Been a hectic week on the political side of government. The 2024 election is in full swing as one party hosts its convention, and with an attempt on a candidate’s life, you know members of Congress are going have questions for the agencies in charge of protection. Meanwhile, there’s other legislation that could have an impact on other federal activities. To help break it all down for the Federal Drive with Tom Temin, Federal News Network Executive producer Eric White welcomes Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White  Of course. So yeah, let’s start with the big news. We’ve seen some inquiries come in already, regarding Congressional investigations into just what happened on the security breakdown front, with the attempt on presidential candidate, well former President Donald Trump, what’s the latest? And what are members of Congress saying?

Loren Duggan  Well, they’re hitting the ground running on this one that they haven’t been in session since the assassination attempt. But tonight, Monday night is going to be the first hearing on this and it’s a committee that called the Secret Service Director to come and provide answers. Members got briefings wherever they were last week, whether they were at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee or back home for the Democrats. Both sides got at least some briefing from the administration. But now we’re going to see this hearing stage start, where she’s going to have to answer questions in an open forum and provide information there. So, it’s the first of several hearings, we will see Christopher Wray, the FBI Director up later this week, probably asking questions about what the agency may have known about the shooter. And then there’s also been invitations for the DHS Secretary who oversees the Secret Service as part of his job. So, lots of questions coming from lawmakers about what happened, what the breakdown in security was, and probably what lessons can be learned. And we’ll probably hear, I think, maybe some calls for resignations, or for some sort of consequence here over the course of the week.

Eric White  Yeah, we’ve already seen them come through for Kimberly Cheatle, she’s the director of the US Secret Service. And she’s held steadfast that she’s not going to step down. And really, she’s kind of putting Congress on notice saying, Hey, we’ve been stretched thin for a while. And we’ve been telling you this, and this is the kind of thing that’s going to happen. If you don’t give us what we need is that kind of what we’re probably going to hear from her.

Loren Duggan  We may hear some of that, you know, I’m sure she’ll try to explain what the posture was going into that event and, and what she knows, and probably what their relationship was with other law enforcement on the ground there in Pennsylvania. So, we’ll probably hear a lot about that. I’m sure money will come up. And there might be a monetary question to deal with here. At some point, normally, in an election year, they step up protection, because they have whoever the sitting president is, and then whoever the president, potential candidates might be. So, I’m sure we’ll get some questions around that and some discussion, too.

Eric White  All righty. So back to policy matters, something a little bit less dreary. Members of Congress and agencies are still kind of trying to figure out what exactly the Supreme Court’s ruling on the chevron doctrine and which virtually made it powerless. And what that means for agency activities going forward. We’ve seen members of Congress trying to inquire with agencies on whether or not it will affect their agendas. What are the latest stances from members of Congress who are either celebrating it or not happy with it?

Loren Duggan  Well, a hearing this week that I think is interesting is Congress asking, What does this mean for Congress, the House Administration Committee, which oversees the operations of the House of Representatives is having a hearing looking for what this means for lawmaking going forward? How specific do you need to be what does it mean, because the idea of Chevron was, if there’s a law, that somewhat ambiguous course would give deference to agencies? Well, if you’ve gotten rid of that changes the dynamic maybe you have to be more prescriptive in your rulemaking or in your lawmaking, so that the rulemaking will be on solid footing. So that’s the question Congress is confronting right away. And I think this has a long tail as agencies get back to Congress on how they’re going to approach it and what approach they’re going to take to writing rules and defending them in court. Because those are really the different fronts here. This ruling has effects on all three branches of government in very different ways.

Eric White  Yeah. Could mean some longer hours and longer bills written by those staffers, right. Absolutely.

Loren Duggan  And perhaps getting more staff or tapping expertise and other places to get there. So yeah, a lot to figure out how this is really going to work going forward. Right? Well, the two chambers are working on their different bills in the House Committee has done all 12 At this point, set them all to the floor. And they’re going to take up four of them this week, including I know your listeners care about the financial services general government bill because that has some of the matters that touch more broadly on the federal workforce. So that’s one of the four that will come up. And in general, the House appropriators are looking for places to cut to keep spending down. And on the Senate side, there’s a little bit more openness to spending more. So, as we see the Senate Appropriations Committee continue to work. They’re scheduled to do I think it’s four bills on Thursday, keep this progress going, perhaps by the August recess, which is only a couple of weeks away, we’ll have an idea what the House and Senate positions are. And then that will lead to the real discussions on these things later in the year when they figure out and have to come to an agreement on how much to spend in total, then what to give to the agencies. But we are seeing a lot of flashpoints, especially in the house on agencies they want to cut or officials whose salaries they want to reduce to $1 as a punishment for, you know, what their policies have been or their approach to policy matters. So, a lot to walk through and get through in these bills. But this isn’t the final word on this subject.

Eric White  We’re speaking with Bloomberg government’s Loren Duggan. So other funding matters that are on the House floor and the Senate is discussing them as well. Why don’t we just go through some of the major spending bills that are being debated currently and what they mean for potential agency funding matters.

Loren Duggan  Let’s zero in on probably the, well, no, probably it is the largest spending bill every year. And that’s the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act, there’s always a couple of issues that stick out when this debate happens. What are the sticking points this time around? Is it going to be you know, providing reproductive services again? Or is it going to be the use of drones over in the Middle East? What’s, what’s the goings on right now with that? all that might come into play and the bill, the house has already passed its bill, it started out very bipartisan, but all the social writers, the kind of things you talked about were tacked on to that bill and eroded the Democratic support pretty significantly on the House version, the Senate version has come out of committee and could come up maybe before the August recess or later in the year, they’re trying to figure that out. I think a challenge there might be more than 840 amendments have been filed to it on things that don’t directly affect defense. But because defense is so far-reaching things like AI policy and other matters, they might want to tack on to that the Water Resources Development Act. That could be the real challenge, getting it through the Senate. It’s just how do you deal with all these amendments moving forward. And the other issue is going to be the top line on the defense bill. The Senate side did authorize more money in their bill. But the chairman who wrote the bill, Jack Reed actually voted against it in committee because he didn’t like that spending level. So, a lot to work through here on the spending picture on both the authorization and appropriation side. But that’s one of the core things Congress does every year. And this year is no different in the level of interest in work being put in.

Eric White  There’s also a few bills that will have a direct effect on federal workers themselves. One regarding telework and the other one regarding An act that maybe some federal workers have neglected to take part in because of the rules surrounding the substance that is in question. What can you tell me about the two bills that you know that I’m nodding towards here?

Loren Duggan  Well, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which also does a lot of work on government efficiency and matters like that is doing one is the telework Transparency Act. And that’s just trying to get agencies to be more upfront about what their policies are and how they monitor employee use of telework. So, kind of wading into that debate that has been going on obviously, for a long time now. The other bill you mentioned is what’s known as the Doobie Act, which some staffer worked hard to come up with an acronym that would be D O B I E. But the idea there is that if you have past marijuana use, it shouldn’t be an obstacle to you passing a security clearance or getting a job. Now, if you have other issues, then those issues can come to bear. But that can’t be the sole reason you’re denied federal employment and the chair of the committee, Gary Peters is pushing forward that legislation along with a lot of other bills at this markup this week.

Eric White  Yeah. And for those of you who live outside the Beltway, that’s kind of a big deal. Because Maryland recreational is already legal, DC semi recreational is legal. And Virginia is on its way as well. So that’s going to be a big deal for potential federal workers of the future.

Loren Duggan  Absolutely. And with a push to you know, change the scheduling of cannabis and marijuana that’s also going to feed into this as well. So, a lot leading to that bill, which some are going to refer to as common sense legislation at this point.

