The University of South Florida (USF) recently opened a new lab aimed at providing quick, innovative solutions to the different challenges facing the Department of Defense. The new Rapid Experimentation Lab (REL) hopes to provide a unique, collaborative space to rapidly test concepts. To learn more, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke with Taylor Johnston on The Federal Drive with Tom Temin , COO of USF’s Institute of Applied Engineering, which is managing the lab.

Interview Transcript:  

Eric White Absolutely. So why don’t we start from the beginning? How did this all come together? How did you find yourself in business with the Department of Defense? Trying to solve some of their always complex problems.

Taylor Johnston Thanks for the question. I am actually a 21 year Air Force veteran, so I’m a buyer by trade. I flew the C-21 C-130 and KC-135 in the Air Force. And while I was in the Air Force, I got to community and help a unit called Contingency Response Units. Contingency response units are challenged with setting up an air base anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. And this is back in the mid to 2015-2016 timeframe, where essentially the problems we got were, hey, you’ve got two planes coming tonight. Figure what you can put on board and go. At that time we were dealing with antiquated generators and some other old equipment where that really got my innovation green and innovation meter ideas going, and we started looking at new ways to do power generation, new ways to use communications. And this is also at the start of AFWERX and some of the DIUs at the Defense Innovation Unit. And I got to be at the ground floor of that as an active duty member. Following my tours and the contingency response units, I ended up as the Director of Innovation for the six day Refueling Wing, which is MacDill Air Force Base. After retirement, one of the universities that I dealt with at the time was the University of South Florida. Now, the University of South Florida has this interesting arm that is a 500 1C3 nonprofit that connects those academics to federal money via contracts basis. So that’s kind of how I got involved in it. And what we do for the DoD writ large is try to solve and bring those academics to solve those tough problems for the DoD. So it’s not from a business where a 501c3 attached to the university. It’s more providing that PhD lift of  talent to the top problems of the DoD.

Eric White So before we get into the lab itself, we say complex problems. Why don’t we put a label on that? What kind of problems are you looking towards. And obviously they’re complex. So don’t feel the need to get too into the nitty gritty. But overall, what are you all going to be looking at?

Taylor Johnston Well, the Institute of Applied Engineering started in 2019 as a primarily an engineering solutions program to solve everything from a rapid mechanical design problem or some software solutions for some unattended ground sensors. What we figured out over the course of the last five years is you don’t just need that unattended ground sensor that talks to the tech network, that talks across the spectrum. You need a holistic approach to some of these new designs and new solutions. Because if I’m building anything on a mechanical thing, it’s obviously going to have some sort of electrical component, which is going to involve a chip. Where does that chip come from? How do I look at this from a business case example to an engineering solution? And then what are the policy implications of that incident solution. So we’re able to bridge the entire university to come to a solution for the DoD that actually is able to attack those wicked problems.

Eric White Gotcha. All right. So let’s get into the facility itself. You had mentioned some experience that you had with AFWERX and DIU. What lessons did you take from those agencies when modeling this lab? Did you take anything of, Oh, they do it real well over there. Let’s make sure to implement it here.

Taylor Johnston Well, one of the things that I noticed both from AFWERX, and the beautiful thing about AFWERX is there’s no real innovation, what we call Air Force specialty code. They take an airman that could be a maintainer, could be a medic, could be a troop, could be a flier like myself. And they bring them into a room with a whole bunch of different experiences. Let them ideate, let them try to solve the problem and think about different solutions, because those different perspectives usually bring about a better solution than a stovepipe kind of answer, solely by the troops or solely by the maintainers. That’s what we try to do at the lab is create a space where I have mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, RF engineers, physicists, medical folks all in the same room, and all with that collaboration space that they’re able to go from the whiteboard to a 3D printer to a welder, to an RF chamber, an anechoic chamber, and able to bring an idea to a solution, interdisciplinary wise.

Eric White We’re speaking with Taylor Johnston. He’s the chief operating officer of the Institute of Applied Engineering at the University of South Florida. So an 8,000 square foot facility is what you have, and you want to let your engineers cook in there. What sorts of new tools and innovative technologies are you bringing in there to make sure that these engineers, they’re not going to be there forever, obviously, and they’re in high demand, I’m sure once they graduate, what do they get out of this?

Taylor Johnston Well, we do have everything from our student interns to graduate assistants to professional staff. So I have 21 engineers on my staff that are permanent members of the institute, and we’re able to actually bring in university professors to the lab. The beautiful thing about the lab is that there are seven different types of additive manufacturing machines. There’s also soldering and welding equipment in there. There’s also printed circuit machines in there, sort of print circuit boards. And there’s also RF and anechoic chambers in there too, and also everything from drill presses to laser engravers to CNC machines. Basically, everything you need to make a product that we all know is not just fabricating a product that is also incorporated in electronics in the product.

Eric White Yeah. And I want to go back to this concept of you just kind of letting the engineers do their thing. What space do they have to also conduct some experiments where it may not all work out, but tinkering is how a lot of things are discovered. What can you tell me about that aspect of things?

Taylor Johnston I’ll go back to a little bit of the fact that we are primarily a task driven organization. So the DoD comes to us with that, Hey, I need a solution to this. And we’ll go out and either do an analysis of alternatives, or we’ll go out and try and prove what they’re trying to do and actually build what they want to have built. Part of that also, as you intimated towards, allows our engineers to figure out things that they may or may not be useful in applications towards the DoD, but they are something like using the iridium satellite network for communications versus the new Starlink. What’s capable of this? Some of the things that are out there that may or may not be useful today. And how are we able to parse things and do edge computing for things that may or may not be done on the cloud? So a lot of the things today are cloud computing and cloud infrastructure. But when you start to talk about the Department of Defense’s needs for able to be computed on edge on device in a remote environment, you start to see some different types of problems there than usual businesses face.

Eric White What can you tell me about where this facility stands as far as setting apart other opportunities at other universities? Is this a unique opportunity for University of South Florida students, or are there facilities like this at other universities, and if so, what makes this one different from those?

Taylor Johnston There are seeing these around the nation. There are 13, I believe, university affiliated research center. So those are dedicated sponsored activities from the DoD at specific universities around the nation. The University of South Florida is more of a startup in an established ecosystem. So there’s the behemoths out there, like Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and Georgia Tech Research Institute. We do a lot of research for the DoD. Those are both. The University of South Florida is well positioned just because of its geographical location, next to two combatant commands, which know where the university can really offer next to CENTCOM and SOCOM, and able to be basically a young, scrappy startup that’s able to do things a little bit outside of the box, that these older institutions may or may not have the capacity to do.

Eric White And of course, the weather’s not too bad.

Taylor Johnston The weather is absolutely perfect. Today it’s about 76 degrees and I do not see a cloud the day.

Eric White Can’t beat that. All right. Anything else that we didn’t touch on that you think is important for the conversation?

Taylor Johnston One of the important things here to note, when you think of universities, you usually think of what we call 6.1 or 6.2  basic and fundamental research dollars. It’s usually grant based. The institute is primarily designed around doing things these contract based and federal acquisition regulations and agreements with researchers, which is rare, and the ability to do things at both the controlled, unclassified level and also up to the top secret, secure compartmentalized information level so it allow researchers to do things on contract, which means that you actually do get something at the end, on time and on the schedule, versus a researcher doing things that a researcher may or may not want to do, that may or may not have applicability with the DoD. You get something that’s on time, on schedule, and it is able to be at the classification of the customer.

The post DoD gets partner from academia to help tackle complex problems first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Navy has a new strategy for science and technology. Navy leaders have branded it a “call to service” for scientists and engineers from across the country to help solve military problems. The focus areas include autonomy and artificial intelligence, power and energy, manufacturing, and a host of other issues. The plan does not spell out how the Navy will make progress on those objectives, but Navy Secretary Carlos del Toro said the new work will involve partnerships with the Office of Naval Research, the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S Naval Academy and the Naval War College.
  (SECNAV Delivers Keynote at Sea Air Space Luncheon - U.S. Navy)
• An Air Force legislative proposal to transfer National Guard space units to the Space Force is sparking a backlash among state governors. The National Governors Association has called for the immediate withdrawal of the proposed legislation to eliminate governors’ authority over their National Guard units. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said reducing governors’ authority over their National Guard personnel will affect military readiness, recruitment, retention and the National Guard infrastructure across the country. Air Force officials proposed legislation to bypass governors in seven states and move 14 Guard units with space missions to the Space Force.
  (Air Force’s proposal to move Guard units causes backlash - National Governors Association)
• Two agencies have obtained extra money for IT modernization projects. NASA won its first award from the Technology Modernization Fund. The Labor Department garnered its sixth in almost six years. These are the fourth and fifth awards the board has made since January 1 and continues its focus on cybersecurity and application modernization. The space agency is receiving $5.8 million to accelerate cybersecurity and operational upgrades to its network. Labor is getting $42 million for the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs to replace its outdated Integrated Federal Employee Compensation System. The TMF board now has invested in 43 projects since receiving the $1 billion appropriation in the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021.
  (NASA, Labor receive extra funding for IT modernization - Federal News Network)
• U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) is considering the best way to build its forces in the future, by conducting a study on future force generation models. The command has typically relied on the military services to train and equip its digital warriors. But leaders have pushed to embrace a more independent U.S. Special Operations Command-type model in recent years. And others have called for the Defense Department to establish an independent cyber service. CYBERCOM is slated to brief Pentagon leadership on the results of the study this summer.
  (CYBERCOM considers options for future force generation model - Federal News Network)
• Chandra Donelson is the Department of the Air Force's new acting chief data and artificial intelligence officer. In her new role, Donelson will be responsible for implementing the department’s data management and analytics, as well as AI strategy and policies. Donelson previously served as the space data and artificial intelligence officer for the Space Force, a role she will continue to hold. Her fiscal 2024 goals include integrating data and AI ethics into the department’s mission systems and programs.
  (Air Force appoints acting chief data and artificial intelligence officer - USAF)
• The Postal Service is looking to raise prices on its monopoly mail products for the sixth time since 2020, when it gets approval from its regulator to set mail prices higher than the rate of inflation. USPS is planning to raise the price of a first-class Forever stamp from 68 to 73 cents. If approved by the regulator, these new USPS prices would go into effect on July 14. A recent study warned that USPS price increases are driving away more customers than the agency anticipated. But USPS said the data behind the study is “deeply flawed.”
  (USPS Recommends New Prices for July 2024 - Postal Service)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is reviewing more than 4,000 positions that are at risk of a downgrade in their respective pay scales. The six VA positions under review include a mix of white-collar General Schedule (GS) and blue-collar Wage Grade (WG) positions. They include housekeeping aides, file clerks and boiler-plant operators. The VA expects to complete its review of these positions by the end of May. The American Federation of Government Employees said affected employees have received notices in the mail. But, the union said, it has not received notice from the VA about any imminent downgrades.
  (VA reviewing 4,000 employee positions at risk of downgrade in pay scale - Federal News Network)
• With cyber attacks on the rise, incident response is a big part of managing security risks. Now the National Institute of Standards and Technology is seeking feedback on new recommendations for cyber incident response. The draft guidance is tied to NIST’s recently issued Cybersecurity Framework 2.0. The revised publication layout is a new, more integrated model for organizations responding to a cyber attack or other network security incident. Comments on the draft publication are due to NIST by May 20.
  (Incident response recommendations and considerations for cybersecurity risk management: a CSF 2.0 community profile - NIST)

The post Navy unveils new strategy for science, technology first appeared on Federal News Network.

Defense installations often have mutually beneficial relationships with the communities that surround them. Communities can be both social and economic. They have even got their own group: The Association of Defense Communities. To ask about the top issues facing these communities,  the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with the association’s Executive Director, Matt Borron.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin I confess, this is the first time I’ve known about this association, and I thought I knew all the ones in Washington, but there’s plenty out there. What does this association do? What’s what is the goal here?

