The VA is looking at how smart home technologies and wearables like smartwatches could flag when aging and disabled veterans are having a medical emergency.

Joseph Ronzio, VA’s deputy chief health technology officer, said the department is also taking steps to ensure veterans have a stay in who gets this data, and how it may be used.

“Everyone nowadays has some smartness in their home, whether it’s a speaker, whether it’s light switches, whether it’s different types of lights or other physical devices — cameras, motion detectors that leave a digital service,” Ronzio said during a Federal News Network-moderated panel discussion at ATARC’s DevSecOps Summit.

“Most of the time we’re not able to access that digital footprint because it’s kept in a cloud service or a cloud system, and that’s masking to us what’s going on,” he added. “We’ve been able to implement some technologies that have actually been able to unmask it, and then evaluate what is the best kind of healthy and then start detecting where there’s problems.”

This use case hits close to home for VA’s tech leadership. VA’s Chief Health Technology Officer Craig Luigart is a disabled veteran.

Ronzio said Luigart’s Apple Watch has saved his life “multiple times already,” by alerting family members when he’s experienced a medical emergency — and that the same technology can help veterans continue to live in their own homes.

“As we look more and more towards our veteran population who are aging in place and look at the need for skilled nursing beds and skilled nursing facilities over the long haul, or nursing homes, there’s definitely a need for this capability to be refined and developed,” Ronzio said.

The VA pays for disability modifications to veterans’ houses and provides veterans with accessible equipment.

“We are providing those sensors and those technologies. Now we just have to peel the onion on this and start building better algorithms to detect and share that data with caregivers – whether that’s a spouse, whether that’s a child, whether it’s a loved one, whether it’s a friend of the family,” Ronzio said.

As VA continues to develop this project, Ronzio said veterans get to decide who they wish to share data and alerts with, so that that person can support them.

“Everyone always talks about sending data to VA, but we are not ambulance crews, we’re not 9-1-1,” he said. “We need to interact with family members. Having this data available to the family, so that they can understand if that patient’s at a dehydration risk, [or] a fall risk, having mobility challenges, needs to go through advanced rehab — that they can live a happier and healthier life within their home, instead of being put off into a skilled nursing facility or even hospice at a time.”

Ronzio said veterans will always have a say in how their personal data is used.

“Having those data controls in place is tremendously important. From my perspective, I wouldn’t want all of my home data, all of my sleep data, all of my stuff, getting out there to anyone,” he said.

“As we talked about smart homes, my goal has always been to keep the data local to the person’s house. I don’t even want people sharing their data 100% with their medical staff. If you have a problem, we would be pushing out analytics that your devices can analyze your data with. And once you hit a tripwire or you hit a concern, you can select that you just want to share it with your loved ones,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the VA is setting up a Digital Health Office.

“This realignment is going to align a lot of virtual, a lot of AI, and a lot of technologies that typically had responsibilities in other places, into one area,” Ronzio said.

The creation of the Digital Health Office, he added, will impact the reporting structure of several hundred officials within the VA’s Central Office.

“It’s a major change to the organization. They’re moving a lot of different arms of VA under a Digital Health Officer. We have actings and interims in these positions right now for all the senior executives, so we’re still trying to figure out what this is really going to mean for the workforce,” Ronzio said.

VA’s Office of Information and Technology will remain its own separate entity, but Ronzio said the Digital Health Office will allow for greater collaboration with OIT.

“I’m hoping that we can actually improve the speed and efficiency of OIT’s processes to have secure systems rolled out. I’d anticipate that we can save some time just by having our internal communication. But if we can actually develop better relationships with OIT, this will have the potential to have dramatic results,” he said.

“Some of my projects in the past have taken two or three years to manifest. Now that we have access to people in our own organization and have more communication at the undersecretary level and above for digital health, this should actually speed up our iteration and speed up our ability to produce something,” he added.

The post VA looking at ‘smart home’ tech to keep aging, disabled vets living independently first appeared on Federal News Network.

National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson, who is retiring in September, said sending Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border does little to contribute to their military training, adds stress to their families and impacts the Defense Department’s long-term goals of building the “combat capable National Guard.”

“As I’ve expressed within the building as well, there is no military training value for what we do. This is a law enforcement mission under the Department of Homeland Security,” Hokanson said during the Senate Appropriations Committee budget hearing.