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• House Democrats say a top official at the Federal Communications Commission helped write a policy blueprint for a new Trump administration. Now they’re calling on government ethics officials to investigate. Lawmakers say FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr a Trump appointee wrote an entire chapter of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 calling for major changes to his own agency. Lawmakers said Carr contributed to Project 2025 in his official capacity as an agency executive. They’re calling on FCC’s inspector general the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics to look into the matter.
  (Huffman leads lawmakers decrying FCC commissioner misusing official position to advance Project 2025 - Rep. Jared Huffman )
• The Pentagon is mapping out what officials say is a “paradigm shift” in how the military handles repair and maintenance for its major weapons systems. Instead of handling most of the work in stateside facilities, DoD wants more of it to happen at overseas locations – closer to where ships and other equipment is stationed. The new approach is called the Regional Sustainment Framework. Officials plan to test the concept with allied countries in Indo-Pacific Command this year, and in Europe next year.
  (DoD looks move equipment maintenance overseas - Federal News Network)
• The 2017 defense policy bill required the Pentagon to split the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics into the offices of the acquisition and sustainment (A&S) and research and engineering (R&E). The advisory board wants the Pentagon to bring the offices under the new Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for International Integration and Cooperation. DIB member Charles Phillips says the current setup doesn’t allow the Pentagon to work well with allies and partners.
  (DIB wants Pentagon to reorganize its acquisition shop - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department technology leaders are deepening their relationship with the Singapore Ministry of Defense in the areas of data, analytics and artificial intelligence. Radha Plumb, the Pentagon’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer signed a statement of intent earlier this week that will allow both defense enterprises to exchange best practices on leveraging data, analytics and AI more effectively. The two countries have identified main areas of collaboration, including responsible development of AI and talent management. Singapore remains a key technology innovator in the Asia-Pacific region and one of the main partners for the Defense Department.
  (DoD to collaborate with Singapore on data and AI efforts - Defense Department)
• The federal government’s shift from paper to electronic records has been at least a decade in the making. But this month, the National Archives and Records Administration finally stopped accepting analog record transfers from agencies, with some limited exceptions. Over the past year, agencies rushed to get their transfer requests in. NARA saw more than 1,000 offers for documents to be sent directly to the Archives, representing approximately 65,000 cubic feet of records, between July 2023 and June 2024. And NARA’s Federal Records Centers – where records aren’t stored forever – saw 40,000 transfer requests representing 930,000 cubic feet of records. Going forward, the majority of records transfers to NARA will be measured in gigabytes and terabytes instead of cubic feet.
  (NARA requests 1M cubic feet of records - Federal News Network)
• Over the next couple months, agencies will have to conduct data analysis to figure out if they need to make their pay policies more equitable. Agencies have until this October to report back to the Office of Personnel Management on their pay data and any plans for changes. The data call is one of the latest steps OPM has taken to address the government's gender-based pay gap. Currently, women are paid about 5 cents less on the dollar than men in the federal workforce. But it's a larger gap when taking into account race and ethnicity. OPM says it's looking to do more to reach its goal of bringing the federal pay gap down to zero.
  (Pay gap data analysis guidance - Office of Personnel Management)
• The Office of Personnel Management will soon be reopening enrollments into the government’s Flexible Spending Account program, FSAFEDS (F-S-A feds). OPM previously suspended all new enrollments in the program after a recent surge in fraudulent activity that impacted hundreds of federal employees' accounts. The suspension on enrollments will officially end August 1st. And in an effort to strengthen cybersecurity, FSAFEDS will also soon transition to using Login.gov. Starting in October, FSAFEDS users will have to complete identity verification steps to be able continue accessing their accounts online.
  (OPM to lift pause on FSAFEDS enrollments in August - Federal News Network)
• OPM plans to finalize a rule implementing the Administrative Leave Act by December. The 20-17 legislation puts limits on how long agencies can put employees on paid administrative leave while investigating claims of wrongdoing. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility sued OPM earlier this month over delays in completing the long-awaited guidance. The group said employees can wait months or years until agencies clear them of wrongdoing … which puts their careers at risk.
  (Final Rule - Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs )

The post Congressional regulators want to know why a top official at the FCC was able to support what appears to be a Trump campaign initiative first appeared on Federal News Network.

And even before the first hearing Republican calls for Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign intensified Wednesday with top Republican leaders from both the House and the Senate saying she should step down. The director has said she has no intention of resigning.

Rep. James Comer said initially that the Secret Service committed to her attendance but that Homeland Security officials appeared to intervene and there has been no “meaningful updates or information” shared with the committee.

Comer said the “lack of transparency and failure to cooperate” with the committee called into question Cheatle’s ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitated the subpoena.

Cheatle has said the agency understands the importance of a review ordered by Democratic President Joe Biden and would fully participate in it as well as with congressional committees looking into the shooting.

In response to the subpoena and an earlier letter from Comer, Zephranie Buetow, an assistant secretary at Homeland Security, said that while the department was “disappointed that the Committee rushed to issue a subpoena,” Cheatle welcomes the chance to testify. The official said that given Cheatle’s focus on securing the ongoing Republican National Convention, the department would appreciate if she could appear on July 25 or July 26, or the following week, instead of Monday.

The Oversight panel rejected that request for a change of date and committee spokesperson Jessica Collins said, “Director Cheatle has agreed to comply with Chairman Comer’s subpoena and the hearing will take place as scheduled.”

“Americans demand and deserve answers from the director about the attempted assassination of President Trump and the Secret Service’s egregious failures,” Collins said.

The subpoena was just one of a series of developments that occurred Wednesday in the wake of the Saturday assassination attempt.

The fact that a shooter was able to get so close to the former president while he’s supposed to be closely guarded has raised questions about what security plans the agency tasked with taking a bullet for its protectees put in place and who is ultimately responsible for allowing the 20-year-old gunman to climb a roof where he had a clear line of sight to a former president.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced he would be setting up a task force to investigate security failures that occurred during the assassination attempt. He also said he would be calling on Cheatle to resign from her post as director of the Secret Service, saying on Fox News Channel without elaborating, “I think she’s shown what her priorities are.”

He said the task force would be made up of Republicans and Democrats and its formation would speed up the investigative process.

“We must have accountability for this. It was inexcusable,” Johnson said. “Obviously, there were security lapses. You don’t have to be a special ops expert to understand that. And we’re going to get down to the bottom of it quickly.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, added his name to the list of lawmakers calling for Cheatle to step down. He said on the social media platform X that the near assassination was a “grave attack on American democracy.”

“The nation deserves answers and accountability,” McConnell tweeted. New leadership at the Secret Service would be an important step in that direction.”

The House Homeland Security Committee also invited several state and local law enforcement officials from Pennsylvania to testify at a hearing in the coming days with Rep. Mark Green, the committee’s chairman, saying their accounts of events were critical to the investigation.

A key issue in the unfolding aftermath of the shooting is how security responsibilities were divided between Secret Service and local law enforcement at the rally and what breakdowns occurred that eventually allowed the gunman onto the roof.

Cheatle said during an interview Monday with ABC News that the shooting should never have happened, but also said she has no plans to resign.

When asked who bears the most responsibility for the shooting happening, she said: “What I would say is the Secret Service is responsible for the protection of the former president.”

“The buck stops with me. I am the director of the Secret Service,” she said.

Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, on Wednesday said: “Director Kimberly Cheatle is proud to work alongside the dedicated men and women of the U.S. Secret Service and has no intention to resign.”

So far, she has the support of the administration.

“I have 100% confidence in the director of the United States Secret Service. I have 100% confidence in the United States Secret Service,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday.

But in addition to the Congressional inquiries, Cheatle and the Secret Service are also facing an inquiry by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.

In a brief notice posted to the inspector general’s website Tuesday, the agency said the objective of the probe is to “Evaluate the United States Secret Service’s (Secret Service) process for securing former President Trump’s July 13, 2024 campaign event.”

The agency also said Wednesday it is launching a review of the agency’s Counter Sniper Team’s “preparedness and operations.”

“Our objective is to determine the extent to which the Secret Service Counter Sniper Team is prepared for, and responds to, threats at events attended by designated protectees,” the inspector general’s office said.

Biden on Sunday said he was ordering an independent review of the security at the rally. No one has yet been named to lead that inquiry.

Since the shooting, Cheatle and the Security Service have come under intense scrutiny over how a gunman could get in position to fire at a former president.

The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to get within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage where the Republican former president was speaking when he opened fire. That’s despite a threat on Trump’s life from Iran leading to additional security for the former president in the days before the Saturday rally.

A bloodied Trump was quickly escorted off the stage by Secret Service agents, and agency snipers killed the shooter. Trump said the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting. One rallygoer was killed, and two others critically wounded.

Cheatle said her agency was working to understand how Saturday’s shooting happened and to make sure something like it never does again.

Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray participated in a telephone briefing Wednesday afternoon with senators. Republicans came away critical.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., tweeted on X that it was a “100% cover-your-ass briefing.” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., called for administration officials to hold a daily press conference to share updates with the public, and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said “they are so disjointed that they don’t have their own facts together yet.”

The Secret Service has roughly 7,800 staff members and is responsible for protecting presidents, vice presidents, their families, former presidents, their spouses and their minor children under the age of 16 and a few other high-level Cabinet officials such as the Homeland Security secretary.

___

AP writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

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Congress members are continuing a push to change how agencies view individuals’ past marijuana use in the security clearance and federal hiring processes.

A new bill that Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced last week aims to limit how much weight agencies can place on past marijuana use when considering applications for federal jobs or security clearances.

“Current federal law allows highly qualified individuals to be denied federal employment or security clearances based on past use of marijuana or cannabis products, despite legalization at state levels,” Peters wrote in a press release Wednesday. “This misalignment between evolving state laws, federal guidance and actual hiring practices has created a barrier for talented individuals seeking federal employment, which could limit the government’s ability to compete for top talent.”

The new bill, nicknamed the “DOOBIE” Act, focuses on easing restrictions for those who have used marijuana in the past, either recreationally or for medical reasons. Under the legislation, agencies wouldn’t be able to deny a federal job application, security clearance application or other federal credentials based solely on an individual’s prior use of marijuana.

HSGAC is expected to take up the bill for consideration and possible advancement during an upcoming hearing on July 24.

The proposed changes outlined in Peters’ bill, however, are already largely in place at agencies. Both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management published updated guidance on the topic back in 2021.

ODNI’s guidance, while saying that the illegal use of controlled substances can raise security concerns, also says an individual’s prior use of recreational marijuana shouldn’t be the determining factor in granting a clearance. Similarly, OPM’s guidance directed agencies not to automatically preclude federal applicants from job opportunities solely based on past, discontinued use of marijuana.