Matt Borron ADC has been around for about 50 years. We actually got our start back in the day when DoD started closing bases. And this was really before they even had to ask Congress for permission so they could literally padlock the gate and throw the community the key and say, good luck. And they did that, as you know. And even then, when Congress got involved with the Base Realignment and Closure around the 90s and the last 1 in 2005. But, when they first started this some 50 years ago, some communities where this had happened, where they’d lost their base, they got together and they said, really, what do we do now? How do we recover from losing x thousand amount of jobs kind of overnight? And so for probably the first half of our existence, that’s who we were. We were these communities grappling with economic redevelopment and environmental clean up and reuse and redevelopment issues, kind of all of that awful stuff. But if you fast forward to today, our membership is almost entirely consistent of communities that host active military bases. And it’s organizational base membership. So sometimes it’s a city, sometimes it’s a county. A lot of times it could be a chamber of commerce or a standalone defense alliance. But really, it’s whichever organization they’re at the local level that has come to take the lead when it comes to installation, military advocacy and partnership work.

Tom Temin It seems like local acquisition is important because so much of defense acquisition is done centrally or by the big commands for the local installations, and things gets shipped out through various means. But there’s also, I guess, important local contracting that can happen for a base that members try to encourage.

Matt Borron Absolutely. At the end of the day, our members look at their installation through an economic development lens. In most cases, it’s the largest economic engine they’re, thousands of workers. And the kind of the waterfall effects of where they live and service members and their families live off base. 70% or so. It really is through that lens and our members, do everything we can to prop up the defense sector. So whether it’s land use or encroachment mitigation, that’s a lot of workforce development. It’s a lot of infrastructure, roads, utilities all these things that the base relies on. More recently it’s been quality of life.

Tom Temin What are the top quality of life issues for military members? I mean housing comes up, but that’s a localized issue. What are some of them.

Matt Borron And that’s that’s really kind of the the meat of it, is all of these quality of life issues are local and they are all kind of different. Housing, child care, spouse employment is a huge one. Military spouses have some of the highest unemployment in the country. And it’s related to moves and constantly having to find new employers. But you see a lot of things, military child education now. And so, like you said, housing on the list kind of seems to grow every day.

Tom Temin Yes. So can members of the association, the local counties or the states or whoever, again, is surrounding that community? It seems one of the issues that comes up is just simply recognizing a licensed trade from one area and honoring that when the spouse moves with the service member to another state or local.

Matt Borron Licensure and reciprocity is has been a huge issue. And you’re absolutely right. If I’m a teacher, can I have a teacher’s license in one state? Does it apply to the other state? And it goes down. It can be beauticians. It can be, lawyers and nurses, you kind of name it. And states have really tried to address that, but it hasn’t been easy. All of these different professions kind of have their own licensure silos, if you will, within their states. So it’s been a lot of coordination. And we have something we call the State Advisors Council. Most states now have an organization at the state level that is responsible for military affairs for work. And so by coordinating that, you’ve seen a lot of states now passed legislation kind of providing that blanket, reciprocity for these.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Matt Borron. He is executive director of the Association of Defense Communities. And you also have a conference annually. And what kinds of things get discussed there. And looks like you have a pretty good lineup of congressional members speaking.

Matt Borron It’s amazing how connected our communities can be to their congressional delegations. Again, installations and military issues are one of the things that could bring us together still in a lot of cases in a bipartisan way. So we do have a good robust caucus on the House and the Senate side. And our national summit next week is really our event and our opportunity to bring all of our communities together and really kind of press Congress and DoD and talk about the issues that are important to us.

Tom Temin Now, [Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)] as a process seems to be a thing of the past, even though it’s statutorily there in the toolbox. But Congress just never actually gets started anymore. So what do you expect in terms of the line up in the population of bases and installations in the future?

Matt Borron BRAC is a four letter word, and I think it only comes up when you’re talking to a lobbyist. But I don’t foresee a BRAC round anytime in the near future. If anything, our communities aren’t worried about losing their bases any more. They’re worried about growing. How do they attract the next F-35 mission? Or how do they get a piece of Space Force? How can they grow their defense sector at the local level? So the issues that we’ll talk about are creating new authorities by which communities and bases can partner on a full range of issues, whether it’s infrastructure or quality of life. We’ve been very successful in getting some of those programs created within DoD.

Tom Temin And what about the civilian workforce that is in all of these installations? That’s a group of people that tend to stay put relative to the service members on active duty that come and go and the rotation in and out there is probably a whole different set of people every two years or so. What are some of the issues connected to the civilian workforce, which is a little bit more permanent, if you will, in a given spot?

Matt Borron Well, honestly, a lot of times the civilian workforce is that that continuity. So these partnerships that are created when, like you said, a base commander comes and goes every 2 or 3 years, who maintains the inter-governmental support agreements, or the sharing of services and facility maintenance costs. And often that’s the civilian workforce. But a lot of times they have kind of specialized needs as well. And communities are really looking at how do they grow with that workforce. What are the types of workforce development programs can they put in place, not just for adults, but even at the high school level? The state of Arkansas has done some really interesting program at the high school there where they partnered with the base, and they now have a two semester long cybersecurity and coding course. They teach at the high school, and it’s taught by uniformed personnel. And these are just the types of programs that, whether you’re in uniform or not, can really help drive partnership at the local level.

Tom Temin Sounds like there’s a lot of idea sharing among members from all over the country.

Matt Borron And that’s really the goal of ADC. At the end of the day, our mission is education and connection.

The post Examining the ecosystem that supports military installations first appeared on Federal News Network.

Following its previous Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, the Health and Human Services Department is looking to continue the effort with its latest plan, which covers the next six years. HHS is now open for public comment. Officials are hoping to continue improving the exchange and availability of electronic health information. They also have some new goals in mind. Federal News Network’s Eric White got the change to speak to one HHS official: Dustin Charles, Policy Specialist in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White Absolutely. So why don’t we just take the 40,000-foot view and hear a little bit about what this new update to the federal health IT strategic plan is, and what it hopes to accomplish.

Dustin Charles Our federal Health I.T. mission is to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities using technology and health formation that is accessible when and where it matters most. We have a vision of a health system that uses health information to engage individuals, to lower health costs, to deliver high quality care and improve individual and population health. So, when we were planning this version of the strategic plan, we really wanted to focus on improving the experience and outcomes for those who are use and are impacted by health it. So, if you look at the plan, you’ll see what we’ve done with the goals is delineate them by the different types of health I.T users. So, goal one focuses on individuals, populations, and communities’ goals to those involved in health care delivery, including patients, providers, caregivers, public health professionals, and others in the health care sector. Goal three is focus on research and development of health I.T. and finally, go for just as that infrastructure needed to achieve the other goals.

Eric White When you say health infrastructure, you know the health IT infrastructure, which seems to be always the biggest bugaboo, right? I mean, it’s because a lot of these places, you know, the hospitals and medical offices weren’t set up for this kind of exchange of information and to be constantly updating their technology. What does that specifically say in this new plan to address that?

Dustin Charles Have we done these plans? So, the earlier plans were really focused on adoption of new technology, particularly getting providers to adopt electronic health record systems. And then, for example, the next plan was really more about the exchange. And the current plan that we’re in is really more about addressing barriers to exchange and ensuring that there is that access that we use to health information. So, with this plan, we are focusing a little bit more broadly outward. We have made major headways in exchange, but there are still some obstacles in the way and there are still some new charging technologies. We want to make sure are addressed in this plan as we move forward in the next six years. So, it’s really taking the progress that we’ve done and then looking at, okay, where are some of the remaining gaps and what are the new things that need to be addressed?

Eric White Yeah. Can we go back to the previous plan? What was some of the progress that you all saw in the implementation of that one? And you know out yourself which ones are you guys most proud of?

Dustin Charles Some of the stuff we’re most proud of is some of the advancements. In exchange, we have what we call the TEFCA. The national exchange framework is definitely one of them. And the other side of the exchange is the Fire standards, sort of the HL7 FHIR standards that allow providers to have a, a shared way of communicating electronic health information with one another. We’re also happy to see that a lot of hospitals are particularly APIs. And so not just FHIR APIs, but they have some of their own homegrown APIs and others that they’re using as well. So, we’ve seen significant progress throughout the whole health IT in using a lot of the technology that has been developed, and particularly those promoted through the federal government.

Eric White We’re speaking with Dustin Charles. He’s a policy specialist at the office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. And so, let’s go back into the plan itself. You guys coordinated with a plethora of other partners in this activity. Can you tell me a little bit about the roles that some of the other agencies played in the formulation of this new policy?

Dustin Charles One of the things to note this is a federal health IT strategic plan. So, it doesn’t just cover the strategies for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is what my office is under, but the entire federal government. So, we might, within the plan, cite some federal programs or projects as examples, but we don’t prescribe any specific programs for federal agencies to engage in. Rather, the plan itself serves as a roadmap for federal agencies to help them prioritize their resources, coordinate efforts across agencies, signal priorities to the private sector, as well as benchmark and assess any changes over time. So, we wrote the plan broadly to capture the overall priorities and goals of the federal government in regard to health IT. So some of the things that federal agencies do in health IT beyond just the work that ONC does is regulate, purchase, developing news, help it to deliver care, improve patient health and provide services the public may funding contribute to health, I.T., development and research at all the different levels of the government and also we also facilitate coordination across public and private sectors. We want to align our standards that we’re promoting with the work that’s being done in the private sector. We want to promote innovation and competition. We want to share best practices. So, because of this, when we get to the final plan, it will be that roadmap that will guide federal agencies, initiatives, and programs over the next six years.

Eric White Gotcha. And this plan is now out for public comment. I’m just curious, who are some of the stakeholders that you all expect to hear from in regard to, how the plan will actually be implemented?

Dustin Charles What we really hope to hear from as many different people within the health care industry as we can. Anyone who has an interest in health, IT, and the role of the federal government. We do expect to hear from health I.T developers. We expect to hear from hopefully health care organizations as well as we would love to hear from patients and health care providers themselves and kind of get what their insights are, what they would like to see in Health IT. We have public comment until May 28th so you can access our public comments at healthIT.gov. Forward slash feedback and up until May 28th. And we look forward to getting those comments. We will share them with our colleagues in other federal agencies and coordinate them to develop them.

Eric White I’ll give you my comment now. Can you make it so that I don’t have to fill out the same form seven times every time I visit the officer? Is that out of your purview?

Dustin Charles I think that’s something that I will add to that.

Eric White Fantastic. All right. Well, I’ve submitted my public comment. Now, Dustin Charles is a policy specialist with the office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Dustin, thank you so much for joining me.

Dustin Charles We do.

The post Federal Plan for improving electronic-health info first appeared on Federal News Network.

A newly proposed rule by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, tasks those operating in critical infrastructure sectors to report cyber incidents within 72 hours and to report ransom payments within 24 hours of making a payment. These new requirements would significantly lengthen the To-Do List of these entities. For analysis on what the impact could be, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke to Beth Waller on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin, Principal at the law firm Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black.

Interview Transcript: 

Eric White So 1,000 foot view. What are the major changes here and what is going to be the impact on these critical sector entities?

Beth Waller I think 40,000 foot view. Everyone was expecting the director of CISA to come out with these proposed rules. The big earth shattering component of it is really the definition of covered entity who falls within the orbit of needing to report. And so really, the proposed rule really kind of breaks it into two different sections. We have really those who have to report based on their size, how large they are, and those that have to report based on their sector. I think most folks who are watching for this proposed rule were really expecting the sector side of the house. We weren’t really expecting the size side of the house. And so from a 40,000 foot view, I would say that most businesses and entities might be surprised to find out that they are covered by these new reporting requirements as proposed.

Eric White Yeah. Is there anything in place to notify a company that, hey, by the way, this new rule, it applies to you.

Beth Waller I really think that CISA is going to need to do a good job of educating the public to let them know that, hey, you may fall within this, because again, when we look at the proposed definition of covered entity, for example, when it talks about size, it refers to an entity that exceeds the small business size standards specified by the applicable North American Industry Classification System Code and the US Small Business Administration Small Business Size regulations.

Eric White I read those yesterday.