“I know that we’re providing additional support along there. But for our Guardsmen there, they might as well be deployed to Kuwait or somewhere overseas, because they’re away from their families. They’re doing mission sets that are not directly applicable to their military skill set and so it increases their personal operational tempo. And that time, I think, would be better utilized building readiness to deter our adversaries.” he said.

The National Guard  has been providing logistical support to DHS for the last seven years. Hokanson said there are currently 2,500 troops deployed at the Southwest border under Title 10, but the number of Guardsmen stationed there has gone up and down during the last seven years.

Lawmakers and some DoD officials have long expressed concerns over the Department of Homeland Security’s continuing reliance on the Defense Department to support its border-related operations, which is not part of the DoD’s mission set.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who approved the DHS’s request to extend the Pentagon’s border mission through September 2024 last year, said the Defense Department uses its operating budget to fund the deployment of National Guard troops to the border to support DHS’s operations.

“Of course that means that there’s something else that we’re not doing because of that support,” Austin said during a Senate Defense Appropriations budget hearing in May.

“The price tag spent is about $4 billion. But we are supporting the agency, and DHS is a lead agency — it’s important to our country and we’re going to do that.”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who has criticized the White House’s border policies, pressed Defense Secretary Austin about DoD’s ongoing support of border operations and whether the administration should at all rely on the military to secure the border.

“I agree, [we should not]. But if we’re required to assist, certainly we will continue to do so,” Austin told lawmakers.

Despite the challenges the National Guard faces, including potential budget cuts in 2025, Hokanson said the Guard is still focused on operational readiness and building a force that is “manned, trained and equipped.”

“These are not insurmountable challenges, but they represent risks and vulnerabilities,” said Hokanson. “If we fail to modernize our equipment and force design adequately, we increase the risk of sending America’s sons and daughters into large-scale combat operations with equipment and formations that may not be fully interoperable with the active duty forces we serve alongside.”

The post Guard’s support of DHS adds no military value first appeared on Federal News Network.

The work is being led out of Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER). It comes amid growing concerns about hackers infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure, including the electric grid.

Puesh Kumar, the director of CESER, said “traditional large fossil generation” is often prohibited by regulations from using the cloud. But he said renewable energy providers are often starting out by relying on cloud computing.

“But really, we haven’t really sat down to define what are the security requirements? Who owns what part of the security picture? Is that the owner and operator? Or is it the cloud service provider?” Kumar said during a cybersecurity panel discussion hosted by Semafor in Washington on Tuesday.

“One of the big efforts that we’re going to be undertaking this year is really bringing together companies like [Google], to actually come together and establish those requirements for both sides, so that we can set up the energy sector of the future with that security built in,” Kumar added.

The CESER office is tasked with addressing emerging threats to energy infrastructure, including cyber risks, climate change and physical security. CESER is leading several initiatives to secure new energy technologies from cyber threats. Those programs are funded as part of the $27 billion Congress provided the Energy Department to modernize the electric grid in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Kumar said the energy sector is going through “tremendous change” right now.

“We’re trying to combat the climate risk,” he said. “We’re trying to deploy more clean energy. We’re trying to deploy more renewables and electric vehicles and all that’s really great. And that can be a source of resilience in our energy sector in the United States. It can bring online more generation that hasn’t been online into our grid. But we also have to do that with security in mind. And so, as we’re fundamentally changing this grid, we have to ensure that security is baked into it.”

In addition to cyber threats targeting the electric grid, policymakers are also focusing more on the so-called “shared responsibility model” that lays out the cybersecurity responsibilities of cloud providers and their customers. The security responsibilities of cloud providers has come under particular scrutiny in the wake of China’s hack into Microsoft’s cloud email infrastructure last year.

Jeanette Manfra, global director for security and compliance at Google, argued large cloud providers can make security “cheaper and easier” for their customers. Manfra is a former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency official.

“There’s a huge opportunity to leverage that scale, and to drive cloud providers to increase that level of security and safety and reliability,” Manfra said during the Semafor event. “I do believe it is the responsibility of cloud providers, particularly the largest ones, who are increasingly serving more and more critical infrastructure sectors, to have that high bar of security and safety. But there’s also risk because you start to consolidate on just a few companies. And so you have to think about what does that mean, that concentration risk? You have to think from a policy perspective of how you both leverage that opportunity, while also managing that potential concentration risk.”