“While federal agencies, including OPM and ODNI, have issued guidance stating that past marijuana use alone should not disqualify candidates, many potential applicants remain hesitant to pursue federal positions due to a fear of automatic disqualification,” Peters wrote. “The DOOBIE Act would align federal hiring practices with current guidance on past marijuana use, broaden the applicant pool by providing clarity for prospective federal employees and help the government compete with the private sector for talent.”

The DOOBIE Act aims to take the practices outlined by ODNI and OPM a small step further by codifying them, Ryan Nerney, managing partner of the Ladera Ranch, California, office at law firm Tully Rinckey, told Federal News Network.

“This bill would just solidify that, because [right now] that’s just guidance within various different agencies,” Nerney said in an interview. “Especially intelligence agencies, even though this guidance came out, they still have stricter views on marijuana use when it comes to that. So, potentially codifying this in an actual bill from Congress, might make this guidance that has been in place since 2021 a little bit more expansive.”

House efforts to lift restrictions in clearance process

Peters’ bill is the latest effort in Congress, but it dovetails with several other members who have been pushing to ease restrictions on marijuana use by federal employees and government job applicants.

Last fall, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee took up a companion bill to the DOOBIE Act. The House legislation, nicknamed the “CURE” Act, similarly aims to prohibit agencies from considering past marijuana use while hiring for federal jobs, or during the security clearance process.

But the House bill, if enacted, would take things a further step by requiring agencies to create a review process to look back at past security clearance and job applications. Agencies could reconsider previously denied applications based solely on an individual’s marijuana use, according to the bill.

The bipartisan CURE Act, first introduced by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) last July, advanced out of the Oversight committee in a vote of 30-14 last fall. But the legislation so far has not been slated for a House floor vote.

“The CURE Act will ensure that talented individuals seeking to honorably serve our country are not precluded from doing so simply because they admit to having once used marijuana,” Raskin said in a 2023 press statement following the Oversight committee’s advancement of the legislation.

Confusion continues around federal weed policies

The question of whether marijuana use prevents eligibility for a federal job or a clearance has become a prevalent topic in recent years, as more states continue to legalize or decriminalize marijuana, and recreational marijuana use grows. One recent study found that daily marijuana use has surpassed daily alcohol use in the United States, according to an Associated Press article from May.

At the federal level, marijuana is considered illegal and currently classified as a Schedule I drug, alongside substances like heroin and LSD. But given changing state laws on marijuana use, Nerney said there’s still a lot of confusion — even today — around how that impacts the federal security clearance process.

For instance, a 2023 survey of young professionals found that about a quarter of respondents didn’t understand the government’s policy on marijuana use. Out of about 900 respondents in the survey, conducted by ClearanceJobs and the Intelligence and National Security Foundation, 40% said they had used marijuana within the past year. Additionally, 21% said that their use of marijuana, alcohol or other drugs, would prevent them from applying for a clearance.

Right now, agencies generally follow guidance that says past marijuana use is “relevant,” but not “determinative.” Using marijuana won’t automatically lead to a security clearance denial, and agencies are still expected to consider the individual’s specific circumstances.

“Agencies take this into account, and they follow this, but there’s still gray area that they can use,” Nerney said. “You can’t be disqualified just because you use marijuana. It has to take into account a whole bunch of different things.”

For instance, in the security clearance process, agencies may consider how recently individuals have used marijuana, how often they’ve used it and whether they plan to continue using marijuana in the future. ODNI’s guidance, however, still directs personnel to refrain from using marijuana once they’re granted a clearance.

How much leeway should agencies have?

The question of how specific the guidance should be on marijuana use in determining clearance remains up in the air as well. Having some gray area may be beneficial, Nerney said, by giving agencies flexibility to decide clearance process applications on a case-by-case basis. But at the same time, he said a more specific approach would make the policy easier to interpret.

“It goes both ways, but I think overall, it probably would be better if everything was a little bit more specific. But not everybody is the same. There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all,” Nerney said. “[Some gray area] gives us a little bit more leeway. If [agencies] feel that there’s a threat, they can make that determination to deny or revoke clearance.”

There may be more changes on the horizon at the federal level as well. The Drug Enforcement Administration recently said it’s looking to take steps to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Even if DEA reclassifies cannabis, though, legal experts have said it wouldn’t have much effect on marijuana’s role in federal hiring or the security clearance process, since the drug would still be considered a controlled substance and illegal at the federal level.

Regardless of the current legislative and administrative efforts to make changes, Nerney said there likely won’t be a comprehensive update to the security clearance process until marijuana is decriminalized or made legal at the federal level.

“It’s kind of slow steps, little steps, things that are helpful I think, but ultimately, major changes aren’t going to happen until it’s legalized,” Nerney said. “Once that happens, then there’s going to be a snowball effect. They’ll have to update the security executive agent directive and the security clearance guidelines.”

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House VA Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) says chief financial officers from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) told the committee Monday that they face a $2.88 billion shortfall for the rest of this fiscal year, and a nearly $12 billion shortfall for fiscal 2025.

The VA gets funding for its mandatory health and benefits programs a year before the current fiscal year to avoid any disruption from a government shutdown.

The CFOs, Bost added, attributed the funding discrepancy to increased hiring and pharmaceutical costs.

In a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, Bost said the $15 billion funding gap is the VA’s largest budget shortfall, “and a repudiation of the FY 2025 budget request that the Biden-Harris administration presented just four months ago.”

“Not only have your chief financial officers thrown out the dollar amounts requested for many key accounts, they have abandoned many of the estimates and projections that underpinned their budget. This is not just fiscal mismanagement; it is strategic whiplash,” he wrote.

VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes confirmed the department’s projected budget deficits in a statement to reporters Thursday morning.

“VA is working closely with Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to resolve these potential shortfalls in a way that prevents any adverse impacts on veterans — and allows us to continue to deliver care and benefits to veterans at record rates,” Hayes said.

The VA, he added, is delivering record levels of health care and benefits to veterans under the 2022 PACT Act, which expanded veterans’ eligibility for VA health care and benefits if they were exposed to toxic substances during their military service.

Since President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, more than 710,000 veterans have enrolled in VA health care, a more than 34% increase compared to the same period before the legislation.

VBA also expects to break new records this year for the volume of disability benefits claims it’ll pay out to veterans.

“These important results for veterans and survivors exceeded initial expectations,” Hayes said.

The VA, in its FY 2025 budget request, planned to reduce its workforce headcount by 10,000 employees — with most of those jobs coming from VHA.

However, Bost said VHA is now looking at a staffing increase of 22,000 full-time employees over the same period. About 17,000 employees, he added, have already been hired, and VHA is looking to hire another 5,000 employees.

“Hiring quality health care workers is difficult enough without a constantly moving target,” he wrote.

VHA hired more than 61,000 employees last year — its fastest rate of growth in 15 years. The agency grew its total workforce by more than 7% and now has more than 400,000 employees for the first time in its history.

In addition, efforts to boost retention also led to a 20% decrease in turnover between 2022 and 2023.

McDonough told reporters in February that VHA is managing its workforce with a “tighter fiscal picture,” but added that the department is taking a more targeted approach to hiring, after the agency exceeded its hiring targets last year.

“Where we’re not hiring, it’s not because we haven’t been able to hire. It’s because we don’t have a need. Why would we not have a need? Because we just had a great year of hiring,” McDonough said Feb. 26 at a monthly press conference at VA headquarters.

VHA, in some cases, has rescinded tentative and final job offers it made to prospective hires. But the agency ordered a “strategic pause” on rescinding job offers in January, and later issued a memo directing VA health care facilities to only rescind job offers “as an action of last resort.”

VA officials have repeatedly stated the department isn’t under a hiring freeze. However, a lengthy hiring process — even by the federal government’s standards — is frustrating job applicants, especially those who have accepted tentative job offers, but have yet to receive a final job offer.

Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal told VHA employees, in a Feb. 5 email obtained by Federal News Network, that following last year’s record hiring, “we have the nationwide staffing level we need to accomplish this important mission — and we have the funding we need to care for veterans through 2024 and into 2025.”

“As responsible stewards of these funds, we must make thoughtful decisions about resource use at every level of the enterprise,” Elnahal wrote. “This means that we will not be hiring at the same rate we did last year but let me be clear: there is no hiring freeze, we will continue to hire in key areas, and we will do everything in our power to continue supporting our current workforce.”

Bost is asking McDonough if the VA is seeing “significant, unexpected changes in demand for in-house care” since Elnahal’s email to employees. If the agency isn’t seeing a sudden change in demand, he’s asking the department to explain the need for increased staffing.

“Given Under Secretary for Health Elnahal’s announced policy of nationwide hiring restrictions and managing by attrition, I think veterans and employees deserve a much better explanation of where these 22,304 FTE are being hired,” Bost wrote.

Bost said the VA has repeatedly shifted regular expenses out of its base budget and into the Toxic Exposures Fund, which was created under the PACT Act.