Beth Waller That’s right. So if you look at those, as I think many of us did, went with bated breath to see, well, wait a minute. What does this mean? We start to see that, well, it really means anybody who has more than 500 employees and certain sectors, and with average annual receipts, over 7.5 million would qualify as somebody who would be needing to report. Now, there are certain exceptions by industry under the SBA regulations. But I think that really what is surprising for me, as somebody who really focuses in on critical infrastructure incident response, says, now we’re going to be really looking those SBA requirements and doing that math in the midst of an incident. And what I can’t really emphasize enough is the fact that we need to remember that this isn’t sitting at home twiddling your thumbs or the quiet of a Tuesday morning or whatever the case may be. You’re in the midst of a ransomware incident and your organization is down and you’ve been essentially taken hostage. And what you’re trying to do is within those first 72 hours, do this math and start figuring out, do I qualify, do I need to report? And so the proposed rule really focuses in on that size. Are we big enough to have to report and then the sector. And then of course sector, size doesn’t matter. It really is whether you fall within these different buckets. And the buckets are what you would somewhat expect. Nuclear reactors, energy, things like that. But then there are some areas that you might not expect, for example, in the health care and public health sector, for example, the proposed rules says that those that operate a hospital with 100 or more beds or are critical access hospitals. Well guess what, you’re dragged into that dragnet. So if I’m a small hospital in a rural location, I might not have 100 beds, but I might be considered critical access, and I would therefore be obligated to report a ransomware incident within 72 hours of finding it out.

Beth Waller Similarly, you have information technology, any entity that provides IT software, hardware, system or services to the federal government. So if you’re a teeny tiny software company, but you provide or have a contract with the federal government, well guess what, you’re grabbed into this. Similarly, if you are considered an original equipment manufacturer or a vendor or integrator of OT hardware, that’s operational technology, hardware or software, or those that perform functions related to DNS operations, guess what? You’re grabbed in. So again, you have some things that are kind of what you would expect chemical facilities, water, wastewater treatment systems, transportation systems. But then you have some unusual things including communications. So for example, wire radio communication services. So if FNN had an incident, you’d be doing that kind of analysis as to whether or not you needed to report within 72 hours as well. The other little tidbit I would say is that it’s not cut and dry the way the proposed rule is set up. I really think of it like it’s going to be a flow chart or a choose your own adventure type situation, because even with water and wastewater systems, for example, it breaks it down to say, is it a community water system? Publicly owned treatment works that serve more than 3,300 people? Well, that’s a random number to be trying to remember in the middle of an incident response do I qualify? Do I not qualify? Similarly with education. You’re looking at populations of 50,000 or more. We’re in the education sector. More than a thousand students. Or any institute of higher education that receives funding under title nine. And then finally, folks like the defense industrial based sector. Many of those folks, again, many of my clients in that space are very used to doing reporting to the DoD. Well guess what, that doesn’t necessarily get us out of jail free. We may also be having to do the same kind of report to CISA. And so those are the big kind of surprises in some ways, is that the sector really start getting into a lot of nuance and detail. And then of course, that size component. And again, if you qualify under one bucket, you’re just in. So if you got more than 500 employees and you’re manufacturing space, it doesn’t matter that you’re in the defense industrial base sector, you’re going to be in regardless. And so I think that a lot of folks are going to be gobbled up by this, because CISA wants as much information as possible to start really looking at these trends nationally of the types of incidents so that we as a nation are facing.

Eric White We’re speaking with Beth Waller, who is a cybersecurity attorney at Woods Rogers Vandeventer Black. And so it’s the people on that one end of the spectrum that the smaller entities that you mentioned. How big of a burden is this actually going to be on them? I imagine that for the bigger folks that are used to this, they’ve got maybe a whole team that’s assigned just to making sure they’re compliant. But there are probably some folks in rural hospitals who have never even heard of this process.

Beth Waller That’s right. And I really think that for those of us, again, I’m a cybersecurity data privacy attorney. And what I do is respond to these types of incidents and get signed in to these types of incidents. I think it’s going to really fall a lot on the legal profession to try to educate folks. Those of us that are called in to do breach response work, number one. But I would also say, I would argue that it’s not just onerous on the small businesses. It’s going to be really a huge task for the big businesses. And I would say that because the report itself is very detailed, it’s more detailed than the report that I would be giving, for example, if I was just in the defense industrial sector under the DFARS 7012,  filing on the DIDNet, those types of things. We’re used to doing that in this space. The report to CISA requires us to identify the covered entity. So the entity making the report. But in order to do that, what CISA is proposing is that I need to know the state of incorporation, trade names, legal names, the DUN number, tax ID, the EPA numbers, all this kind of stuff. Again, I go back to, think about what we’re in the midst of. We’re in the midst of a ransomware incident, highly unlikely that I have access to my work device. And so those first 72 hours, I can guarantee you you’re not getting access to a device that’s from your company. So you’re going to need to be able to pull this information together rapidly. It’s one thing if I’m a smaller defense contractor or a smaller contractor, to be able to know my state of incorporation. It’s another thing if I’m a mega corporation and I’ve made up a bunch of different LLCs or a bunch of different entities, or I have trade names, those types of issues. Pulling that kind of information together can be very challenging. And so I would argue that it’s going to be a burden to almost any entity that is going to be reporting to try to pull these things together.

Beth Waller In addition to that, the type of information about the incident that CISA is requesting, again, from somebody who has experienced an incident response, what they want to know within the first 72 hours is pretty broad. So, for example, they want a description of the covered incident with identification of affected information systems, including the physical locations of the impacted systems, networks and or devices. If I am a mega company, for example, and I have, 50,000 employees across the United States talking about the physical location of those impacted systems or networks. If I’m a manufacturer, it could be quite challenging in the midst of that first 72 hours, keeping in mind that the people who are needing to answer this are also potentially two people trying to come back online, getting things together, managing the incident response team. In addition to that, they want to know things like IOCs, which in the industry is indicators of compromise. They want to know the bad guys. What’s the telephone number, the IP address that they called from. They want to copy the malicious code and they want to know, for example, if you’re paying the ransom, which is another separate reporting requirement, they want to know exactly what your instructions were for payment of the ransom and things like that. I will say the good news is, thankfully there’s going to be a dropdown box for unknown at this time type answers given that this is the first 72 hours, but there is a requirement for supplemental reporting, and that supplemental reporting requires a report to be given every time there’s substantially new or different information becoming available. Again, if I’m in the midst of this incident, that is a very hefty burden to be thinking about.

Eric White Yeah, obviously this would be a substantial task order for, as you mentioned, somebody going through a cyber incident like this. But coming from CISA’s standpoint, this is pretty important information. A lot of people’s lives rely on these companies and obviously the critical infrastructure sector that runs the country basically. So, coming from them, why is this information so critical for an agency like CISA in the fight in ensuring that a lot of our big companies and critical infrastructure sectors are cyber secure.

Beth Waller Well, I think that what it does, it does create this dragnet of information to be able to really look at our adversaries and to be able to say, okay. Because a lot of times in the ransomware world, they have almost nonsense names. You’ve got Lockbit, Alphv/BackCat. You’ve got all royal, you’ve got, you know, all the different types of ransomware that are out there. And I tell folks, it’s kind of like their gangs, like off of The Sopranos or The Godfather movies. They’re just cyber gangs. And so being able to track the information of being able to say, okay, well, this is associated with this nation state or it’s not is really incredibly important to CISA. And again, as someone who is a federal partner in the midst of these incidents, because I do critical infrastructure incident reporting. So again, when you’re representing a state agency or a local government, you are already acting as a partner to your federal partners and providing information. So I think that there are big benefits to working with CISA and currently reporting to CISA as we do. But I think that with regards to the kind of nuances that are being asked for in this reporting, it’s going to create a lot of headaches. And keep in mind, many of these businesses are folks that are operating under multiple regimes. So for example, the financial sector is one of these that is considered critical infrastructure here. Well, if you’re already a bank, you’re reporting to the office of the Comptroller of the Treasury at the same time or reporting to CISA. If you are, for example, a manufacturer that is global, as many of our manufacturing Fortune 500 may be, you are also dealing with the laws in Europe. So GPR related laws, you’re also probably publicly traded. And so now you have the new Securities Exchange Commission rules and regulations about getting a notice out to your shareholders within four days of determining materiality. It’s really a very complex arena that CISA is coming into already from a regulatory standpoint.

Beth Waller I will say that the proposed rule says if CISA has an information sharing agreement in place with one of these other agencies that was receiving the report, that is potentially a get out of jail for a duplicate report filing, but it’s unclear at this time where CISA has that information sharing already. And I think that puts a lot of burden on the victim to try to figure that out. So hopefully Department of Defense, for example, creates an information sharing system with CISA where if you’re already again reporting to the DIDNet and going through that side of the process, you wouldn’t have to necessarily do it again here. Again, those clocks also start not on a Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m. they often start at 1:00 am on Saturday morning whenever that network engineer figures us out. So a lot of times the folks that would be filling this out are not necessarily aware of it until, let’s say, 36 hours into an incident, depending on how large the organization is. So my argument would be to many businesses, look at your incident response plan. If these proposed rules come in to a final rule in the same manner that they’re currently looking at like right now, we’re going to want to make sure your incident response plan has a lot of this information gathered already, because, for example, maybe you could create something off line that says, this is our state of incorporation,  those types of things, so you’ve got that at the ready. Because again, keep in mind, most the time we’re dealing with something like ransomware where the entire network is encrypted. So how are we going to get at this information even if we wanted to, unless you just know it?

The post Facing cyber attacks, critical infrastructure gets new reporting requirements first appeared on Federal News Network.

• After a scorching report, one Senator wants to see the federal government overhaul its cybersecurity practices. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) on Monday released draft legislation to set minimum federal cyber standards for collaboration technologies, like Slack and Teams. Under the bill, the National Institute of Standards and Technology would establish interoperable standards for those technologies. The legislation would also require the use of end-to-end encryption. The bill comes after a Cyber Safety Review Board report blamed Microsoft's inadequate cybersecurity culture for multiple federal hacks. Wyden argued that interoperable standards would reduce the federal government's reliance on Microsoft.
  (Wyden releases draft legislation to end federal dependence on insecure, proprietary software in response to repeated damaging breaches of government systems - Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.))
• Radha Plumb has officially assumed the role of the Defense Department’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer. Prior to her new role, Plumb served as the deputy under secretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment. Deborah Rosenblum, the assistant secretary of Defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs will take over Plumb’s previous role starting April 8. Plumb will replace Craig Martell, who became the Pentagon’s first permanent chief digital and artificial intelligence officer in 2022.
  (Plumb officially assumes CDAO role - Defense Department )
• Underutilized federal buildings could turn into affordable housing if a House bill makes it through Congress. The Government Facilities to Affordable Housing Conversion Act would require agencies to identify vacant and underutilized buildings that would be suitable for converting into residential use. The bill provides funding to study the effectiveness of converting office space into housing and also creates a grant program for state and local governments to undergo these conversion efforts. Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) are leading the bill.
  (Air Force enterprise information technology directorate gets new director - USAF)
• Some new recommendations aim to kick-start federal shared services. In the five years since the Office of Management and Budget relaunched the federal shared services initiative, experts said progress has languished. The Shared Services Leadership Coalition (SSLC) said in a new report that agencies have not achieved any of the goals outlined in the 2019 memo and federal shared services remain resource starved. The good-government group outlined four legislative and regulatory policy recommendations to get agencies moving in the right direction. SSLC's recommendations include mandating shared services as a required business blueprint and creating a new Senate-confirmed position called, "The Commissioner of Government Operations" at the General Services Administration.
  (4 policy recommendations to kick-start shared services - Shared Services)
• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is reminding employees of their whistleblower rights after being called out by a lawmaker. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said an ATF memo, issued late last fall, chilled lawful whistleblowing. It warned employees against disclosing unclassified information without prior authorization. But it contained no references to lawful disclosures to Congress or federal watchdogs. After Grassley pressed the agency on the memo earlier this year, ATF recently issued an update with repeated references to the Whistleblower Protection Act and other disclosure rights.
  (Grassley successfully ensures ATF employees know their whistleblower rights - Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa))
• Over the next five years, the General Services Administration (GSA) will eliminate the use of PFAS, known as "forever chemicals," in the cleaning of federal buildings. GSA is requiring government contractors to purchase cleaning products that are free of the toxic chemicals. Instead, contractors will be required to use alternative products, certified to ecolabels such as EPA’s Safer Choice and certain Green Seal® certifications. GSA’s Public Building Service has more than 600 contracts for custodial services at more than 1,500 government-owned buildings at a cost of more than $400 million per year. GSA expects that most of these contracts will include the new and safer specifications within five years.
  (GSA, EPA team up to eliminate 'forever chemicals' from federal buildings - General Services Administration)
• James Lee, who led the IRS-Criminal Investigations office for the last three years and served 29 years in the federal government, retired on March 31. He has joined Chainalysis as its global head of capacity building. Lee said his initial focus will be helping international law enforcement agencies develop solutions against cryptocurrency-based crime. During his time at the IRS, Lee led IRS and federal law enforcement efforts to shut down Hydra, the world’s largest darknet market. He also conducted the largest crypto-seizure connected to terrorism financing and rescued 23 children and arrested 337 child abusers around the globe after taking down Welcome to Video, the world's largest distributor of child sexual abuse material.
  (Former IRS-Criminal Investigations chief lands new role in industry - Chailalysis)
• The office of the Air Force chief information officer just got a new director of the enterprise information technology directorate. Keith Hardiman will oversee the management, planning, governance and resource allocation for the department's information and cyber enterprise, which has a budget of nearly $7 billion. Prior to his new role, Hardiman served as the director of the Air Force's information management and chief information office, where he led the Air Force's declassification and publications distribution offices.
  (Air Force enterprise information technology directorate gets new director - USAF)
• Leaders of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee are pushing for a higher cost-of-living increase for veterans and their surviving family members. The higher COLA would impact disability payments, clothing allowances, and compensation for surviving spouses and children of veterans. The cost-of-living adjustment would be determined by the annual COLA adjustment set by the Social Security Administration, and would go into effect December 1, 2024. Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) are leading the bill.
  (Tester, Moran push for cost-of-living increase for veterans - Senate Veterans Affairs Committee)