The post Energy working with renewables industry, cloud providers on cyber requirements first appeared on Federal News Network.

OPM’s initiatives over the last couple years, such as banning the consideration of salary history, creating a job portal for internship openings, and broadening eligibility for paid internships through the Pathways Program, all aim to open the doors to more candidates and make the hiring process more equitable.

Even though the larger impacts of those changes are likely still further down the road, OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver said signs are pointing in the right direction, especially for OPM’s efforts centered on improving recruitment and retention of younger employees.

“I do think what we’re seeing is a renewed and increased interest in federal job opportunities by early-career talent,” Shriver told Federal News Network Tuesday during an event for federal interns hosted at OPM’s headquarters office.

Tuesday’s event was part of OPM’s intern experience program, now in its second year, which offers resources and hosts events for federal interns interested in pursuing a career in public service. The program aims to support early-career federal recruitment and retention overall. It’s also a step toward revitalizing the federal internship program, which has struggled for years.

Early-career numbers appear to be trending in a positive direction. Data from the Office of Management and Budget shows that between fiscal 2022 and 2023, the number of federal interns increased by 33%. There’s also been a recent uptick in the number of federal employees under age 30.

As part of the intern experience program, OPM hosted a panel Tuesday with senior leaders from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Department of Health and Human Services and Small Business Administration. Dozens of federal interns attended the event in person, with many more joining virtually to listen to the conversation.

“Events like these I think really help foster that engagement, that cohort spirit,” Shriver said after the panel.

Altering the Pathways Program

In another push toward better early-career recruitment, OPM is also now focused on helping agencies update their internal use of the Pathways Program, after finalizing new regulations in April. The recent updates to Pathways aim open the doors to more diverse applicants and alleviate some challenges agencies have historically had with the program.

The Pathways Program changes will still take a while to fully get off the ground, but Shriver said OPM is already working with agency HR offices as they iron out some of the early wrinkles to adjust their agency-specific programs and align with the new regulations.

“There’s a lot of stuff in there that is new for them to figure out, including the types of programs that now qualify — not only community colleges, but technical skills programs,” Shriver said. “Also the fact that now there’s a streamlined pathway to entry for registered apprentices, for people who participated in Job Corps, or [AmeriCorps] VISTA volunteers. [We are] making sure that not only central HR, but HR out in the field, are understanding these new flexibilities.”

That work to help HR offices and other Pathways Program leaders at agencies also involves collaborating with chief human capital officers, hosting informational webinars and educating colleges about the opportunities now possible for a broader swath of candidates, Shriver said. Additionally, OPM is working with agency HR departments to participate in job fairs, reach out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and meet face to face with potential federal talent.

Just this week, OPM also met with other agencies to discuss its program, “Level Up to Public Service,” which focuses on expanding awareness around public service careers through partnerships with K-12 institutions and universities. The program particularly targets recruitment of individuals with disabilities who may be interested in pursuing federal employment.

“We’re getting a lot of really engaged people that are considering the federal government for a career. They’re asking smart questions, they’re navigating the hiring process, and so I think that our efforts to reach out and engage early-career talent are paying off,” Shriver said. “It’s just a matter of time, with these new tools that we put in place, before we’re going to start seeing that impact.”

Agency-specific targets for early-career talent

Senior leaders like Sara Bronin, chairwoman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said early-career employees and interns often bring new and different ideas to her agency.

“The nature of people in preservation is that we always want to keep things the way they are — that’s in some ways the definition of preservation,” Bronin told Federal News Network at OPM’s event Tuesday. “But a field like ours needs fresh perspectives.”

Because of the desire for those broader perspectives, Bronin said her office focuses significantly on early-career talent in both recruitment and development.

“I really try to help interns and early-career professionals understand the big picture, why we are doing something and what their specific contributions can add to that effort,” she said. “For managers, it’s really important to provide the context to arm interns and early-career professionals with information and to connect them with others in the field who can help enhance their understanding of what they’re doing — not just in the internship, but in how they might approach work beyond just their specific internship.”

Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to double their number of federal interns by the end of this summer, according to Performance.gov.

Kimberly Patrick, EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator for mission support, said while the agency is expanding its onboarding process to offer a full year of resources to new employees, that onboarding will also extend to all of the agency’s interns.