“VA’s budget has become increasingly complicated and reliant on gimmicks, apparently to compensate for the expiration of one-time, pandemic-related supplemental funding,” Bost wrote. “This has created a situation where one bad estimate or unanticipated event can create a shortfall in multiple accounts.”

The VA, for example, is seeing an increase in community care costs for veterans to receive health care outside the VA medical system.  But Bost said the department isn’t covering those increased costs in its base budget — “seemingly straining, if not breaking, the limits of what the Toxic Exposures Fund can pay for.”

Bost said VA’s compensation and pension costs are running below its budget projects, so far this fiscal year. But VBA typically sees those costs surge at the end of the fiscal year — especially with an increase in claims submitted under the PACT Act.

VBA processed 1.98 million disability benefits claims and issued $163 billion in total benefits in FY 2023. Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs recently told reporters that VBA is on pace to process 30% more claims in fiscal 2024 compared to last year.

The agency, so far this year, has awarded $112 billion to veterans and their survivors in compensation and benefits. VBA also recently granted its millionth benefits claim under the PACT Act.

VA told the committee it anticipates a more than $3.8 billion increase in pharmaceutical and prosthetics spending across FY 2024 and 2025.

Bost said VHA’s chief financial officer also suggested that the Change Healthcare ransomware attack may be to blame for some of VA’s budget shortfalls. The ransomware affected many public and private health care systems across the country.

The VA is shifting $700 million in medical collections from this fiscal year to FY 2025 because of the ransomware attack.

The post VA warns of historic $15B budget shortfall. House committee says more hiring ‘above all’ is driving up costs first appeared on Federal News Network.

SBA is planning to upgrade its online certification platform, starting on Aug. 1. The agency wrote on its website that the upgraded system would be available for new applications by early September.

SBA says it will not accept new certification applications during the upgrade period.

“New and prospective applicants for federal small business certification are encouraged to wait until the upgrade is complete before applying,” the agency wrote on its website.

But Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams (R-Texas) are calling on SBA to delay its upgrade of the platform until the end of fiscal 2024.

Lawmakers, in a letter to SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman, say taking the certification platform offline in the final months of fiscal 2024 would create a “harmful timeline,” and cause problems for firms with critical year-end contracting deadlines that may need to recertify their small-business status to keep doing business with the federal government.

“Once again, the SBA is putting small businesses last and forcing them to navigate a bureaucratic mess,” Ernst and Williams told Federal News Network in a statement. “Shutting down the certification portal right before the end of the fiscal year, the busiest time for applications, without a clear timeframe for reopening is completely unacceptable.”

Federal agencies award a large portion of their contracts in September, just before the end of the fiscal year.

“While we agree with the decision to improve this critical technology platform, we are deeply concerned with the ill-conceived timeline and lack of consideration the SBA has shown towards small businesses in making this decision,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the agency. “Closing the certification portal during this critical juncture, especially as such upgrades do not appear to be time-sensitive or essential, displays a worrisome insensitivity to small businesses new to federal contracting.”

SBA wrote most small businesses already certified by the agency would not be impacted by the pause in applications. The agency said it would send guidance to small firms needing to renew their SBA certification during the upgrade period.

SBA is encouraging prospective small business applicants to wait until the upgrade is finished to apply.

Lawmakers, however, are concerned SBA hasn’t provided a set date, beyond “early September,” or shared any contingency plans, in case the upgrade project runs into unexpected delays.

“Lacking such information, it is unclear why the SBA needs to undertake this massive disruption in services in August,” they wrote.

SBA’s anticipated upgrade would impact all its socioeconomic set-asides contracting programs:

• Women-owned small businesses (WOSB)
• Economically disadvantaged women-owned small businesses (EDWOSB)
• Veteran-owned small businesses (VOSB)
• Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB)
• Historically underutilized business zones (HUBZone)

SBA published a final rule last month that will eliminate self-certification for Service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses whose contracts or subcontracts with the federal government count toward its small-business contracting goals. The final rule will go into effect on Aug. 5.

“As SDVOSBs have recently been told that they need to apply for certification, new registrants may be dismayed to learn they are unable to do so,” Ernst and Williams wrote. “After serving our country with honor, America’s service-disabled veterans should not face unnecessary hardships or delays in pursuing contract opportunities as they seek new certification.”

In January 2023, SBA took over the work of certifying new veteran-owned small businesses through its Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) program. The Department of Veterans Affairs previously certified these firms, but Congress moved this work over to SBA in the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act.

As part of the transition, SBA brought over 13 former VA employees and made seven additional hires last year. It also brought over 50 contractor employees who previously worked at VA to handle application processing and operate its call center.

SBA chose not to migrate VA’s certification management system. Instead, the SBA brought all its certification and loan programs onto a unified digital platform called MySBA.

The lawmakers said it remains unclear if upgrades to the online certification platform would impact the VetCert or MySBA portals.

Ernst and Williams said SBA notified their committees about the certification system upgrade in a “last-minute call” on June 13.

“The sudden announcement of an impending certification shutdown does not provide enough time for small businesses to react or reorganize,” they wrote. “Many small businesses are likely to remain unaware of this development until the moment they seek to access the certification portal, only to discover it is nonoperational.”

The lawmakers also said SBA hasn’t done enough to make small businesses aware of the upcoming changes, or advise impacted firms on how to renew their small-business certifications ahead of the planned outage.

“It is unreasonable for the SBA to assume full public awareness by simply posting information buried on its website, less than six weeks prior to the system shutdown,” Ernst and Williams wrote. “It is also unclear whether the SBA has appropriately informed its resource partners, as it will impact the services those entities can provide.”

According to the letter, SBA assured lawmakers and their staff that “there was little need for concern, as SBA had an excellent technical team.”

However, Ernst and Williams said SBA Acting Chief Information Officer Stephen Kucharski was not on the call, and that SBA officials did not say if the agency was relying on external contractors to assist with the portal upgrade.

Among their requests, Ernst and Williams are asking SBA for alternative plans that would allow the agency to keep accepting and processing certification requests during the update, “as opposed to a full shutdown.”

The lawmakers are asking SBA for a full list of the intended upgrades to the certification platform, and how the upgrades will improve the customer experience for small firms going through the certification process, as well as flagging fraudulent applications.

Ernst and Williams are asking SBA to provide responses to their full rundown of more than a dozen questions by Friday, July 19.

SBA, over the past few years, phased out the ability for companies to self-certify as small, disadvantaged businesses that are eligible to compete for federal set-aside contracts.

The agency finalized a rule in 2020 that allowed some participants in its Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) program to self-certify their eligibility.

A provision in the 2015 NDAA mandated SBA put an end to the self-certifications.

The Government Accountability Office reported in March 2019 that about 40% of the WOSB-certified businesses in its audit sample were ineligible to participate in the program. GAO also expressed concerns about the performance of several third-party WOSB certifiers

More than one in four dollars spent on federal contracts go to small businesses.

The federal government exceeded its overall small business contracting goal in fiscal 2023. Ten agencies received an “A+” for meeting their small business contracting goals, and another two agencies received “A” grades.

The post GOP lawmakers demand SBA postpone IT upgrades amid year-end contract spending surge first appeared on Federal News Network.

Progress on 2025 appropriations bills stalled in the House when members failed to pass a legislative appropriations bill. Another spending bill is stalled by Republican amendments having to do with abortion in the District of Columbia. So … the summer and the current fiscal year grind on with no apparent way to avoid a continuing resolution. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets the latest from W-T-O-P Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview Transcript: 

Mitchell Miller  Right. The Republicans had high aspirations for this summer, as we’ve talked about, they wanted to get all 12 appropriations done in time for them to break in August. And as I have to say, I predicted many weeks ago, it’s just not going to happen. There was a good start, as you indicated, they got four appropriations bills passed, and things looked like they were moving forward. And frankly, last week, Republican leadership and many appropriators at the senior level were really surprised by the fact that the $7 billion legislative branch funding, the appropriations bill did not pass narrowly. There was a group of conservative Republicans about 10, who did not vote along with it, and there were some absences and before they knew it, the bill had failed. And this is partly a surprise because this is a pretty easy lift generally for appropriators. It includes increased funding for US Capitol Police who have had to deal with more threats against lawmakers and security concerns in recent years. And there wasn’t a lot of real controversial issues in included in it, although there was a back and forth over a cost of living pay raise for members of Congress a freeze on that pay raise that created some dissension. So, this is one that now puts the appropriators behind the proverbial eight ball because now they do have eight appropriations bills that they are going to still have to pass, and they only have a couple of weeks to do it. And then they’re going to go on that big August recess as we head into the campaign season. So pretty significant setback for Republicans and the House last week,

Tom Temin  Sometimes I don’t know whether they’re Sisyphus, Prometheus, or Tantalus, all of the tortured Greek, you know, mythological creatures, but look it up. I think maybe it’s a combination of all of them.

Mitchell Miller  There’s a lot of political mythology taking place here, sometimes with promises that just don’t get fulfilled.