The post Oregon Senator fed up with data breaches, blasts Big Tech, demands mandatory standards first appeared on Federal News Network.

It seems like long ago. Thousands of active duty service members applied for religious exemptions from COVID vaccines. Now we know how well the armed services did in processing the exemptions and the discharges of service members from the armed services. For details, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked to Project Manager Marie Godwin in the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General.

Interview Transcript: 

Marie Godwin We wanted to ensure that service members were treated fairly, and that their exemption requests and discharges were processed in accordance with the law and DoD regulations. And we also received a number of hotline complaints alleging that the military services were improperly processing religious accommodation requests. So we wanted to review that process and determine if those allegations had any merit. So specifically, the complaints were alleging that the military services were processing the requests too quickly and not performing individualized review of the requests as required by the law and DoD policy. But in the end, we found the allegations did not jibe with our findings, and our report confirms that those allegations were, in fact, unfounded.

Tom Temin All right. Do the requirements on the DoD specify a timeline or a period of time in which they have to decide these? Usually the problem is the government gets backlogs of things. In this case they were processing them. It sounds like efficiently.

Marie Godwin Yes, the DoD does establish time requirements, and the time requirement depends on if the service requires a waiver of policy for that religious accommodation request or not. So for the Army, Marine Corps and Navy, they had 90 days to process the requests. The Air Force had 30 days to process the requests because they had decentralized decision process that did not require a waiver of policy.

Tom Temin You didn’t look then at whether the discharges or the exemptions were correct or not. It was just simply looking at whether they were processed in a way that was in accordance with their policy for processing them.

Marie Godwin That’s correct.

Tom Temin All right. Let’s go into that a little bit further. You said the Army, Navy, Marine Corps had a 90 day policy and the Air Force 30 days, maybe a little bit more detail on why that was the case, that variance.

Marie Godwin Sure. That’s just an overarching DoD policy that establishes the time requirements. And the DoD policy says that if the religious accommodation request requires a waiver of department policy, then it can be processed within 90 days. And I think the thought behind that is that it takes longer to process that through a central decision authority. If the request does not require a waiver of policy, as is the case with the Air Force, then the time requirement for that processing is only 30 days.

Tom Temin In what’s involved in processing that even takes 30 days?

Marie Godwin Sure. There’s a number of things that happen in the process, and it differs by military service. But generally, the service member submits a request. They have recommendations from their chain of command. They meet with a military chaplain to discuss their request. There’s also medical subject matter expert recommendations, and all these are processed up through the decision authority to consider.

Tom Temin Right. And just to clarify once more. You didn’t look at the quality of the decisions versus, yeah, you can stay or you’re discharged. But again, just whether they were processed in the proper manner.

Marie Godwin Right. So we looked at did they have all of the required recommendations? And was the proper decision authority deciding on their request?

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Marie Godwin. She’s a project manager in the Inspector General’s Office at the Defense Department. So generally, everything went according to each armed service’s policy for getting those things processed. Any exceptions or any outlying issues that you discovered?

Marie Godwin So for religious accommodation requests, we found that the Army and Air Force were taking much longer to process the exemptions than the DoD time requirements. So the Army, as we said before, had 90 days to process those requests, and they were averaging about 192 days to process the requests. The Air Force had 30 days to process those requests, and they were averaging about 168 days.

Tom Temin Yikes. And do we know why it took so long to do those?

Marie Godwin Well, we spoke with the military personnel involved in processing religious accommodation requests, and they told us that in a typical year, they only receive 3 or 4 requests for religious accommodation. So they were just overwhelmed by the sheer number of the requests.

Tom Temin  And could be that the religious exemption has maybe more subtle decision making that’s required. It’s hard to tell, that sounds like a tough one. Maybe they’re afraid to make the call in some cases.

Marie Godwin Well, I think they just wanted to take the time to make the correct decision and make sure that it was an informed decision.

Tom Temin All right. So what recommendations do you have then? Sounds like they would be centering around the religious exemption request because that’s what caused the outlying cases.

Marie Godwin So we had three recommendations. We had one for religious accommodation requests, one for medical and administrative exemptions and one for discharges. So for religious accommodation requests, we recommended that the DoD issued new guidance for periods of high volume request to decrease processing times. Military personnel told us that they only receive a few requests per year, and under those conditions, the existing policies were sufficient, but not in periods of high volume requests. So this recommendation aims to improve the processing time so that service members are not significantly impacted while they’re awaiting a decision.

Tom Temin All right. And what about for the medical and administrative? Recommendations there?

Marie Godwin Sure. We recommended that the DoD require personnel to document exemption approvals in service members personnel records. We had found that they weren’t always being documented in their records, so we anticipate that requirement will reduce the risk of errors and ensure that the service members vaccination status is accurate in the medical readiness systems.

Tom Temin And for the discharge petitions. That means that people want to be released from the military rather than have the vaccine. That’s what that particular application is.

Marie Godwin Correct. So we recommended that the DoD require uniform discharge types and reentry codes for all service members who were discharged for vaccination refusal. And we made that recommendation because of the DoD does not issue uniform discharge types and reentry codes, then service members will experience different impacts to their educational benefits and eligibility to re-enlist.

Tom Temin I was going to say reentry codes. Does that mean that there’s like a revolving door over vaccinations? You can be discharged and then come back?

Marie Godwin Well, when a service member leaves military service, they’re issued a certificate of release from active duty service. And that lists your discharge type and your reentry code. And the reentry code just indicates a service members eligibility to re-enlist in the service later. So we found that some service members received reentry codes that required them to obtain a waiver to re-enlist, while other service members receive codes that banned re-enlistment altogether.

Tom Temin Got it. And so the recommendation there was or did you have any for that particular class of application.

Marie Godwin So we recommended that they have uniform discharge types and uniform reentry codes.

Tom Temin Got it. And did the department say yeah we agree.

Marie Godwin They actually did not agree with that recommendation. But they provided another plan to address the recommendation. So once they provide that plan to us, we’ll reevaluate the recommendation.

Tom Temin This is more than history then. Because should another type of pandemic happen in the country, or we have another one of these situations where mass vaccinations become the general mode of the land, this could come up again.

Marie Godwin You’re absolutely right. And so DoD allows service members to request medical or administrative exemptions from any vaccination, not just COVID 19.

Tom Temin It could be measles, mumps or polio for that matter.

Marie Godwin Right. The military services have a list of ten or so required vaccinations for all service members.

The post Pentagon report card for dealing with vaccine refuseniks first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Service members are apparently not getting enough sleep each night to properly do their jobs. A watchdog organization found that service members are consistently getting less than 6 hours of sleep. Military personnel say they fall asleep on the job, which Government Accountability Offce said creates serious safety concerns. The GAO wants the Pentagon to conduct an assessment of DoD's oversight structure for fatigue-related efforts. And the Defense Department recommended that troops get seven hours of sleep each night.
  (Service members don’t get enough sleep, putting their lives at risk - GAO)
• Attention vendors, who provide grants services to the government, this RFI's for you. The Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) is ready to expand its marketplace of service providers. But first, it is taking the pulse of the vendor community to gauge the capabilities of the sector. The QSMO's new Request for Information (RFI) is asking vendors for details about their grants management system, including whether it is set up as a software-as-a-service, whether it integrates with SAM.gov and login.gov and whether it is highly configurable and does not require code changes. Responses to the RFI are due by April 30.
  (Grants shared services office kicks off marketplace expansion - General Services Administration)
• Agencies have likely escaped budget cuts due to sequestration for another year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed the fiscal 2024 spending bills and estimated that the discretionary budget authority for defense and non-defense agencies falls under the caps established in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. CBO, however, said the final decision about whether cuts are needed under sequestration will come from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), based on its own estimates of federal spending. OMB told Congress in August it did not think sequestration cuts would be necessary based on current estimates, but it will send another letter to Congress later this year with the final decision.
  (CBO estimates sequestrations cuts not necessary for fiscal 2024 - Congressional Budget Office)
• There is a new artificial intelligence chief at the top U.S. spy agency. John Beieler has been named the chief AI officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He also serves as the top science and technology adviser to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. Beieler now leads a council of chief AI officers across the 18 components of the intelligence community. One of the first tasks for that group is developing an AI directive for the IC. Beieler said it will cover everything from data standards to civil liberties and privacy protections.
  (Intelligence community gets a chief AI officer - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service may soon ask for a sixth rate increase, since November 2020, that would go into effect this summer. But the Postal Regulatory Commission is taking a closer look at whether this new pricing model is actually helping USPS improve its long-term finances. The regulator is asking for public feedback on whether the current pricing model is working for USPS and its customers — and if not, what modifications to the ratemaking system should be made, or what alternative system should be adopted? The regulator will accept comments through July 9.
  (Postal Regulatory Commission seeks feedback on USPS pricing model - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing to host its biggest biannual cybersecurity exercise. Dubbed “Cyber Storm,” the event will kick off this month with more than 2,000 participants from government and industry. The weeklong exercise simulates the response to a cyber attack on multiple critical infrastructure sectors. This year’s Cyber Storm comes as CISA rewrites the national plan for responding to major cyber incidents. CISA expects to release the updated plan by the end of 2024.
  (CISA’s ‘Cyber Storm’ will help it update National Cyber Incident Response Plan - Federal News Network)
• The IRS is looking to take the next steps in its most ambitious project under the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRS is letting taxpayers in 12 states test out its “Direct File” platform this filing season, as it gets feedback from earlier users, in the hopes of scaling up the pilot program. In a roundtable discussion with Direct File users, the IRS said all participants said they would recommend Direct File to eligible friends and family. Roundtable participants included college students, military veterans, as well as nonprofit and government employees.
  (IRS' direct file platform receives positive initial feedback - Treasury Department)
• The Air Force wants to bypass governors in seven states and transfer the National Guard space units to the Space Force. Air Force officials are calling for legislation to bypass existing law requiring them to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to a National Guard unit. It would allow the service to transfer 14 Air National Guard space units located in New York, Florida, Hawaii, Colorado, Alaska, California and Ohio and make them part of the Space Force. Not surprisingly, the idea is facing criticism from governors.
  (Air Force wants to override law in 7 states, transfer Guard units to Space Force - Federal News Network)

The post Feds in fatigues, too fatigued to properly do their jobs, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

Contractors and federal managers agree: It is difficult to keep up with all of the cybersecurity rules and regulations. The parade of new proposals never ends. American University has a program that might help. It is a series of online discussions with people who know policy. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with American University senior lecturer Dr. Sasha Cohen O’Connell.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin I should say you’re not just a lecturer there, but you host podcasts that talk about cyber security policy. How do you keep people awake through that?