“We want to make this place as attractive as possible for our interns, so caring for them as well, as a part of that umbrella, is something that we’re looking to do, especially as we increased considerably the number of paid interns we’re having at the agency this year,” Patrick said at a June 6 GovExec event.

Alongside managing the intern experience program and other early-career talent efforts, OPM is also planning to create a governmentwide mentoring program for interns in the coming months.

“We talk about it a whole lot — how can we make the government a more attractive employer? What are the obstacles to bringing in early-career talent? And how can we be more competitive as agencies with the other opportunities that you all have?” Shriver said to the interns who attended OPM’s panel Tuesday. “We want to make sure you hear that message from us loud and clear.”

The post Early-career federal job openings seeing ‘renewed and increased’ interest, OPM’s Shriver says first appeared on Federal News Network.

Complaints are coming from contractors on the General Services Administration’s multiple-award schedule. They say contracting officers are trying to re-negotiate finished contracts and making unreasonable demands for information. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

Interview transcript 

Tom Temin  And you have found that this is mainly happening in the information technology part of the Unified Schedules program.

Larry Allen That’s right. And at the outset, you know, I’ve worked on the GSA Schedules program for well over 30 years. And we certainly have seen things ebb and flow over that time. But recently, the level of industry discussion on problems, particularly with the IT schedule, has been pointing up close to an all-time high. And it’s time to get these issues out in front of people… get a little disinfecting sunshine on them, if you will, so that we have a program that works better not just for contractors, but for government customers.

Tom Temin Well, what is happening? What are contracting officers actually doing, that the contractors are complaining about?

Larry Allen  They’re doing several things. I think one of the most notable things, Tom, is that there seems to be no end to the amount of data that contracting officers feel that they are entitled to. Papering the record, just one more set of transactional data, and you know, all of that data…everything a contractor submits, it has to be accurate, current and complete. And the more you’re asked to submit, the more, you’ve got to keep track of everything and make sure you’re meeting that standard. And if you’re not, then you are setting yourself up for some future potential audit problems, not to mention the paperwork that you’re having to provide in an endless stream of requests that come. One of the other things that’s happening is — and you alluded to it in the setup — and that is (for) contracts that are already in place, GSA has already negotiated it, the contracting officer has found that to be a fair and reasonable price. Six months (or) a year later, a company comes in and asks for a contract modification. And the contracting officer now uses that as an occasion to reopen negotiations on everything and say, ‘Well, wait a minute, that maybe wasn’t a fair and reasonable price.’ And the contractor is left saying, ‘Well, wait a minute, this is how I’ve been selling. I’ve been doing this for the last year, people enjoy doing business with me this way.’ You know, there’s only so much blood in the turnip that you can give. And that’s an issue too. I think one of the things that every contractor ought to be concerned about as well, Tom is contracting officers asking companies who have their contract set up through GSA’s Transactional Data Reporting pilot, for contractor-based sales information. That’s not supposed to happen at all. And it’s a real danger for me, I think, look, when TDR was set up, I put a blackbox warning out on it on exactly this issue. And since then, things have you know, mitigated a little bit where TDR has proven to be a viable pathway for companies who can’t use the traditional method to get on scheduled. But if we’re getting into a situation where there’s no standard for what constitutes enough data, or how much data because there’s not supposed to be any data in the first place, that is a moment that every TDR contractor should wake up and say, ‘Stop. What’s going on here?’

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners. I mean, there are legal restrictions on what the government can ask for — correct? — in what are basically totally commercial products. This is not cost plus contracts or development contracts, but simply commercial items available widely.