Tom Temin  So, you almost have like a circular kind of situation where Republicans taking satisfaction in the travails of the Democrats over President Biden and whether he’ll continue to run. Whereas the Democrats are taking delight in the Republicans unable to get their agenda on the budget done. And it seems politics overshadows getting things done,

Mitchell Miller  Right, we’ve really had this incredible one year period where we had an insane amount of dysfunction last year, of course, with the inability to pick a new house speaker, the several weeks that there was just nothing getting done in terms of appropriations, that a lot of other issues. And now we moved to this year, and things have shifted, obviously, in connection with the whole controversy in connection with President Biden’s debate and what’s going to happen with that, and Republicans are feeling pretty good about it. So they’re kind of beating their chests, and saying, at least many of the Conservatives within the house are saying, Wait, why do we have to bargain with Democrats at this point, we shouldn’t even worry about this, because eventually, former President Trump is going to get elected, and we’re going to enlarge our majority in the House and potentially take over the Senate. Other Republicans are saying wait a second, we still need to do the heavy lifting that always has to be done in terms of appropriations. So, you have this, as you say, a big pendulum shift back and forth with the politics dominating everything rather than the nitty gritty of what gets done. And just one small example of that is what has happened with the riders on the financial services and General Government Services Bill, a relatively smaller appropriations bill. But this is again, one where a lot of Republican conservatives like to tack on these riders and one of them is in connection with reproductive rights. And they want to essentially take away a law that would protect people that go after certain reproductive actions, whether it’s an abortion or something else, and basically take away the protective law that would allow them to do that in DC. So, another example of the GOP trying to get inside the DC spending and appropriation. So that’s just one small example. But all of these things add up to a lot of sand in the gears. And the reason that we’re just not getting all these appropriations bills done on time.

Tom Temin  We were speaking with Mitchell Miller, Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. And then there has been some positive testimony on Capitol Hill. I think Danny Warfel, the Commissioner of the IRS was touting some success, thanks to spending that has been showered on the IRS.

Mitchell Miller  Right, this is a success. A story for the IRS and supporters of providing more funding under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. That was what provided an additional $60 billion that many Democrats and some Republicans said is needed to help with enforcement at the IRS, which was, of course, dealing with such a huge backlog. But just one example of where the IRS if they have the money, if they can hire more accountants do more forensic investigations, they collected a billion dollars in taxes and penalties that were owed by hundreds of wealthy households about 1600 households. IRS commissioner Danny Werfel told lawmakers that they were getting all of this money back basically, because they were finally able to enforce what they needed to do. And he said that these weren’t even bills that were in dispute. These were bills that the people knew they owed the money, but because the IRS literally didn’t have the staffing, to do the investigations and collect, they were allowed to get away with this. So many of these people actually owed up to like a quarter million dollars in back taxes each. So, all of that money adds up. And so, this is a little success story as I said, for the IRS,

Tom Temin  That’s even better than vacuuming under the sofa cushions.

Mitchell Miller  That’s a lot of vacuuming and a lot of coins in the sofa.

Tom Temin  But they did promise I think Werfel said that there’s much more to come on that front with more resources towards wealthier taxpayers. Some of the numbers are kind of gigantic sounding.

Mitchell Miller  Right. I mean, this could ultimately be not just a billion, but we’re talking about 10s of billions of dollars, which would be huge. And so, I think we’re going to continue to see this progress moving forward, because obviously that $60 billion that the IRS received was significant. But they have really been trying to make use of that, of course, you’re going to see a lot of oversight related to whether or not they’re making good use of this money. But this seems to be a good first step.

Tom Temin  Yeah, you don’t want $6 billion for each of 10 years from return as 1 billion in taxes. Alright, what else can we expect then in the week ahead? When do they go on break? And what’s the schedule looking like?

Mitchell Miller  Well, they’ve got really basically two weeks to get anything done. And we’re going to see if they’re going to make any more progress on a lot of these appropriations bills that are coming up, a lot of them are much more difficult to get through than, for example, the legislative branch. They probably will take another crack at that and see if they can at least get something done. Before they leave, they would of course, like to have at least a bill or two, a major appropriations bill passed before they leave town. But after that, you know, then things that the cricket start to play around here in August, because they’re all going to be gone. And they’re all going to be campaigning in their districts. So, I think they may make a little bit of progress on some of these smaller appropriations bills. But aside from holding some hearings and doing some more oversight, don’t look for a lot to get done here in the next couple of weeks.

Tom Temin  And there was a human-interest kind of good news story that WTOP has been reporting, and that is Jennifer Wexton, the Democratic Representative from Virginia has had some comeback success from her debilitating disease really in the ability to express herself through a speech generation device.

Mitchell Miller  Yeah, this is really a wonderful story. And WTOP’s Jimmy Alexander reported on this, that she basically had them use a computer program that isolated all of her language from a lot of her speeches and her public appearances. And they were able to put this all in a database, and then allow her through a computer to basically get her voice back. And it’s just wonderful. I was actually just listening to this the other day, and it’s just so fascinating because I met her right when she was first starting to run for Congress in Northern Virginia and to see unfortunately, her illness, which they call Parkinson’s on steroids, what it has done to her, but also her incredibly heroic efforts to just keep working. She comes into the Congress and continues to do the work of her constituents, even though she’s dealing with this very debilitating illness. This allows her to literally get her voice back and to hear her you can actually hear the satisfaction in some ways with the way that she’s able to talk. And she also has some advice for people, which is if people offered to help you take that help. And she said, you know, initially she was probably a little hesitant, but she was so glad she did. And this voice program is something that’s just really wonderful for her and I’m really glad that we could bring that to listeners in our audience.

The post Progress on spending bills might have been an illusion all along first appeared on Federal News Network.

The FBI on Sunday identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

The gunman, who officials said was killed by Secret Service personnel, fired multiple shots at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue,” the agency said.

An Associated Press analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos taken at the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows Crooks’ body lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump’s rally was held. A different image shows Crooks wearing a gray T-shirt with a black American flag on the right arm, with a bloody wound to his head.

The roof was fewer than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-style rifle, like that of the gunman at the Trump rally, is the semiautomatic civilian version of the military M16.

President Joe Biden said Sunday he has directed an independent review of the security at the rally.

Biden said he also directed the U.S. Secret Service to review all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee. Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service’s coordinator for the convention, told reporters later the agency was satisfied with what she called its comprehensive planning for the Republican convention.

Biden urged Americans not to make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. He said investigators are working swiftly to investigate the attack.

“Unity is the most elusive goal of all,” he said, but “nothing is more important than that right now.”

Calls for an investigation came from all sides.

Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday raising questions about the shooting and demanding information about the former president’s Secret Service protection.

“The seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated,” Green wrote.

The Secret Service did not have a speaker at a news conference Saturday night where FBI and Pennsylvania State Police officials briefed reporters on the shooting investigation. FBI Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek said it was “surprising” that the gunman was able to fire at the stage before he was killed.

Members of the Secret Service’s counter-sniper team and counterassault team were at the rally, according to two law enforcement officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

The heavily armed counterassault team, whose Secret Service code name is “Hawkeye,” is responsible for eliminating threats so that other agents can shield and take away the person they are protecting. The counter-sniper team, known by the code name “Hercules,” uses long-range binoculars and is equipped with sniper rifles to deal with long-range threats.

Mayorkas said his department and the Secret Service are working with law enforcement to investigate the shooting. Maintaining the security of presidential candidates and their campaign events is one of the department’s “most vital priorities,” he said.

“We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms and commend the Secret Service for their swift action today,” Mayorkas said. “We are engaged with President Biden, former President Trump and their campaigns, and are taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security.“

Green also noted reports that the Secret Service had rebuffed requests from the Trump campaign for additional security. A spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielmi, said on X Sunday that those allegations were “absolutely false” and that they had added resources and technology as the campaign’s travel increased.

Green said he would be talking with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Sunday.

Former top Secret Service agents told The AP that Crooks should never have been allowed to gain access to the roof, and the agency will have to figure out how that happened. They said such a lapse could have been caused by officers neglecting their posts or a flaw in the event’s security plan.

The agency is “going to have to go through the security plan and interview a number of people from the director on down” to figure out what went wrong, said Stephen Colo, who retired in 2003 as an assistant director after a 27-year career in the service.

Colo said presidential candidates and former presidents don’t typically get the same level of protection as the sitting president. In fact, Colo said he was surprised that the agency had staffed the event with a counter-sniper team. Such a valuable resource — there are not many of those highly trained agents — is usually reserved for the president. Candidates don’t usually get such teams.

Timothy McCarthy, a former agent who retired from the agency in 1994, said the Secret Service “better be doing a deep dive into what happened there and doing whatever it takes to figure it out” because the gunman should not have been able to occupy such a vantage point.

“How did that person get up on that building?” said McCarthy, 75, who in 1981 took a bullet when President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. “How did that happen? I mean, that’s the key to the entire thing. And what measures were put in place to prevent it?”

James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is the House Oversight Committee chairman, said he contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and called on Cheatle to appear for a hearing. Comer said his committee will send a formal invitation soon.

“Political violence in all forms is un-American and unacceptable. There are many questions and Americans demand answers,” Comer said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, called for investigating “security failures” at the rally.