Sasha O’Connell Oh, it’s more exciting than you might think. Of course. Yes. A brand-new podcast series in partnership with our colleagues both at CrowdStrike and Wylie Ryan.

Tom Temin All right. And I guess the bigger question is what is going on that people need to go out of their way to get more understanding of cyber regulations just seem to be like tulips popping up everywhere.

Sasha O’Connell Absolutely. Even in my time, I’ve been back in American University full time for five years teaching U.S. cyber policy, and I was just saying to my class yesterday, the blooming, to keep your analogy in terms of activity with the government side around cyber policy is just an explosion is really impacted the way I teach. I think a couple of things drive that. One is, of course, the threat and the changing nature of the threat, both nation state actors and criminal actors. And that increased activity over time. Not new but continuing to increase. In addition, I think there’s a change in leadership in government over time, folks who are perhaps more up to speed on these issues and able to make decisions both in the executive and legislative branch. And then I think, frankly, some political will, right, given the nature of the attacks we’re seeing to act and to do think about it. So, we’re starting to see that across government. And that’s generating a lot of conversation and need for educational materials, which is what brought us to the podcast.

Tom Temin Plus the publications of regulations and policies themselves can be daunting. CISA, for example, just came out with a new rule on incident reporting for small businesses. Nobody knows who’s affected by this, but the rule was something like 500 pages. That’s a dense 500 pages. That’s part of the challenge, isn’t it?

Sasha O’Connell Absolutely. I think it’s in the 400, 447. In the most recent call for comment, the NPRM around CIRCIA at which I know you guys covered last week as well. Absolutely. It is daunting. This whole theme of incident reporting is actually our first topic of the podcast. And because whether it’s the new SEC rule or rules coming out of CISA on the heels of CIRCIA, we know that folks need some context, right? They need some history, some context, and some materials that sort of, we call it start here. Right. A place to start to understand the context of these issues before you start to dive into all the details. And we also know that there’s new people working in this space, or people for whom these topics are new, and they need some primers and access to that kind of information. And that’s, again, the impetus for this podcast. And incident reporting is exactly where we start.

Tom Temin And so much of the cybersecurity discussions, coverage, articles, media pieces and so forth concern cybersecurity practitioners and how to stay ahead of threats, understand the threat environment, responses, and all of these cyber operational things. So, do those people need to be better versed in policy, or who is it within an organization that should be versed in policy, even if they’re not coding the next counterattack type of thing?

Sasha O’Connell This is exactly one of the changes that’s happened at the moment, sort of in the last five years. It used to be the job for FBI, you know, the precursor to CISA and PPD, CISA folks who cyber was their day job. But now I like to say it’s truly cyber for all. Right. Certainly in government, if you work at HHS, as we saw with the most recent hack relevant to the health care system, if you work at EPA and you’re worried about clean water, as we’ve seen in recent mornings in that sector as well, there’s really no spot in government that doesn’t have a cyber policy component to what they do. At a minimum, they’re responsible for protecting their own data, right? The data internal to those departments and agencies or on the Hill, if you think about the data managed there. And then there’s that piece within. There’s the externally inter-agency, you know, bigger picture policy piece that focuses on the customers of these departments and agencies. Right. And there are equities and authorities across the board.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Sasha O’Connell. She’s senior lecturer at American University and host of a podcast series on cyber security policy. And I wanted to ask you about, maybe based on your experience, we should note long term at the FBI before coming to academia and so forth, where you were involved with cybersecurity policy. Often the complaint comes especially from industry, but also from government practitioners that there seems to be, let’s say, a want of coordination of policy creation among the federal entities themselves. Is that an issue that you cover and. You feel that is an issue?

Sasha O’Connell Yes of course. Better coordination and deconfliction. It’s something that’s always being worked on. As you mentioned, I spent about 15 years at the FBI, and one of my last roles was to stand up and lead a new office that was facing the National Security Council to work with the White House on those policy issues where the FBI had equities. And through that NFB process that many of your listeners I’m sure are involved with, is that effort at coordination. You know, especially now in an area like cyber where there’s so much growth and population of use and the blooming of interest in regulation and legislation, convenings and voluntary standards, it is more important than ever through those processes that those things are being coordinated in cyber as well. We see a ton of activity at the state level. So, all 50 states have their own victim notification laws, for example. And that’s something that Washington and I know the Biden administration is super aware of and working hard, both here in the US and also relevant to our international partners, making sure that global companies have those kind of crosswalks and deconfliction information and where possible, that things are reconciled because it is a huge challenge.

Tom Temin And it’s also true that the number of agencies is kind of spreading. I mean, you’ve got DoD and many components there and a couple of different components of Homeland Security, Justice Department. But now the FTC, the SEC, the FCC, everybody seems to be maybe even the FAA jumping into cyber and cyber policy. So, it sounds like this is something that’s going to not go away, is it?

Sasha O’Connell No. Absolutely not. In my classroom, I use the bubble chart from the early 2000, which is maybe some of our listeners remember a PowerPoint that we used to walk around and show roles and responsibilities in cyber, and it had 4 or 5 agencies. And then there’s a great 2020 GAO report that shows a nice graphic of all the departments and agencies with cyber responsibility. And I think it’s about 25. Right. So, your point is super well-taken. And again, it really is cyber for all. And again, why we think this need to fill the gap in terms of foundational educational materials is so important, both for current leaders in government and for future leaders studying cyber now.

Tom Temin And what about the contractors? It would seem that they need to keep on top of this. I think they know they need to, because the implication is not simply that you will lose data or get hacked and all of this, but then you’ll get hit with False Claims act, for example, or in the case of the SEC, they would like to, you know, arrest you and pillory and find you and so on. I mean, its dangerous territory, isn’t it, for contractors, companies 100%.

Sasha O’Connell And it’s particularly relevant because one of the levers is, you know, that the executive branch has, in terms of being able to raise the bar in cybersecurity is, of course, through contracting. Right. And the standards they set through those opportunities. So, absolutely, this needs to be front of mind for all government contractors to keep an eye on that, because it is a place where there is a lot of activity and change going on. Absolutely.

Tom Temin And just quickly, from the standpoint of being at American University, is this an area that you see growth of interest in incoming students?

Sasha O’Connell 100%, so much so that in the last three years we have created a graduate certificate, a non-technical certificate, specifically in cyber policy and management. So, when you come perhaps for your master’s degree in public administration thinking you want to be maybe a city or town manager, we now have that opportunity. Right. Because if you don’t get a little something, the four corners on ransomware, for example, before you head out to lead, even at the state and local level, let alone the federal level, it’s really a huge gap, both in terms of getting jobs and being impactful when you get there. So yeah, we see the demand both at the undergraduate and graduate level. And again, at AU, we’re specifically focused on that policy piece, that intersection of the law with the technology, with the functionality of government.

The post Leading university offers way to keep up with cybersecurity policy first appeared on Federal News Network.

With Congress back in action next week, many eyes are on how it’s going to handle international affairs. Speaker Mike Johnson is still getting his feet wet in the role, and he may already be facing calls for his resignation. For details on what’s happening, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with WTOP Congressional Correspondent Mitchell Miller.

Interview Transcript: 

Mitchell Miller Congress really has a lot on its plate coming back, and it’s going to be a particularly testing time for House speaker Mike Johnson. Among the things that he’s got to deal with, of course, is Israel and Ukraine. And then on top of that, while they were on break, of course, we had the big collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore. And there is a huge push, of course, with President Biden visiting Baltimore last week to get the legislation moved into the House so they can start working on an emergency aid package. But one of the biggest things really will be to figure out how Mike Johnson is going to deal with Ukraine. This is something that he has basically pushed off for month after month, and now it’s coming to a head, and it really is coming into a head for him because the conservative wing of the Republican Party, specifically Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, has the threat of ousting him from the speakership if he brings something to the floor on Ukraine that she doesn’t like. Now she’s only made this as a threat. It’s not clear whether or not she’s actually going to trigger it. But this is certainly hanging over his head. So, there’s a lot of questions right now about what is going to happen with aid for Ukraine. Of course, the Senate passed an aid package, a supplemental that included aid for Ukraine as well as Israel and parts of the Pacific. But that has just been, as they say around here, collecting dust for a while until the speaker decides what to do. So, it’s going to be interesting also because of what’s been happening with Israel on the Democratic side. There is a lot of dissension about what is going to happen with more military aid for Israel in light of the humanitarian convoy that was hit, and several people were killed. A lot of tension right now among Democrats trying to put more pressure on Israel. There was a thought a while back that they would split the Israel and Ukraine packages. But now that is really in doubt. And some people think that the House speaker will actually, at some point be forced to take the Senate supplemental and try to take it up on its own, because just breaking everything up and starting over will be too difficult.

Eric White And somewhere Kevin McCarthy is probably smiling, saying, okay, you see, you want this thankless job, you can have it. This is definitely one of the first major test for Mike Johnson, kind of teetering the sides of both sides of his own party and both sides of Congress. How’s he how’s he going to do that?

Mitchell Miller You know, there’s really a lot of questions within his own party as well as among Democrats. Democrats have been kind of on the side just waiting to see what he would do. But he is getting so much pressure from his right flank. And that is why he has put this off for so long. But really, he can’t put it off any longer because things are of course, getting worse in Ukraine. We’ve seen the evolving situation in Israel, and really it is the biggest question mark hanging over Congress right now, because on the Senate side, you still have the Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, pushing very hard to get Ukraine $60 billion worth. And on the other side, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, the aforementioned lawmaker from Georgia, saying if you bring that $60 billion bill to the floor, I am going to make the motion to vacate. And there potentially could be a vote on the floor related to what Kevin McCarthy had to deal with, which, of course, eventually left him not only out of the speakership, but out of Congress. Now, some Democrats have said they might come in to save Mike Johnson because they just don’t want more dissension. And of course, there are many Republicans that really don’t want this to happen either, because we’re in the middle of the election year. And as we remember the last time that the speaker was kicked out, it was more than three weeks before Republicans could figure out who they wanted to lead the party. So, a lot of big questions hanging over Congress right now.

Eric White And apart from the international affairs, we have domestic affairs. You mentioned the Key Bridge. That was the major story, you know, of the month of March. What are the next steps, I guess, in getting the package that President Biden did promise? I imagine there’s going to have to be some boxes that need to be checked to make sure that that does come through.

Mitchell Miller Absolutely. And this will be a big week for that. On Tuesday, there will be a meeting, including the Maryland congressional delegation, including the senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, along with the head of OMB, Shalanda Young, to try to figure out what kind, of course can they move forward with to get the money that is needed not only to replace the bridge, but also to help accelerate things with opening up the port of Baltimore? And there’s been a lot of talk about trying to do more to help all of these idled dock workers that just don’t have any money coming in, because everything is just frozen right now, aside from a few boats. A small channel or two going through Baltimore. So, what they’re trying to do is figure out, how big is this big emergency package going to be, is it going to be everything where it includes the long term? Look at what’s going to be taken to reconstruct the bridge, which is conceivably in the billions of dollars at least over $1 billion. And then on the other side, there are some people, particularly Republicans. I was speaking with Maryland Republican Andy Harris, and he suggests that they should not take this all at once and that they should do it more incrementally. So, it’s not such a financial jolt to the system that perhaps getting a smaller package right away to help with the port and then start to move forward in bits and pieces on the longer-term issue of reconstructing the bridge, which will, of course, take several years. The first bridge that collapsed, that took five years to build, and that was after everything was all put in place financially. So, this is going to be a very, very long-term slog for Congress.

Eric White And it’s a shame about those dockworkers, you know, that they can’t have some sort of option to telework loading on the docks. But the federal workforce does have the option to telework. And I understand the Senate is going to be looking at giving out more information on what they want to see from agencies. As far as telework goes, what do you have on that?