Larry Allen Right. And I think this is one of the disconnects, Tom. First of all, the Paperwork Reduction Act is a rule that even the schedules program has to adhere to, where the government is only supposed to make reasonable data requests. And in fact, GSA has to go out every so often, and renew its authority to collect data from contractors. Usually, that type of request is rubber stamped at the FAR Council. But right now, I don’t think it should be. It seems like if it just sales through the rulemaking process, then the idea is that whatever we’re asking for is fine, and we’re not asking for anything more than we should be. And that’s manifestly not the case. Ironically, we’re talking about this at a time when GSA is trying to be pro-environment, but there are a lot of trees that are losing their lives to provide the paperwork, the contracting officers want. Are you aware that GSA management is aware of this? And maybe we’ll do something to mitigate it… get some word out to their CEOs? Tom, I think they weren’t aware of it before this, but they’re aware of it now. I know that the schedules program management office is aware of these issues. They’ve already indicated that they want to have discussions with the contracting officer management team at the IT part of GSA. I think that’s a good idea. But I do think it’s going to take some senior level intervention here to say, ‘Hey, look, this program worked best when it’s a partnership. When contractors and GSA work together to serve our common federal customer. This is not a program that works well of contractors have a target on their back.’  And just because you’re doing $20 billions a year today through this program, from the IT schedule doesn’t mean that thus now and forevermore, it shall be. One need look no further, Tom, than the Oasis Plus Program and the fact that Oasis overtook the GSA professional services schedule in terms of sales a couple of years ago. So you can actually kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Tom Temin All right, well, we’ll keep an eye on that one and see what develops. Especially as you say, there’s a lot of G wax around that people can use alternatively to the to the schedules. Also your reporting that whistleblower lawsuits are reaching companies in greater frequency, especially to help enforce the cybersecurity regime.

Larry Allen That’s right, Tom, we’d forecast when all the cybersecurity rules started coming down, that the primary way that they would be enforced would be through whistleblower cases. And we’re just starting now to get some evidence that that’s actually what’s playing out. We had a whistleblower, this time, blowing the whistle against SAIC alleging that on one of their government contracts, they didn’t fulfill all the cybersecurity duties they were supposed to adhere to. We don’t know whether that’s true or not. But what we can say is that once the allegations were made, the contractor in this case acted in a way that is probably not a best practice. You don’t solely isolate the employee, you don’t take away their rights, you don’t fire them for blowing the whistle. There are FAR rules on that type of stuff. And you can actually make the situation worse for yourself. Because now instead of just having to defend against the cybersecurity allegations, you’ve got a retaliation suit that you’re gonna have to settle as well. So it’s just really full employment for your legal staff.

Tom Temin Yeah. So, what’s your best advice for companies then, besides making sure the cyber procedures are in place that are required to start with?

Larry Allen Well, I think at a basic level, if you have whistle — every company has, on paper anyway, whistleblower protections. Those whistleblower protections actually have to be operational. It’s nice to have them on a piece of paper, it’s nice to have them in a policy document, but they actually have to be lived. And don’t fear the people who blow the whistle. Look if, at a minimum, if you’d listened to the whistleblower in this case, you would have an opportunity to know whether or not the allegations were valid or not. Now you’ve got lawyers involved and the Department of Justice, it’s going to cost you a lot of money, it’s probably going to cost at least one person, their job in the company. And you didn’t need to do it. So, my advice is to relax, work through it, follow the rules that you’re supposed to follow. They’re there for a reason. And they can actually save you some time and aggravation.

Tom Temin I guess that’s our theme today. Stay within your guidelines and your lanes of travel, whether you’re government or industry.

Larry Allen I think that’s a good takeaway. These things exist for a reason and they help make sure that we have a good government market. And that’s really what the outline is. We want to be able to have the business of government run smoothly.

The post GSA contracting officers are driving schedule holders crazy first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Oregon will opt into Direct File next year, and expects other states will also do so ahead of the next filing season.

The IRS announced last week it will make its Direct File platform a permanent option for taxpayers to file their federal tax returns, after piloting the system this year with 12 states.

More than 140,000 taxpayers used the platform to file federal tax returns this year — exceeding the IRS’ goal of 100,000 users. About 19 million taxpayers living in those 12 states were eligible to use Direct File this year.

The Treasury Department expects at least 580,000 Oregon residents will be eligible to use the free online filing tool next filing season.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told reporters that Direct File will give taxpayers more options to file their taxes.

“Direct File is long overdue. It’s the kind of public service the government ought to be providing to Americans and Oregonians whenever they can,” Wyden said in a call Tuesday.

At a committee hearing at the end of this year’s filing season, Wyden praised the IRS for creating a free website that allows taxpayers to file their federal tax returns.

“The website was user-friendly, quick and easy to use. I went out and talked to some of those people who used it, and that was the answer that I got,” he said. “It didn’t hassle users with up charges for add-on services they didn’t need. It got overwhelmingly positive reviews. With Direct File, I believe the IRS has built a good tool that people are going to like, because it saves time, headaches and money.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that expanding Direct File will help taxpayers save time and money, “and ensure they receive the tax benefits they are owed.

