorities and an inability to plan for the fiscal future made it pretty difficult. As part of the Federal Drive series, Looking Ahead to 2014, Tom and Emily talked to Robert Shea. He’s a principal at Grant Thornton and former associate director at OMB. He talks about the outlook for federal agency financial and general management in the coming year.