Mitchell Miller Right. Well, even though they were on break, Senators Gary Peters of Michigan and Joni Ernst of Iowa have both proposed the Telework Transparency Act. And what they’re really trying to do, as you know, and as Federal News Network has reported, is trying to get more transparency from the federal agencies on exactly what is happening with telework. It’s interesting that we’ve kind of come full circle. We had for years lawmakers pushing to get more people to telework and get all the agencies in line on that. And now in the wake of the pandemic, there’s been this big push, of course, to get people back into the office. And as you’re well aware, Senator Joni Ernst is really on the forefront of this. She is putting a lot of political heat on federal agencies trying to find out exactly what they’re doing, how many people are actually getting back into the office, how many days are they getting back into the office? And also, what kind of efficiency is taking place? Are things better or worse, depending on where people are working from. So there’s going to be a bigger push, I think, continuing from lawmakers, trying to get this, telework information because there’s been, you know, general information coming through OPM, but lawmakers are trying to get down a little bit more into the weeds and try to find out exactly what agencies are doing to meet some of the push and some of the federal guidelines that they want put in place.

Eric White And one other piece of legislation with some federal workforce implications, how does it start from, you know, being part of some sort of partisan, I guess, you know, chicanery back and forth is kind of a wink at the other side. But Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, submitting the Guard act, which would say anybody who is convicted of a crime is not allowed to have access to classified material. Probably not a bad idea. But, you know, obviously the sights are set on President Trump and his many legal issues, but it also might affect legislators in her own state. What have you heard on that?

Mitchell Miller Right. This is the Guard act guarding the United States Against Reckless Disclosures Act. And it would, as you indicate, not only bar lawmakers, but bar the president, the vice president, and federal candidates from receiving classified information if they are charged with an obstructing an official proceeding. Now, that was aimed, of course, at former President Trump and January 6th. But really now this legislation potentially could affect Senator Bob Menendez, who, ironically, is from New Jersey, which is where Mikie Sherrill is from. But she is proposing that this be put into place. And there really has been a lot of questions here on Capitol Hill, particularly related to Senator Bob Menendez, including from members of his own Democratic Party. A lot of people questioning, you know, since he has been charged, he’s under indictment. Of course, he has denied all charges. But part of the indictment alleges that he was involved with doing favors illegally for the country of Egypt and others. And some lawmakers have really questioned about whether or not he should be receiving classified briefings. And every time he is asked about this, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tries to get away from the question a little bit. He does definitely criticize Menendez for the allegations that he’s under, but it still remains to be seen whether or not Senator Menendez is really going to be kept out of a lot of these classified briefings, which there have been many of them recently. And then, of course, he lost his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to Maryland’s Ben Cardin. He basically stepped down after these charges came against him. So, I’m really interested to see how this is going to move forward, since it’s now, as you indicated, has a kind of bipartisan bent. Which was not the way it started.

Eric White Yeah. And I can’t imagine somebody having to brief a president saying, we can’t tell you exactly what’s going on, but we need your decision, right?

Mitchell Miller Right. And all of this with the backdrop, of course, of the legal case involving former President Trump and the classified documents that. So given the fact that we’re also in the middle of a political election year, it’s hard to see how this might actually move all the way to getting approved. But we’ll just have to wait and find out.

The post There’s a lot to do, as Congress returns first appeared on Federal News Network.

For the first time in its nearly 250 year history, the Navy has a woman as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Adm. Lisa Franchetti, in a recent Navy Times article, credited an earlier CNO (Elmo Zumwalt), for enabling women to advance in the Navy. CNOs, in fact, have exerted a lot of influence. Now the Naval History and Heritage Command has released — in hard copy — a 2015 volume detailing the activities of a century of chiefs of Naval operations. For more,  the Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with historian and co-author Curtis Utz.

Interview Transcript: 

Curtis Utz Well, the position of Chief of Naval Operations again is legally established in 1915. But we do go back and look into the late 19th and early 20th century as to why did this position develop the greater professionalization of the Navy, the need to have better control. Because prior to this, the secretaries of the Navy are directly commanding the squadron commanders. And if you go back far enough, even individual ships. And the Navy realized that while they’d been able to succeed with this during the war with Spain, if you were going to start considering conflicts with larger naval powers, you have to be a bigger force, you have to get together, you have to be orchestrated and led by a uniformed officer that has a better understanding of what’s going on.

Tom Temin Almost like the British model where you have a politician, but you also have a professional that are close in rank, even though the politician may outrank, but really directing ships and saying, left rudder, right rudder fuel here. You need somebody that knows the ocean.

Curtis Utz Right. Well, one of the great controversies in creating this office was that secretaries of the Navy did not want to cede civilian control, which is required by the Constitution and by law for them to have. And the naval officers who were involved with this early on, they also understood that, but they were just very concerned that they didn’t have, necessarily, you would get a secretary with a good understanding of the professional and technical requirements of the early 20th century Navy.

Tom Temin Yes, there was a big shift to more mechanization. Aircraft were beginning to learn how to land on shift. It was getting complicated.

Curtis Utz Oh, yes. Very, very highly complicated. And when you look at some of the things that are in the early office of Chief of Naval Operations, they actually have the organization that oversees naval communications. You know, the development of radio, more advanced technology. Aviation is also under the organization, but they also have the people who oversee engineering and gunnery competitions, which doesn’t sound like much, but this is really advanced training. We are trying to encourage people to get better with these very sophisticated systems, because in the case of gunnery, you’re starting developed by 1910, 1912 period, where you’re throwing shells 12 or 15 miles and a pretty good physics problem to figure out if it’s going to be able to hit something. It is roughly two lengths of a football field.

Tom Temin Why did the Navy not call it the chief of staff like the other armed services?

Curtis Utz One of the things that several of the secretaries of the Navy had been worried about, and the term that a couple of them used was they were afraid of the Prussianization of the Navy because, the Prussian General Staff was very well known, and the Navy wanted to make it clear that this is more about operations. Because beyond this staff within the CNO’s office, there was the shore establishment that reported to the Secretary of the Navy, Bureau of Navigation, Bureau of Ordnance, Bureau of Construction and Repair, Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, who provided a lot of the support. This organization was primarily focused on how do we go and operate.

Tom Temin Interesting. And now we have the Chief of Research in the Navy. That’s one of the ones that would be not reporting then, in this day, to the CNO.

Curtis Utz Well, at that time, I mean, [Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)] hasn’t even really gotten off the ground yet. And they are doing work by the 20s and 30s where, yeah, the chief of Naval Research is one of the guys who reports to the secretaries, because the bureau chiefs continued to report to the secretary. They did not report to the CNO, and that caused a bit of friction over time, as you can imagine.

Tom Temin I can imagine we’re speaking with Curtis Utz. He’s an Austrian with the Naval History and Heritage Command. And looking at the CNO from 1915 to 2015. Do they have influence on the Navy or as just people who operate? And they’re there for a couple of years come and go. I think I know where you’re headed on this answer.

Curtis Utz They have tremendous influence, but the types of influence vary over time. The one goal that all CNOs have had is make the U.S. Navy, the institution a better organization than you found it when you took the job. And part of their primary mission, again, throughout this entire period is how do you man train and equip the Navy? And that’s one of their primary responsibilities. Now, the one thing that does change a lot over time is, while they’re originally designed as an operational oversight, with the establishment of the Department of Defense and various reforms, since then, more and more of the operational authority of the CNO went away. First, under the 58 Reorganization Act, under the Eisenhower administration, and then, basically taking the service chiefs, not just the CNO out with Goldwater-Nichols to where operational control is out with the combatant commanders.

Tom Temin And let’s talk about some of the people involved, though. Zumwalt, we mentioned at the top is, I think, widely recognized as a transformational CNO who in the hundred years that you studied, who were some of the standouts and why?

Curtis Utz Well, Zumwalt obviously stands out because he’s quite young. He’s very much aware of the issues going on in the late 60s and in the 70s. He had commanded him Vietnam, and he realized there was a huge amount of transition going on that the Navy had to figure out a way to deal with, particularly as a transition to an all volunteer force first, having draftees. I think one of the admirals that came in to after him was Admiral Hayward. Admiral Hayward had been in command in the Pacific before becoming CNO, and he was really the first officer in the post Vietnam era that saw that the Navy didn’t have to just be defensive, because one of the big pushes was defend the sea lanes to Europe or, if necessary, Asia. And he’s like, no, we need to be able to project power ashore. And what he comes up with for the Pacific, he keeps pushing that when he CNO. And then essentially what he comes up with is co-opted by John Layman as the maritime strategy, which completely changes the outlook and direction of the Navy for the rest of the Cold War.

Tom Temin So then the CNO really can have a lot of influence, and then that devolves into what they buy, how they acquire the force structure and so on.

Curtis Utz Yes. The CNO still have the ability to influence these things. And they’re also the CNO is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They have to interact with the other joint chiefs and the chairman trying to figure out how are we going to meet the national level mission. And one of the other things the CNO has had to worry about most of the time is how do we pay for it?

Tom Temin Yes, that’s always a question. Anything federally connected? And I had a technological question because,  just before Zumwalt, in those years, there was a convergence nuclear power for subs. But earlier than that, and I think within the span of this book, going back to 1915, steam conversion to more modern propulsion methods, it sounds like just an arcane thing down on the bottom of the ship, but that really affected range and logistics and a lot of other operational aspects that matter.

Curtis Utz Steam power had been around since the middle of the 19th century, but as you come up with better engineering plans, you have a conversion from coal to oil power. You come up with better design, more efficient systems. But when you do start transitioning to nuclear power plants, initially with submarines, then with aircraft carriers and even some cruisers starting in the 50s, essentially, instead of using an oil burner, you’re using a nuclear power plant to generate steam. You’re still using essentially a steam system. But the thing is with nuclear power, essentially, you’re range is unlimited, as far as that. You still have to have other supplies. You have to maintain your sailors.

Tom Temin You need stake and lettuce aboard.

Curtis Utz You know, stake, lettuce, ammunition, medical supplies, all those sorts of things. And arguably, you don’t really get true submarines. You get advanced submersibles until you get nuclear power.

Tom Temin Any new CNO that would come in in the future, what will they get out of this book, do you think?

Curtis Utz I think what the CNOs and the OPNAVs staff will get, and this was one of our goals, is here are the challenges your predecessors have faced in the past. And here is how they’ve looked at going about dealing with them. And some of them had to be exceedingly creative in how do you deal with situations? And hopefully this would get them to start thinking about what are your options. Don’t get stuck in a rut of the tradition that you’ve worked with, because sometimes you have to get out of that. But of course, there are limits on that. There are limits from the political specter. And of course, also, again, the financial perspective of how do you pay for this?

Tom Temin Maybe that’s the real naval tradition, is that you’re always changing tradition.

Curtis Utz You’re changing how you operate, you’re changing how you’re organized. But you still have the same in many ways. Basic mission of you have to go to see you’re often forward deployed, protecting the national interest. And I think that’s one of the things that the vast majority of people do not understand is the Navy is always on the job. The Navy is always serving in defense of the nation far forward. And it’s a huge challenge.

Tom Temin And briefly tell us about yourself. You’re not a veteran of the ocean, but you’ve been with the Navy a long time and I’m told you know where the bodies are buried.

Curtis Utz Yes. I first joined what was then known as the Naval Historical Center in 1992. I had done my graduate work at the University of Maryland, College Park, and had written on naval history, and served with the old Naval Historical Center for a couple of years. Went to another part of DoD, was a historian there for nine years, and then came back to the Naval Historical Center to run the Naval Aviation History Office. Then I ran the Naval Archives, and then they let me go back to just being a writing historian, which is good.

Tom Temin Have you been able to get aboard a couple of vessels?

Curtis Utz Yes. When I was first with the command, I went to see during the period where we were transitioning from, there’s no more Soviet Union. What do we do with power projection ashore? And I went out and participated in a multi-day exercise. It was on both Mount Whitney and the old Guadalcanal, which was one of the old big deck. And I got to see a little bit more of how things operate. I’ve also been on naval aircraft. I’ve been to any number of naval stations. The first time you get to sea and you’re out there for any length of time, you get a better understanding of what’s going on.

The post How the Navy has been shaped by its operations chiefs first appeared on Federal News Network.

Few workforces have been studied and dissected as much as that of the two million-strong executive branch of the federal government. There’s another smaller, if no less crucial workforce. It belongs to Congress. The latest research shows wide-and-deep dissatisfaction among congressional staff members. For details, the Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with the President and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, Brad Fitch.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin And you have surveyed members of the congressional staff. What is it? About 30,000 plus or minus. Tell us about the survey and what you were asking and what you found out.