“After a successful pilot this Filing Season, we are pleased to expand the program as a permanent offering and welcome Oregon as the first new state to offer this free new option to taxpayers,” Yellen said.

The IRS is adding more states to Direct File as House Republicans propose defunding the program.

The House Appropriations Committee released a fiscal 2025 spending bill earlier this month week that would cut IRS funding by nearly 18% and zero out funding for Direct File.

The full committee advanced the bill last week, and awaits a House floor vote.

Wyden told reporters he’ll “fight with everything I’ve got to protect Direct File.”

“If Republicans in the Congress have the opportunity, they are going to put an end to it,” he said.

Congressional Republicans have called Direct File wasteful and duplicative, since some tax software companies already allow taxpayers below a certain income threshold to file online for free through the Free File Alliance program. 

The IRS and U.S. Digital Service spent a combined $31.8 million to launch the Direct File pilot.

However, Wyden said taxpayers deserve more options in how they choose to file.

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, no longer participates in the IRS Free File program. But Intuit notified some taxpayers in Oregon that its TurboTax software might not have selected the best deduction option, resulting in a possible overpayment to the state.

The state of Oregon says this issue affects about 12,000 of its residents.

“It was another example of how the big software companies have been upcharging for products that aren’t that great to begin with,” Wyden said.

States that opt into Direct File have options in how they participate.

During the Direct File pilot, taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, and California were directed to a state-run tool to complete their state tax returns, after they filed their federal tax returns.

Taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York were also able to import their information from Direct File directly into the state-run platform, making it faster to file their state tax returns.

“Moving from Direct File to the state tool went very smoothly. Taxpayers were able to bring their information with them. It was able to prepopulate a lot of the information needed for a state tax return. And then taxpayers had to answer just a couple of additional state-specific questions to complete the filing of their state return,” an administration official told reporters.

The IRS limited participation in this year’s  Direct File pilot to taxpayers only reporting certain income types, such as wages on a Form W-2, and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

“Over the next few years, the goal is that direct files eligibility is expanded to cover the most common tax situations, especially those that affect working families,” another administration official told reporters.

The post IRS adds another state to Direct File, as House Republicans seek to defund it first appeared on Federal News Network.

Dogs are more than pets. They assist the blind, the emotionally troubled, and people stuck in hospitals. Dogs do countless tasks in law enforcement, military operations and national security. Now a bill in Congress would instruct the U.S. Mint to make coins that commemorate service dogs. Surcharges would go to an organization called America’s Vet Dogs. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with John Miller, the President and CEO of America’s VetDogs.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  And your organization is concerned with those dogs that can help veterans in their needs and get them matched with dogs that can help the veteran with whatever his or her problems might happen to be.

John Miller  Absolutely. So, our organization, America’s VetDogs has been around for 20 years now. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary last year. And we’ve placed over 1000 Dogs throughout the country, you know, with veterans and first responders. You know, we work throughout the country, all 50 states, and ultimately, our service is free of charge to all veterans and first responders. So, it’s a great service. And we look forward to helping and you’re trying to keep working to get the bill all the way through the Congress.

Tom Temin  And the status of the bill. Now it has passed the House and now there’s a Senate version.

John Miller  Correct? Yep. So, HR 807, passed last week. And now we’re on to the Senate. You know, these coin bills, as we’ve learned have special rules, you need a certain number of co-sponsors before they’ll act on them.  In the house, we needed 290. We wound up right before the vote with 299. In the Senate, we need 67 co-sponsors, all bipartisan, you know, on both the House and the Senate. And currently we’re at 29. But we’ve really just gotten started.

Tom Temin  And what would the bill specifically do?

John Miller  So the bill, as you mentioned authorizes the mint to create a three coin series that basically honors the service of working dogs and military dogs throughout the country, we had the opportunity to be contacted by the House Financial Services Committee to determine your level of interest after they’ve done some vetting, if we’d be interested in working with them to get the co-sponsors necessary to get this across the finish line.

Tom Temin  And do we know specifically what the coins would be that is silver dollars or quarters or what?

John Miller  All the final details are done once the bill is actually the passed by the Senate and signed by the President. But you know, the House version, you know, has it’s a three-coin set gold coins, silver coins, and what they call clad coins, they would have a different design on each and you can buy them individually or as a set. But all of those details really we don’t get into until after the it’s becoming reality.