“The federal government must constantly learn from security failures in order to avoid repeating them, especially when those failures have implications for the nation,” Torres said.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, posted on X that he and his staff are in contact with security planning coordinators ahead of the Republican National Convention set to begin Monday in Milwaukee. “We cannot be a country that accepts political violence of any kind — that is not who we are as Americans,” Evers said.

The FBI said it will lead the investigation into the shooting, working with the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department “will bring every available resource to bear to this investigation.”

“My heart is with the former President, those injured, and the family of the spectator killed in this horrific attack,” Garland said in a statement. “We will not tolerate violence of any kind, and violence like this is an attack on our democracy.”

___

Associated Press writers Del Quentin Wilber, Colleen Long and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.

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Lawmakers have legislatively modeled Cyber Command after SOCOM, given how successful the combatant command has been in providing the DoD with specialized capabilities that the military services don’t have the capacity to deliver on their own.

Using the SOCOM model for CYBERCOM, however, hasn’t significantly improved cyber force mission readiness. CYBERCOM relies on the military services to provide digital personnel, which has led to readiness issues in the command since the services run their own recruitment and training systems and digital warriors tend to have inconsistent knowledge and experience when they are sent to CYBERCOM.

Given the challenges, lawmakers are resurfacing the argument for creating a separate cyber force — the idea that Pentagon officials have widely rejected.

“I understand that the Department of Defense is currently evaluating alternatives to generate cyber forces in ways that will address these readiness concerns. While I do not wish to preempt that analysis, I believe a range of options should be considered, including extending aspects of the U.S. Special Operations Command model to U.S. Cyber Command,” Sulmeyer, who currently serves as the Army principal cyber advisor, said.

“If confirmed, I would look forward to contributing to the decision-making process about new approaches to cyber force generation and to work with Congress in doing so.”

The Pentagon officially announced the creation of the office of assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy in March and President Joe Biden tapped Sulmeyer to lead the office.

During his nomination hearing Thursday, Sulmeyer said the DoD is utilizing Section 1535 of the 2024 defense policy bill to streamline policies and procedures, which will yield positive results for cyber mission force readiness.

The 2024 defense bill requires the DoD to ensure that service members are properly trained and in compliance with the standards required for their work roles prior to sending them to CYBERCOM. The legislation also requires the DOD to ensure that pay and the period of obligated service is uniform across the military departments for all cyber mission force related positions.

In addition, the bill requires the CYBERCOM commander to establish a pilot program that would contract cyber personnel to support critical work roles in the cyber mission force. The commander has three years to decide whether to extend, transition to a permanent program or terminate the pilot.

“I understand that the Department is presently undertaking the work required by section 1535, and if confirmed, I will make it a top priority to synchronize this effort with whatever results may come from the CYBERCOM 2.0 effort,” said Sulmeyer.

Last year, Congress directed CYBERCOM to assess the readiness of the military branches and their ability to provide forces to the command. The leadership has been thinking through what changes are necessary to build CYBERCOM 2.0. and DoD’s persistent readiness problems in the cyber mission forces is what’s ultimately driving the effort.

If confirmed, Sulmeyer said he would start with standardizing the enabling issues that contribute to cyber mission force readiness.

“I would begin with policies and processes highlighted in section 1535 of the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act that, if standardized, can lead to improved service personnel readiness. I understand that the services often use different tracking databases and so using existing tools to gain Department of Defense-wide insights will be a key priority. If confirmed, I will work with U.S. Cyber Command and the services to refine the policies and processes for improving readiness within the Cyber Mission Force. ”

Meanwhile, lawmakers are getting more serious about the idea of a separate cyber force. The House recently passed its version of the 2025 defense policy bill with a provision that would require the Defense Department to commission an independent study on the feasibility of creating a separate branch for cyber. A similar provision made it into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense policy bill.

The post Sulmeyer looks to extend SOCOM model for CYBERCOM as lawmakers resurface cyber force idea first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent at the core of how federal agencies issue regulations. Now top Republicans on two House committees are asking agencies how they’re affected by the decision. They’re asking the Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of Transportation and Homeland Security about regulations or regulatory decisions made under the Biden administration. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Missouri) joins House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kent.) in sending the letters. They say some of these agency rules are based on interpretations of the law that could be challenged following the court’s ruling.
  (Graves & Comer request information on Biden administration agency interpretations following SCOTUS decision overturning Chevron deference - House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee)
• In a vote of 55 to 37, the Senate has confirmed Anne Wagner as the third and final member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Wagner's confirmation to the role means the three-member FLRA will now be able to break ties when settling disputes between unions and agencies. Several federal unions lauded Wagner's confirmation Wednesday, saying the decision will bring the FLRA to a fully operational status. The FLRA is responsible for administering the government's labor-management relations program.
  (Confirmation of Anne Wagner to FLRA - U.S. Senate)
• Persistent federal leadership vacancies are making it harder for agencies to fulfill their missions. Across government, there are hundreds of senior positions requiring a presidential nomination and confirmation from the Senate. But many of those positions have remained empty for years. That’s according to new analysis from the Partnership for Public Service. 21 positions have been completely vacant since the Obama administration. And since 2016, more than 80 roles have been unfilled more than half the time. The persistent vacancies are a result of the Senate confirmation process becoming increasingly difficult, the Partnership says.
  (Critical federal leadership positions go unfilled for years - Partnership for Public Service)
• The IRS collects $1 billion in overdue tax revenue, after launching a crackdown on millionaires not paying what they owe. The agency targeted 1,600 individuals last fall, with more than $1 million in annual income and more than $250,000 in tax debt. Audit rates for high-wealth individuals fell over the last decade and have been at “historic lows.” But IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel says the IRS is staffing up and using tools like artificial intelligence to beef up enforcement. “Our message for these taxpayers is that now that we are resourced, we can do the job of ensuring that they pay.”
  (IRS recovers $1B in crackdown on taxes owed by millionaires - Federal News Network )
• In three cities on July 31, the General Services Administration wants to bring the power of artificial intelligence to bear for federal websites and other digital services. GSA and industry sponsors are hosting a hackathon in Washington, DC, Atlanta and New York City and putting up $10,000 in prize money to ask experts to help answer a simple question: How should federal websites evolve to meet the future where Americans will increasingly rely on generative AI tools to find information and access services? Individuals and teams of no more than five people must register by July 29.
  (GSA to host Artificial Intelligence Hackathon July 31 - General Services Administration)
• The Defense Department needs another month to figure out the new development path for the IT systems to support background investigations. The 90-day sprint to get the National Background Investigation Service's IT systems back on track wasn't enough. The DoD now says it will take another month to rebaseline the requirements and redo the funding model and oversight of the troubled modernization effort. Milancy Harris, the undersecretary of Defense for intelligence and security, told Senate lawmakers yesterday that this is not a restart of the program. "We are looking to make sure we can use what has been built. We are exploring exactly what needs to happen going forward to ensure we meet the full level of capability that is expected from this system."
  (Personnel vetting, security clearance and trusted workforce 2.0 hearing - Senate Intelligence Committee)
• The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to limit funding for U.S. Cyber Command’s Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture until the commander provides a detailed plan on the future of the platform. A provision in the 2025 defense policy bill says the command can’t spend more than ninety five percent of allocated funds until there are more details for ceasing the current architecture's continued development. The committee wants the plan to include timelines, coordination with the military services, descriptions of proposed capability sets and additional authority or resources needed to move to the next phase.
  (Senate to limit funding for CYBERCOM’s JCWA - Senate Committee on Armed Services)
• The Senate Armed Services Committee wants the Defense Department to develop a plan to budget for the costs associated with artificial intelligence in defense programs. If passed, the 2025 defense policy bill would require the Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer office to have a plan that assesses the current programs containing artificial intelligence components and the costs associated with the data needs required to train and maintain artificial intelligence models. The Defense Secretary would begin the implementation of the plan four months after its release.
  (Senate to require cost budgeting plan for AI - Senate Committee on Armed Services)
• New legislation in the Senate would put a White House office in charge of harmonizing federal cybersecurity regulations. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced the Streamlining Federal Cybersecurity Regulations Act this week. The bill would set up an interagency harmonization committee led by the Office of the National Cyber Director. It would require all agencies, including independent regulators, to consult with the committee before issuing new cyber rules.
  (Peters and Lankford introduce bipartisan bill to harmonize federal cybersecurity regulations - Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs)
• The White House is out with new cybersecurity guidance. Agencies need to submit an updated zero trust implementation plan to the White House by Nov. 7. That’s according to fiscal 2026 cybersecurity budget guidance released yesterday. In addition to investing in zero trust capabilities, the memo directs agencies to prioritize secure software development and a strong cyber workforce. Agencies will also need to make sure they have funding set aside to transition to post-quantum cryptography. The new memo comes as Congress continues to debate appropriations for fiscal 2025.
  (Administration cybersecurity priorities for the fiscal 2026 budget - Office of Management and Budget)

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The federal government is among the biggest spenders on advertising. At about $1.3 billion a year, it’s in the top 25 U.S. spenders. The Government Accountability Office has new analysis of which agencies spend the most on advertising, and the companies they spend it with. GAO’s Director of Strategic Issues Jessica Lucas-Judy joins the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin
Jessica Lucas-Judy. Ms. Lucas-Judy, what prompted GAO to look at something that in the grand scheme of things is not that big of a deal? Spending wise.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
This is something that we have done a series of reports on over the last several years. Last one was in 2018. And there are members of Congress who are interested in this and involved in in small businesses, and primarily wanting to know, what kinds of businesses are getting these contracts? And what sort of opportunities are available? And are the people who are being communicated with, the ones who would be the recipients of the messages from federal agencies? Are they represented in the companies that are getting those contracts?