Brad Fitch Well, we wanted to explore their attitudes about the functionality, civility and the capacity of the U.S. Congress to do its job as a Democratic legislature. Probably the main finding was not positive, but not shockingly, that only two out of ten staffers would say that Congress is functioning as a legislature should. And this was equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Generally speaking, I have that view. They also had differing views on staying in the Congress. Nearly half of them said they were going to leave the Congress or thinking of leaving the Congress, especially on the Republican side. Six out of ten staffers on the Republican side said they were thinking of leaving the Congress due to heated rhetoric within their own party. So clearly, the Partisan divide that has been affecting a lot of things in our nation is also affecting the congressional staff workforce.

Tom Temin So it sounds like the acrimony that seems real, you know, among members flows down to the people that are actually doing the day-to-day work of crafting bills, or do they still kind of get along with the people from the other party?

Brad Fitch I’d have to say yes and no. One of the unknown sort of secrets of Washington is that there is a great deal of bipartisan collaboration, especially in the Senate, between parties of staff members and senior staff members. And we actually saw that that there was great agreement among Democrats and Republicans when we asked whether or not civility was very important to a functioning legislature. 85% of Republican staff and 70% of Democratic staff said civility was very important. 60% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats said encouraging bipartisanship was very important and a huge degree. 96% of Democrats and 98% of Republicans agree with this statement. It is necessary for senators and representatives to collaborate across party lines. So, on one level, you’re right. There is certainly a degree of partisanship that exists even at the staff levels. But there’s also and you saw this in the open-ended answers, a rich desire among staff members from members of Congress to collaborate in a bipartisan way to address the needs of the American public.

Tom Temin And one of the findings I found, well, maybe not so surprising, given the state of affairs in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas, but there actually is some level of anxiety about safety, physical safety of people working on the Hill.

Brad Fitch Yeah. In fact, both Democrats and Republicans said that they are experiencing threatening messages at least somewhat frequently. And these are high numbers, like 73% of Republicans, 68% of Democrats. And it’s kind of terrible to think about where you work, and you have to go to an environment where you’re going to be receiving death threats. And we all know that since 2016, the Capitol Police have reported there’s been an increase in death threats of 5 to 10 times in magnitude coming in to the Capitol Hill switchboard. Unfortunately, the other finding and there was a bit of a divide between Democrats and Republicans. When asked whether members of staff feel safe doing their jobs. Only 21% of Democratic staff were satisfied with that, compared to 61% of Republican staff. And in the open-ended answers to the questions we posed, we just have to accept that, especially for Democrats, we still live in a post January 6th world. I’m a Washingtonian. I’ve been here for four decades. And you don’t go a few days without another article being in the news about a January 6th rioter. An insurrection is either being arrested or convicted or going on trial. And that’s just a recurring, you know, nightmare for many staffers. And clearly the data shows that it’s having an effect on Democratic staff, especially.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Brad Fitch. He’s president and CEO of the nonprofit Congressional Management Foundation. This is the second of this type of survey you’ve done. And sort of like the Fed’s survey that is done in the executive branch by OMB every year. Do you think you’ll do this regularly?

Brad Fitch I hope to. We believe that this is a better benchmark for how the Congress is performing as a legislature than some of the other, we’ll call it popular media tools that have been used, such as the number of days in session or the number of bills introduced or passed. This is a survey of senior congressional staff. More than half of the respondents had ten years experience or more. So, you’re really dealing with a very seasoned, very intelligent workforce, very dedicated workforce is public servants much in the way the executive branch is. But the difference is, of course, is they do have to deal with this highly partisan difficult work environment. And clearly the research is showing it’s taking a toll on many of them.

Tom Temin And we’ve been primarily talking about people who work on the committee and personal staffs of the members. What about those in the Congressional Research Service? The congressional? Budget Office. Is there a sense that the Partisanship has pretty much stayed out of those which are considered the reference points for both sides in research and data about what it is they’re doing?

Brad Fitch We didn’t survey the institutional support agencies you referenced. We focused on, as you noted, personnel, staff, committee staff and leadership staff. I will add one thing, though, in the area of institutional support, we did find a ray of good hope in the survey research in that the satisfaction levels of congressional staff with some of the more we’ll call it institutional capacity areas, H.R. professional development. It all improved in a matter of two years, and this is likely a direct result of the work of the Select Committee on Modernization and the Subcommittee on Modernization, which is now been around for a year and a half. And the members of Congress who engaged in that effort starting in 2019, did it in a completely bipartisan way. It was an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The same is true of the new subcommittee chaired by Stephanie Bice, congresswoman from Oklahoma. And it’s a real testament that if members of Congress decide to roll up sleeves, collaborate in a bipartisan way, work constructively to solve problems, it can work. And that was really, in some respects, the positive highlight of the report, that in a matter of less than two years, staff satisfaction in all the areas related to capacity had gone up. It’s still very low, but we saw improvement in every metric.

Tom Temin Yes, because the technology basis of Congress was pretty primitive. They still published 2000-page bills that aren’t even searchable PDFs, let alone, you know, HTML. And so, I think for people coming in that might be idealistic about the nature of the work they would expect to work environment that seems 21st century and Congress is inching that way, you might say.

Brad Fitch I would say they’re going in more than inches. They’re going in yards these days. And they’ve actually made some significant progress in the digitalization of some of their work. I was just talking to a staff member just yesterday. And, you know, even the simple act of getting a co-sponsor for a bill required very much an 18-minute process that involved producing PDFs and signatures and all this stuff. And now they can all do it electronically. And she said, it takes about a minute now. So, there’s very good progress happening, especially in the House of Representatives. The professional development offerings in the House have just skyrocketed. It’s really terrific what they’re offering new staff members in the area of professional growth that research shows in the HR community should lead to more job engagement, should lead to more job retention, and that results in a better workforce for the American people, because ultimately, this is designed and all these efforts are designed to improve services that the American people take advantage of.

Tom Temin All right. I wish they’d modernize flag ordering. That would make things a lot easier because they.

Brad Fitch Are actually doing their job. And believe it or not, they actually started to move that to an electronic format. Most people don’t realize you can buy an American flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol. It’s a business that’s run out of each individual congressional office, and it’s now gotten a lot more efficient as a result of some of the reforms they’ve done in the last five years.

Tom Temin Well, I’ve got three of them so far. So, they’re good things to own. And just finally, I want to return to that question of the importance of civility and constructive dialog. These are not merely academic or social niceties, but they actually improve. Well, not to be dramatic, but the performance of the Republic.

Brad Fitch In the end, it all leads to compromise, which we sometimes forget our eighth-grade social studies classes and reminding us that America was founded on the grand compromise, the Sherman compromise, the idea of a bicameral legislature. We don’t live in a direct democracy or a parliament. We live in a republic. And compromise is essential to the functioning of our legislatures. And to get compromise, you have to have collaboration and civility. And this report shows that senior Democratic and Republican staff agree that’s the path to improving our national legislature.

The post Dysfunction in Congress spoils the work life of congressional staff first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Coast Guard may be the most active federal agency in the aftermath of the Baltimore bridge that was knocked over by a container ship. For a summary of what it’s had to do so far and the resources it’s deployed, the Federal Drive Host Tom Temin  spoke to Baltimore District Commander Col. Estee Pinchasin.

Interview Transcript: 

Estee Pinchasin We’re about a week and a day in to the operation. The first day you remember was search and rescue and then recovery. We shifted to recovery operations, and it’s very hard decision to then go into salvage, because at that point we realized it was just too dangerous. The wreckage was so unstable that we didn’t want to put the divers in a in a dangerous situation. So we shifted to salvage operations. And in the meantime, we’ve marshaled the most incredible team resources, equipment to be able to tackle this. And you’ve got three efforts. You’ve got the channel, the 50 foot shipping channel that needs to be cleared and opened. You’ve got the vessel that needs to be refloated. And in the area outside the channel, there’s the bridge wreckage that needs to be removed. So that will rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, as the governor describes. You need to know that while you’ve got these three efforts, they are being coordinated in an overarching manner through the Unified Command the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has brought on the supervisor of salvage from the United States Navy. Those are our nation’s top salvage experts reaching into the salvage community. So we’ve got the right team here. And it’s not just about the wreckage. It’s not just about the engineering to get the wreckage out. We know that recovery of those four unaccounted personnel is a part of this. So when we see the salvage operations that are going to be taking place in earnest, need to know that this is going to be an iterative process with every layer of wreckage that we pull up, we have to go back in and scan and survey and inspect to make sure that the load reacted the way we believed it would, that it’s as stable as it needs to be, so that the next iteration can be done safely. But they’re also going to be looking for any signs of the missing personnel or any areas that need further inspection that they could possibly be found. We all recognize that’s a very integral part of this operation. We’re not forgetting that it’s a part of every step.

Eric White  I don’t know if you have exact numbers or anything like that, ballpark is perfectly fine. As far as those resources from the Army Corps of Engineers itself. Can you just kind of tell me the sort of equipment and personnel that your agency is deploying to the situation?

Estee Pinchasin So right off the bat, the Corps started deploying its emergency response personnel. We brought in structural engineers from within the Baltimore district, but also from our structural center of expertise. Over in Philadelphia district, we launched survey operators and vessels from Philly as well to join up with the Baltimore district teammates. We brought in emergency managers and experts from areas around the corps. I don’t know how much people know about the Corps of Engineers, but we’re 38,000 people strong that literally build our country. We are engineering that our vision is engineering solutions to our nation’s challenges. And this is exactly what that is. But we bring in other partners as well. And that’s where the Navy and tying in with the Coast Guard in this unified command, all our state and federal partners, it’s a very powerful partnership. Another thing to remember is that this community and this the Baltimore community, we work together in this port on these channels all the time. The Baltimore District of the Corps of Engineers clears, navigational hazards and maintains the depth of these channels all the time, whether people realize it or not. When they’re ordering things on Amazon, that’s why that’s happening for our port. So the team that was able to spring together had the preexisting human infrastructure of relationships to come together quickly. There wasn’t a learning curve in figuring out who’s who. So that that made this response very quick and efficient.

Eric White Yeah, I wanted to touch on that. This is a good segue into, this is such a heavy undertaking. How are you maintaining the standard operations that your district already does, the important work that your district is already responsible for, while also contributing to this recovery and rebuilding effort?

Estee Pinchasin We are not doing this alone. When I mentioned that unified command, the Coast Guard, who is responsible for the overall waterway and their sector commander, Captain Dave O’Connell, he is the captain of the port. So he’s here with a massive amount of personal experience and expertise to put together this unified command, along with the state, along with the military, with the Maryland State Police, all the state agencies, federal partners supporting and helping. We also have the responsible individual that represents the shipping company who is responsible for removing and refloating the vessel. So this is not done alone with the Corps. The Corps doesn’t do anything alone. We are very reliant on our partners and especially our partners in industry.

Eric White And apart from the government agencies that you’re working with, what sorts of contractors have you all been working with in order to get this thing underway? I imagine somebody’s got to have those cranes. Somebody is the shipping company.

Estee Pinchasin Like I mentioned, we’ve got these three lines of effort we have, and I’m talking from a salvage operations. The governor put out our priorities. We know the top priority is recovering those families, that recovering the missing from our families that are still here in Baltimore. When I step down and do just the salvage operation, we’ve got three efforts here. We’ve got restoring the 50 foot federal channel, the shipping channel. We’ve got refloating the vessel. And then we also have to restore the overall waterway so we can rebuild the bridge. We have three salvage then that are working, that are salvage experts, that are working to restore all the conditions in the channel. And they’re working together. They’re sharing information. They’re sharing coordinated under the unified command through the Corps. But with the help of our partners in United States Navy, the sup sal, or supervisor of salvage operations for the Navy, and they come in with salvage expertise that can’t be matched. And it’s humbling to see, it’s inspiring to me as an engineer to see them duking it out and figuring out the best way to get after these things. There’s such passion here. And I think that for a lot of folks, any construction project, any dredging project, any major operation that’s taking place usually have these big, major pieces of equipment moving. And that’s when you think things are happening. But behind every one of those lists is a tremendous amount of engineering analysis that has to take place for them to figure out where to cut, how to cut, how to rig it, how to lift it. I’m learning so much about salvage operations through here that to understand that sometimes rigging a particular load, if we’re going to lift something that’s near 1,000 pounds, because that’s what we’ve got here, we’ve got a 1,000 ton crane that can lift a load that much of the Chesapeake 1,000. You might hear it being referred to on the radio as a chassis. If that’s going to lift 1,000 pounds, you’re going to have a lot of stabilization that’s taking place. You might have additional cranes that are stabilizing other parts of the spans that are being cut and then lifted. Behind every one of those lifts, someone is designing how to cut it, how they’re going to rig it, how they’re going to lift it. And they’re planning to do that not just to get it up. They’re planning on how they’re going to lift it so that the load underneath will react a certain way, so as to not endanger the crane operator and not to make the conditions more dangerous or complicated later. They’re looking long term out.