Tom Temin  Right, but what we know now won’t be like quarters, like the states are silver dollars.

John Miller  No, no, it’ll be it’ll be gold coins, silver coins, and what they call clad coins, which are fairly common in you know, these collectible series that the mints produce.

Tom Temin  Right, collectible series, and then we don’t know what they would charge but all of the money would go to your organization.

John Miller  No, so the way it works is there’s a surcharge associated with these coins. So, each level of coin will have a surcharge associated, the mint sets the pricing and the quantities. Once you know the coin goes to market, we’re anticipating if we stay on track here that this would happen in 2027. And so, you know, for instance, I know the surcharge on the gold coins would be $35. That’s what we would get, you know, the mint, you know, and the government doesn’t really have any financial risk at this, you know, they get fully paid back first. Once whatever it costs the mint to produce, then, you know, we would get the surcharges from the coins.

Tom Temin  So, in other words, the surcharge is what dealers or resellers would charge on top of what the mint basic price is?

John Miller  Yeah, I think the surcharge starts with the mint, the way I understand it. And so that’s what our opportunity would be.

Tom Temin   We’re speaking with John Miller, President and CEO of America’s VetDogs. But your release said that America’s VetDogs would get all of the surcharges. There’s lots of organizations that connect dogs and veterans and servicemembers. How is it that just that dogs of America is the recipient?

John Miller  So, America’s VetDogs as I mentioned was. . . We were reached out to by staffers of the House Financial Services committee to determine our level of interest in working with them and the program. We spent quite a bit of time with our volunteers and veterans up on Capitol Hill to ensure we get the requisite number of cosponsors. And try to get it over the finish line, which we did in the House last week. So, it’s not like we were campaigning for something like that. The opportunity came towards us, and we learned what needed to be done, and learned what needed to be done to move forward.

Tom Temin  Yeah, so your organization has a pretty good ratio of benefit to overhead.

John Miller  Yeah, we’re at 82% And if you look at all the stuff that we’ve done and some of the relationships we’ve had, you know, we have the highest ratings on you know, all of the charity watchdog type of agencies were four stars on Charity Navigator, platinum on Candid and yeah, we’ve had some opportunities to work in different government entities, you know, we had the one of the most famous dogs we’ve had was Sully HW Bush, from former president George HW Bush towards the end of his life after Mrs. Bush had passed away. Sully is actually now at Walter Reed Medical Center, you know. We’ve had a relationship with the Washington Capitals, down there in DC, and their second dog Biscuit is actually with Sully at Walter Reed. We have a facility dog, Charlie, over at the Pentagon. We’re not new to this type of, you know, environment. And it’s really interesting, because, as I mentioned earlier, everything we do is free of charge. So, we have to basically raise almost every you know, every dollar we spend, and you know, each dog costs us over $50,000 to get set. But every part of the process, you know, from breeding, to training, to placing, you know, to making the right match for the veteran and the dog, all of that is covered by the organization. So, there’s zero outlay from a veteran.

Tom Temin  And how does it work, by the way, someone is in need of a dog, and they apply. Are all the dogs the same breed, like golden Labrador Retrievers, or then where do the dogs themselves originate? And how do they get trained and transferred to the recipient?

John Miller  Sure, so we breed all the dogs that we use, and all of our breeds are predominantly Labs, Goldens and crosses of Labs and Goldens. And that’s predominantly because all of our training is positive reinforcement, which means food motivated. And those breeds, you know, have the best temperament and take to the food-based training the best we found in our history.

Tom Temin  Wow. So, you breed your own? And who trains them? And how do you do the match?