Tom Temin
All right. And I imagine it’s the Department of Defense that spends the most, I’m guessing, because of recruitment efforts by the armed services?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That is definitely a big part of their advertising. So when you think about federal government, you don’t necessarily think about advertising. But just like you said, being a recruitment is a big category, public awareness about health issues or what to do in the case of a disaster, what advertising about the kinds of services that agencies provide and how to access them, those are all very important messages that come from government agencies. So just like you said, the Department of Defense is the biggest spender overall. And that’s consistent with our last report from 2018, that DoD was one of the biggest Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, likewise, have large contract obligations overall. And then, for advertising in particular.

Tom Temin
And over the past 10 years, you have a bar chart that shows fairly steady growth with a big spike in 2020. And that would have been because of programs related to COVID relief.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That was definitely one of them. I think the census was probably another spike as well, one of the things to keep in mind when looking at the data is that these are small, relatively small dollar amounts overall, and relatively small number of companies that are involved. And so any fluctuation if a big contract is awarded in one year, that might be a multi year contract, that’ll cause a spike in the data. What we found was that overall, the the spending generally increased in the 10 year period that we were looking at. And the percentage of dollars that went to what we’re calling specified businesses. So these are small businesses for those owned by primarily by women or by minorities, that the percentage of dollars that went to those specified businesses stayed roughly the same as 14-15%, for the most part.

Tom Temin
And is there any evidence or any way to determine really whether if, say, spending went to hidden Hispanic owned ad agency. That was for the purposes of reaching the Hispanic audience? And so on and so on? Or do we know that at all.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That’s something that would be really interesting. But unfortunately, with the data that we had available, that’s not something that we could determine, like, what specifically the contracts were for, you’d have to do contract by contract review.

Tom Temin
And what about where the spending ends up, because you pay an agency at least traditionally, 15% of the media cost, or the agency gets the discount and keeps the 15% or whatever. And at one time you used to see army ads on television, national TV, that’s expensive. And if you’re at the 1.3 billion level a year, you’re not buying much national television.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Again, that’s something that’d be really interesting to see, but not with the data that we have. We weren’t able to do that.

Tom Temin
I guess I’m showing my media background here.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
All we have a really is a very general information about the company and the category of company, and then the category of of advertising. It was the same thing with the COVID related contracts. It’s just a checkbox in the national contracting data. So not something unless we were going to do a deep dive, which would have taken much more time than we were going to be able to put into this.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Jessica Lucas-Judy, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. And of the 14%, I guess it was of that spending that went to minority and designated businesses. How does that break down? Hispanic owned is the largest share?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
So when you’re looking at the dollars, which is one of the ways that we got the data. About 47%, went to Hispanic owned Hispanic American owned businesses. And about 21% went to black American owned businesses. But then when you look at it by number of businesses, number of contracts that were awarded, and it worked out a little bit differently. It was, I believe is about 36%, went to Black American owned businesses, and 24% to Hispanic American owned businesses.

Tom Temin
So that’s just a fact. But there’s really not too much we can deduce of motivation or effect from any of that analysis.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Correct. Mainly, what we were looking at were any significant changes over time. And again, with some slight fluctuations here and there, it was pretty consistent. It’s consistent with what we’d found before in our last report and this report. So, again, looking at just the number of businesses overall, there 2200 businesses in the 10-year-period. So again, not that many. In federal advertising overall, 39% businesses were the specified businesses that we were looking at.

Tom Temin
Did you talk to any agencies individually about what their strategies were for spending this money and what they had in mind?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Just briefly, but not in any depth for this one?

Tom Temin
Got it. So we don’t really know whether the advertising spend is effective in terms of what their objectives were necessarily.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Correct. That would have been a different kind of study.

Tom Temin
Let me ask you this. You said Congress, certain members are interested in this. This is why they call up GAO since you worked for Congress. What was their objective in having to do this study, do you think?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Maybe they were just interested in the makeup of the companies that were getting these contracts, and wanting to make sure that they’re having an opportunity to get into these contracts and be able to communicate with the populations that they come from. We would be interested in doing additional work in this area? If that’s something that the members would like us to do? There’s certainly a lot more that one could do, if some of the topics that we’ve talked about in terms of getting down into some of the contracts maybe, or talking to individual agencies, maybe doing some case studies. That was something we’d done in prior years of talking with agencies about what their strategies were, how they have identified contracts, how they select contracts, and what the purposes of the specific contracts are.

Tom Temin
And interestingly, Homeland Security, which is one of those smaller spenders, had the highest percentage of dollars going to specified businesses. Whereas DoD, the biggest spender, had the among the smallest, only 6% going to designated.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That was just one more way that you could slice and dice the data. And so when you looked at it by dollars, DoD, like you said was the biggest. When you look at it by percentage, NASA turned out to be the biggest, they had 99% of the contracts meant to specify businesses. But it’s a very small dollar amount overall. So again, one or two contracts, one way or the other, can really sway the difference.

Tom Temin
Sure, yeah. I’m trying to think why would NASA advertise at all. I guess, well, maybe jobs.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Public awareness, recruitment, all those things.

Tom Temin
All right. Well, it looks like you didn’t have any recommendations with respect to ad spending.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Yeah, this one, our purpose was just to look at the data to inform, answer questions, things like that. But we were not looking at any sort of compliance issues or things like that. There is some guidance out there for some of this, certainly the OMB and SBA, and other agencies are interested in, looking at where contracts go, and there’s some efforts to reach out specifically to make sure that small businesses, in particular, certain percentage of contracts, federal contracts overall. They’re awarded, but not specifically in advertising.

 

The post How the government spends a billion dollars a year on advertising first appeared on Federal News Network.

The federal government is among the biggest spenders on advertising. At about $1.3 billion a year, it’s in the top 25 U.S. spenders. The Government Accountability Office has new analysis of which agencies spend the most on advertising, and the companies they spend it with. GAO’s Director of Strategic Issues Jessica Lucas-Judy joins the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin
The federal government is among the biggest spenders on advertising at about $1.3 billion a year. It’s in the top 25. US spenders, the Government Accountability Office has new analysis of which agencies spend the most. And the companies they spend it with. We get more now from the GAOs director of strategic issues. Jessica Lucas-Judy. Ms. Lucas-Judy, what prompted GAO to look at something that in the grand scheme of things is not that big of a deal? Spending wise.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
This is something that we have done a series of reports on over the last several years. Last one was in 2018. And there are members of Congress who are interested in this and involved in in small businesses, and primarily wanting to know, what kinds of businesses are getting these contracts? And what sort of opportunities are available? And are the people who are being communicated with, the ones who would be the recipients of the messages from federal agencies? Are they represented in the companies that are getting those contracts?

Tom Temin
All right. And I imagine it’s the Department of Defense that spends the most, I’m guessing, because of recruitment efforts by the armed services?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That is definitely a big part of their advertising. So when you think about federal government, you don’t necessarily think about advertising. But just like you said, being a recruitment is a big category, public awareness about health issues or what to do in the case of a disaster, what advertising about the kinds of services that agencies provide and how to access them, those are all very important messages that come from government agencies. So just like you said, the Department of Defense is the biggest spender overall. And that’s consistent with our last report from 2018, that DoD was one of the biggest Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security, likewise, have large contract obligations overall. And then, for advertising in particular.

Tom Temin
And over the past 10 years, you have a bar chart that shows fairly steady growth with a big spike in 2020. And that would have been because of programs related to COVID relief.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That was definitely one of them. I think the census was probably another spike as well, one of the things to keep in mind when looking at the data is that these are small, relatively small dollar amounts overall, and relatively small number of companies that are involved. And so any fluctuation if a big contract is awarded in one year, that might be a multi year contract, that’ll cause a spike in the data. What we found was that overall, the the spending generally increased in the 10 year period that we were looking at. And the percentage of dollars that went to what we’re calling specified businesses. So these are small businesses for those owned by primarily by women or by minorities, that the percentage of dollars that went to those specified businesses stayed roughly the same as 14-15%, for the most part.

Tom Temin
And is there any evidence or any way to determine really whether if, say, spending went to hidden Hispanic owned ad agency. That was for the purposes of reaching the Hispanic audience? And so on and so on? Or do we know that at all.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That’s something that would be really interesting. But unfortunately, with the data that we had available, that’s not something that we could determine, like, what specifically the contracts were for, you’d have to do contract by contract review.

Tom Temin
And what about where the spending ends up, because you pay an agency at least traditionally, 15% of the media cost, or the agency gets the discount and keeps the 15% or whatever. And at one time you used to see army ads on television, national TV, that’s expensive. And if you’re at the 1.3 billion level a year, you’re not buying much national television.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Again, that’s something that’d be really interesting to see, but not with the data that we have. We weren’t able to do that.