Eric White Are there any sorts of timelines that have been established yet, or is it just still so early?

Estee Pinchasin No, it’s so early. And I mean, honestly, we’re focused right now on clearing the channel and hopefully recovering our missing personnel. From my vantage point that’s our top priority, giving closure to those families that just celebrated Easter in an unthinkable way and trying to find a way to work as close as we can safely and as quickly as possible to get as much traffic as we can back going through to the Port of Baltimore. We’ve got 8,000 workers from that port. It had to make a mortgage payment two days ago. I think about that. That’s what’s motivating me, because I know the Corps serves our country, but we’re serving our people. And I know people can say, that sounds cheesy, but that’s exactly what that is. That’s always serving.

Eric White And can you tell me just about how you heard about when it happened? It happened overnight. Living here in Maryland myself, all my social media feeds were ablaze when this occurred. Can you just kind of take me through how you were alerted that such an event had occurred?

Estee Pinchasin So it’s interesting how it happened. My mother in law was the first person to call my husband’s phone. And as he hands me the phone and he tells me this, I pick up the phone and my phone starts going crazy. I mean, thank God for her. She’s up early. She’s incredible. She was the one that made the first call. Maybe we have to hire her into our emergency operations section, but, yeah, that was my first call. If anybody really wants to know on the record. And then I started getting calls while I’m on the phone with her internal to my organization. So from that, I call immediately to, captain O’Connell with the Coast Guard. And, we’ve been here together ever since. But you need to know that we know that this is a long road. We are getting our team together every day. We’re already looking at further out who’s going to come and replace our folks and everything that we’re working on for these intermediate milestones before we get the port completely open. And I think that’s the right answer. You don’t want to sprint and then die. You want to make sure that you can go in it for the long term, so that you’re fresh and sharp and thinking as clearly as you can bring in the assets that you need. So, that’s our plan. We have a good battle rhythm going, lots of good decision making and analysis. So I’m very proud of team. Can’t say enough about them.

Eric White One last question here. I know you’re busy, so I’ll let you go, but you’ve been here a while now. I’ve lived in Maryland all my life. Can you just talk a little bit about the uniqueness of these bridges? We’ve got the Bay bridge, and then we have also the Key Bridge. Just these long bridges over a big stretch of body of water that is so important in shipping, important shipping lanes. Where does that factor in of as far as just the amount of material that is required to build these bridges and now are in the body of water themselves? And what that means.

Estee Pinchasin It’s really complex. I think when you look on the horizon right now and your heart sinks when you see it from far away, that gorgeous bridge that you would see in the distance that’s now broken up in the water. I have to tell you, it can be a little misleading, because when you’re looking at it from a distance, you see these spans that are sticking out of the water. And you look at it looks like there’s some structural integrity there. They might they look like they’re kind of intact. As you start to get below the water and into the mud line, especially further down, we’re seeing through 3D side scan sonar. We’re getting a much better picture of the extent of the damage, and it is far more than we thought. When you look at it, your imagination will take you down and you almost think like that span is just going straight down. But as you start to get deeper and deeper, that is 50ft down, and that 50 foot channel is mangled and cantilevered, and there are portions of it that are completely crushed. They’re completely collapsed. So when we talk about cutting out these spans into bite sized pieces, and those bite sized pieces are hundreds of tons and being lifted up. You can envision it. It’s not easy when you see the imagery of the person on the truss and you know that he’s got three stories of building above him and three stories of building below him, and he’s cutting. You start to see the magnitude of this, but you can still envision I’m going to cut through. We’re going to have these pieces being taken off. As you start to get into the water, and you start to see the mangled mess that is displaying with the 3-D imagery. You start to realize that it’s much more complex, and being able to pull that out is going to require a lot of ingenuity, and they’re going to use different types of equipment for that. They’re going to they have cranes, heavy cranes that you might see. You might have heard about the Chessie 1000 being here, but you’re going to see they’re going to have to have grabbers and salvage buckets that are going to pull out wreckage. So it’s going to be an amazing feat. And I have no doubt we have the right team. 100% we have the right team. And Baltimore is going to come back from this. I hear the mayor, I hear the governor, our team. And a part of that is also just making sure that we give closure to the families that are part of this, too.

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• The Biden administration's final rule to block Schedule F is in place, but the push still continues in Congress. Many advocates say the new regulations securing job protections for career feds are a step in the right direction. But some are concerned it will not be enough to stop Schedule F's resurrection in a future administration. Democratic lawmakers are urging the passage of the Saving the Civil Service Act. The bill aims to prevent career civil servants from being made at-will and easier to fire. The legislation has not seen much action, but the new final rule spurred lawmakers, like Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), to press harder and call for its passage.
  (Saving the Civil Service Act - Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.))
• New guidance is out to improve the management of more than a trillion dollars in federal grants. The Office of Management and Budget released the 2024 revisions to the Uniform Grants Guidance. This is the first update in four years. OMB's Deputy Director for Management Jason Miller said among the major changes is improving NoFos, the notice of funding opportunities. "The Uniformed Grants Guidance includes a streamlined NoFo template for agencies to use to help with shortening and simplifying their grants announcements," Miller said. This is one of several substantial revisions to the guidance, which seeks to clarify and reduce the burden on grantees. OMB received more than 3,200 comments to the draft.
  (OMB updates governmentwide grant management guidance - White House)
• The Biden administration is working on hiring tools to help agencies compete for AI talent. The White House is planning to hire 100 AI professionals into the federal workforce by this summer. Some of those hires will come from a “Tech to Gov” virtual hiring fair on April 18. Participating federal and state agencies are looking to fill AI and AI-enabling positions. Kyleigh Russ, a senior adviser at the Office of Personnel Management, said her agency is also working on an AI and Tech Talent Playbook to show how agencies can effectively onboard these in-demand hires. “We know that this talent is very sought-after and that there will be constant competition, both across government and the private sector," Russ said.
  (Biden administration working on hiring tools to help agencies compete for AI talent - Federal News Network)
• The 2024 Vital Signs report from the National Defense Industrial Association provides a look into the challenges facing the defense industrial base. The Vital Signs 2024 Survey asked the industry to identify areas of improvement for the DoD when working with private companies. Some 65% of respondents want to see a clear and consistent demand signal through contract vehicles. More than 40% of respondents would like the DoD to provide specific points-of-contact in program offices. The report also recommends that the Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment to engage with industry before finalizing the classified implementation plan for the National Defense Industrial strategy.
  (DoD needs to send stronger demand signal, increase investment in critical supply base - National Defense Industrial Association)
• Agencies and federal unions have marching orders from the Biden administration to re-establish labor-management forums. In some cases, it is possible for these forums to be met with resistance from either party, or even employees themselves. The Office of Personnel Management is offering advice on how to wade through any trouble spots in implementation. For one, OPM encourages management to have discussions with union leaders before making any top-down decisions.
  (OPM outlines how agencies, unions can recreate labor-management forums - Federal News Network)
• The Postal Service is missing more than half its service targets for mail products on which it has a monopoly. Its regulator told USPS it did not meet service performance targets for 15 out of 27 market-dominant products in 2023. The regulator is calling on USPS to take corrective action and to come up with a plan to improve its performance. USPS said 98% of households are getting their mail and packages within three days and that 50% of mail and packages arrive a day ahead of their service standard.
  (PRC issues report evaluating USPS service levels and rates - Postal Regulatory Commission )
• The Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to make permitting for environmental projects easier. EPA said its new website not only fulfills its commitment under the Biden administration's Permitting Action Plan, but also makes its information and process more transparent. Through the new site, EPA is posting information about the permitting process, such as permit applications and public meetings. The goal is to improve the timelines, predictability and transparency of federal environmental review and authorization processes for covered infrastructure projects, which include offshore wind energy under the renewable energy production sector.
  (EPA launches new permitting site - EPA)
• The public can now track defueling and decommissioning operations of the Red Hill fuel facility in Hawaii. A new app will provide the latest developments on tank cleaning, the decommissioning plan, environmental clean-up and regulatory approvals. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a full closure of the facility after jet fuel leaked into the Navy’s water distribution system. The app to track the closure efforts is available for download at Apple's App Store and the Google Play store.
  (New app will track Red Hill fuel facility closure - Navy Closure Task Force)

The post Some lawmakers offer more teeth to Biden’s Schedule F takedown first appeared on Federal News Network.

That, as you might have guessed, constitues the status of work life for staff members of the Congress of the United States. This finding comes from the Congressional Management Foundation, which surveyed 138 senior staff members. Only 5 percent of the people surveyed answered, but the foundation’s president, Brad Fitch, said the results show clear trends; principally, that the staff of the Congress labors under a peculiar group of people.

I”ll spare you yet another take on the principal issues impeding the car wreck that is Congress. Congressional staff occupy a galaxy less visible to the public, and even to much of the executive branch bureaucracy. Even in my own 32 years of covering government, I’ve spoken to only a handful congressional staff members, fewer even than members themselves. Staff learn early the value of self-attenuation in the shadows of their often egotistical bosses.

But don’t think they’re diffident. In fact, traipsing through the brick tunnels of the Capitol complex are some of the most informed and practically-minded people you’ll find anywere. Name the issue, and you can find members of the congressional staff that possess expert knowledge. And since politics often has the surface grace of ballet but the tactics of a prison yard, staff of one party sometimes know better than their members how to devise compromises with those of the opposite party.

When first-elected members come to town with perhaps green personal staffs, you can bet they learn lot from the committee staffs.

I say this only because the staffs of members of Congress constitute a sometimes underappreciated contributor to the nation’s well-being. If the Congress itself is semi-functional, the blame goes to many factors. Staff isn’t one of them. So it’s good to see at least a sampling survey of the health of this workforce. By contrast, the executive branch workforce is the object of intense, detailed and never-ending study. The annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey provides rich data and insight.

Here is a bit of what the Foundation survey found:

• Only 19% of the staff members thinks Congress “correctly functions as a democratic legislature should.” That breaks down to 31% of Republican respondents, 12% of Democratic.
• Only 20% agree that Congress provides “an effective forum” for debating the important questions.
• 81% of Republicans and long serving staff members tend to disagree that “current procedures” give members of Congress the information they need from the executive branch to do their congressional duties. Sure, there’s a Democratic administration. But 46% of Democrats also find information from the executive branch wanting.
• Two thirds of Democratic and Republican staff members would like elected leadership to “enforce the rules and norms of civility and decorum in Congress.” At least they don’t march into the chambers and whack one another with canes.

I spoke with Brad Fitch, the president of the foundation that surveyed congressional staff. A longtime watcher of Congress, Fitch said he doesn’t think the acrimony among members seeps down into staff relations. Otherwise, literally no bill might get written, much less ones the members reject anyway.

Fitch said — and the survey shows this — that the congressional staff sees positive movement in the technology, the workplace tools that have arrived in recent years. The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress helped here. It sunsetted last year, but now there’s a follow-on caucus. Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Washington) ably chaired the remarkably bipartisan committee. It came up with a couple of hundred recommendations, a couple of dozen of which Congress implemented. Senior staff are better paid now, and they have somewhat better IT systems.

It seems bizarre that an institution as important as the United States Congress engenders agreement about its own brokenness among its own members, the citizenry, historians and just about everyone else. Just don’t blame the staff.

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