Tom Temin
I guess I’m showing my media background here.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
All we have a really is a very general information about the company and the category of company, and then the category of of advertising. It was the same thing with the COVID related contracts. It’s just a checkbox in the national contracting data. So not something unless we were going to do a deep dive, which would have taken much more time than we were going to be able to put into this.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Jessica Lucas-Judy, director of strategic issues at the Government Accountability Office. And of the 14%, I guess it was of that spending that went to minority and designated businesses. How does that break down? Hispanic owned is the largest share?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
So when you’re looking at the dollars, which is one of the ways that we got the data. About 47%, went to Hispanic owned Hispanic American owned businesses. And about 21% went to black American owned businesses. But then when you look at it by number of businesses, number of contracts that were awarded, and it worked out a little bit differently. It was, I believe is about 36%, went to Black American owned businesses, and 24% to Hispanic American owned businesses.

Tom Temin
So that’s just a fact. But there’s really not too much we can deduce of motivation or effect from any of that analysis.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Correct. Mainly, what we were looking at were any significant changes over time. And again, with some slight fluctuations here and there, it was pretty consistent. It’s consistent with what we’d found before in our last report and this report. So, again, looking at just the number of businesses overall, there 2200 businesses in the 10-year-period. So again, not that many. In federal advertising overall, 39% businesses were the specified businesses that we were looking at.

Tom Temin
Did you talk to any agencies individually about what their strategies were for spending this money and what they had in mind?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Just briefly, but not in any depth for this one?

Tom Temin
Got it. So we don’t really know whether the advertising spend is effective in terms of what their objectives were necessarily.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Correct. That would have been a different kind of study.

Tom Temin
Let me ask you this. You said Congress, certain members are interested in this. This is why they call up GAO since you worked for Congress. What was their objective in having to do this study, do you think?

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Maybe they were just interested in the makeup of the companies that were getting these contracts, and wanting to make sure that they’re having an opportunity to get into these contracts and be able to communicate with the populations that they come from. We would be interested in doing additional work in this area? If that’s something that the members would like us to do? There’s certainly a lot more that one could do, if some of the topics that we’ve talked about in terms of getting down into some of the contracts maybe, or talking to individual agencies, maybe doing some case studies. That was something we’d done in prior years of talking with agencies about what their strategies were, how they have identified contracts, how they select contracts, and what the purposes of the specific contracts are.

Tom Temin
And interestingly, Homeland Security, which is one of those smaller spenders, had the highest percentage of dollars going to specified businesses. Whereas DoD, the biggest spender, had the among the smallest, only 6% going to designated.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
That was just one more way that you could slice and dice the data. And so when you looked at it by dollars, DoD, like you said was the biggest. When you look at it by percentage, NASA turned out to be the biggest, they had 99% of the contracts meant to specify businesses. But it’s a very small dollar amount overall. So again, one or two contracts, one way or the other, can really sway the difference.

Tom Temin
Sure, yeah. I’m trying to think why would NASA advertise at all. I guess, well, maybe jobs.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Public awareness, recruitment, all those things.

Tom Temin
All right. Well, it looks like you didn’t have any recommendations with respect to ad spending.

Jessica Lucas-Judy
Yeah, this one, our purpose was just to look at the data to inform, answer questions, things like that. But we were not looking at any sort of compliance issues or things like that. There is some guidance out there for some of this, certainly the OMB and SBA, and other agencies are interested in, looking at where contracts go, and there’s some efforts to reach out specifically to make sure that small businesses, in particular, certain percentage of contracts, federal contracts overall. They’re awarded, but not specifically in advertising.

The post How the government spends a billion dollars a year on advertising first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the defense policy bill would make registering for military conscription automatic for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 26. The House passed its version of the bill last month that would automatically register men with the Selective Service, which they are already legally required to do. The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to expand automatic registration to include women. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the committee, spearheaded the proposal. The committee’s version of the Defense bill is now headed to the Senate floor for debate.
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• The Department of Veterans Affairs is ending mandatory overtime for most employees who process benefits claims. The Veterans Benefits Administration is shifting to a system of mostly voluntary overtime that’s capped at a maximum of 20 hours each month. VBA will keep mandatory overtime in place for some employees. That includes workers who process claims for military sexual trauma, radiation exposure and pensions. Joshua Jacobs is the VA’s Under Secretary for Benefits. He said VBA relied on mandatory overtime for the past seven years, to keep up with its workload. “I have never thought that mandatory overtime is a sustainable operating practice,” Jacobs said.
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• The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is dealing with ongoing staffing issues, even years after a hiring freeze ended. But despite staffing challenges, a large backlog and funding limitations, USCIS employee engagement is still on the rise. The agency's score in the Partnership for Public Service's Best Places to Work rankings rose by more than 4 points for 2023. And USCIS leaders are making further adjustments to try to support the current workforce, by holding town halls and improving supervisor training.
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• The ink is finally drying on a new union contract for employees at the Environmental Protection Agency. EPA leaders have officially signed a new collective bargaining agreement with the American Federation of Government Employees. The new contract covers about 8,000 staff members at the agency. AFGE and EPA first approved the new contract in May. But they were still moving through the final steps of the approval process until just this week. The new agreement locks in several new provisions: one on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility; and another on scientific integrity.
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• A Department of Homeland Security Office is bouncing back after facing attrition concerns earlier this year. DHS’ Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office has hired about 30 people over the last few months. That includes 10 people at last month’s DHS job expo in northern Virginia. The CWMD office had lost two dozen people — about 10% of its federal workforce — after Congress failed to reauthorize the office last year. But CWMD still has funding, and it plans to continue hiring new staff through the remainder of 2024.
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The post Senate version of NDAA to require automatic draft registration for all citizens first appeared on Federal News Network.

Senate Armed Services Committee leaders filed their version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2025 on Monday, which was passed behind closed doors last month in a 22-3 vote. The bill is now heading to the Senate floor for consideration.

The legislation includes an amendment to a portion of Section 1521 of the defense bill for fiscal 2022, which centralizes the procurement of cyber products and services across the Defense Department. 

The fiscal 2022 defense bill states that the DoD components can’t independently purchase cyber services unless they can buy services at a lower per-unit price than what the DoD chief information officer office, which leads department-wide procurement of cyber services, offers. The components can also procure cyber services independently if the DoD CIO office approves the purchase.

If passed, the amendment included in the 2025 defense bill would allow DoD components to buy cyber services independently if they can demonstrate the “compelling need that the requirement of the product has due to its urgency, or to ensure product or service competition within the market.”

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who has long expressed concern about the Defense Department’s increasing reliance on Microsoft for its cyber products, initiated the amendment.

“DoD CIO has used this authority to create a one-size-fits-all approach to all DoD components, causing serious concerns related to a single zero-day flaw being used to create massive disruptions across DoD’s networks. The amendment returns decision-making power back to DoD components, so they can adopt tailored cybersecurity approaches based on the threats they face,” the amendment summary shared with Federal News Network says.

In May, Schmitt, along with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), sent a letter to the Pentagon inquiring about the department’s push to implement Microsoft’s most expensive licenses, known as E5, across all components. The Pentagon already widely relies on Microsoft products and services but it has been considering mandating all components to upgrade to Microsoft’s E5 license as part of its effort to achieve the target level of zero trust by 2027.

“Although we welcome the department’s decision to invest in greater cybersecurity, we are deeply concerned that DoD is choosing not to pursue a multi-vendor approach that would result in greater competition, lower long-term costs and better outcomes related to cybersecurity,” Schmitt and Wyden wrote.

Another amendment, also spearheaded by Schmitt, would require companies that conduct software development in China to notify the Pentagon if they are required to disclose any software vulnerability to any Chinese agency, such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“PRC security laws mandate that cyber companies with presences in China must report any flaw discovered to their government, potentially giving state-sponsored hackers a treasure trove of zero-day flaws to exploit. This bill would ensure that companies doing business with DoD that have presences in the PRC report the same information to their US-based arm as their PRC arm reports to the CCP government,” the summary of the amendment provided to Federal News Network reads.

The provision amends Section 855 of the fiscal 2022 defense policy bill and is identical to the Defense Technology Reporting Parity Act, which Schmitt filed on the floor prior to the 2025 defense policy bill.

The two amendments signal lawmakers’ growing concern about the Pentagons’ reliance on a single vendor for its cybersecurity products.

The fiscal 2025 defense policy bill authorizes a topline of $911.8 billion, which exceeds spending limits imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act passed last year.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, voted against the legislation due to the funding increase that would break the spending caps.

“I regret that I needed to vote against passage of this bill because it includes a funding increase that cannot be appropriated without breaking lawful spending caps and causing unintended harm to our military. I appreciate the need for greater defense spending to ensure our national security, but I cannot support this approach,” Reed said in a statement.

The House passed its version of the defense bill last month, and the two chambers will have to negotiate to pass the bill before the end of 2024.

The post NDAA amendment to give more authority to DoD components to buy cyber products first appeared on Federal News Network.