John Miller  Yeah, so it’s actually a very, you know, intricate process, you know, we have the capacity to breed about 400 dogs a year. you know, it’s a two-year cycle, you know, for us. So, we’re breeding dogs now for a year from them. And when you look at the cycle, I’ll run you through it. So, for the first eight weeks, the dogs are based, you know, here with us, you know, primarily on Long Island, you know, we make sure that they’re healthy, well adjusted, you know, get the first set of shots, you know. And then we have one of two tracks, you know, that we go on. right track One is we have about, you know, somewhere between 12 to 1600 volunteers across the country who helped us raise the dogs and, you know, their first year of life. or, you know, alternatively, we have 14 different prison programs, you know, we work with, you know, throughout the country, and some of the best dogs, including Sully have come out of prison, you know. Sully came out of a prison in Maryland. So, the dogs will be with them until about the 16-month part, it’s not your exact date specific. Each dog is a little different based on the cycles. And that’s when the dogs will come back here and what we call in for training to be assessed. And that’s really where the matching process begins. For instance, President Bush received Sully when later in his life after Mrs. Bush had passed, and the President was primarily in a wheelchair when he was out in public. So we needed a very certain type of dog for that are very relaxed, very, let’s say, chill, you know, type of dog to work with the President, as opposed to a gentleman who is usually with me on Capitol Hill, who happens to be an amputee, but also now a competitive bodybuilder, who leads a very active lifestyle. So, we needed a very different type of dog for that gentleman. you know, he needed a bigger, more energetic type of dog and then Sully was.  So that’s really the key step in all of this, making sure we find the right match, because if we would have matched those dogs the other way, it probably wouldn’t have worked for either one. So, we take a lot of time and effort there. And so, once we know what that match is going to be, then we have professional accredited trainers, who we work with here will train the dogs custom to what is needed for that veteran.

The post If this bill passes, U.S. Mint would start issuing bite coin first appeared on Federal News Network.

Under the ongoing federal “zero trust” push, data is often considered one of the most important but least mature area for federal agencies.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which maintains the “zero trust maturity model” that serves as a roadmap for agencies, is also working to better understand, protect, and connect its cybersecurity data, according to Grant Dasher, architecture branch chief within the office of the technical director at CISA.

“Data is one of the areas of the zero trust transition that probably has gotten a little bit less attention, but that’s not because it’s not critically important,” Dasher said on Federal News Network. “We do think it’s critically important.”

Dasher said one of his big jobs is to help CISA’s cybersecurity teams gain an understanding of the agency’s internal data holdings. That work is critical to programs like Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM), which provides cybersecurity services and dashboards to the entire federal civilian executive branch.

“We are applying strong security controls to the data that we steward, and making sure that we understand it and connect it between different parts of the mission, so that they can make effective use of it,” Dasher said.

CISA’s chief data stewards

To help address the data challenge, Dasher said CISA has identified “chief data stewards” who are responsible for managing specific datasets across the agency. Those responsibilities include identifying the metadata characteristics that are necessary to both share and protect the information in question.

“We think developing that understanding is critical, because then on top of that, you can put in place data governance controls,” Dasher said. “You can say, ‘Okay, well, this person is the data owner, or the data steward. And so this is the person who should be able to approve, for example, access requests to that data by other parts of the organization’.”

CISA’s zero trust support

Combining data access controls with strong identity governance is a key aspect of moving away from perimeter-based cybersecurity and toward a zero trust architecture.

Within the CDM program, CISA has made a major investment in Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools that agencies are adopting as part of the zero trust push. Dasher said CISA has also helped some smaller agencies with identity security. And the cyber agency is also helping agencies adopt its Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) guidance.

Ultimately, though, Dasher said there’s no one-size-fits all solution to improving data security across federal agencies. But he said its key for agencies to embrace established best practices in cyber risk management.

“There’s a natural tension here between enabling access to support the mission and providing security,” Dasher said. “We can’t let security become something that prevents the government from delivering services to its to its constituents. But we have to protect the data. And so finding how to triangulate that is really the crux of data protection.”

The post CISA looks to set the example for data stewardship under ‘zero trust’ push first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Navy plans to invest more than a billion dollars over ten years to revitalize an old facility: The 19th century Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, Maryland. It is where the Navy plans to re-do the infrastructure and machinery to produce munitions. For details, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with the center’s technical director, Ashley Johnson.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin
Give us the brief rundown on what happens now at Indian Head. I’ve actually been there. And it looks a little bit out of the way you might say.

Ashley Johnson
Yes, it’s out of the way. It’s been in Southern Maryland since 1890. But it is out of the way. Probably on purpose, to some extent, because of the nature of the business. But we have been at the forefront of what the Navy’s ability is to produce munitions and energetic materials for well over 100 years. And this evolution is really just the beginning of every modernization and sustainment activity for the capability that’s been in the Navy for over 100 years.

Tom Temin
Right now a lot of the work is testing of devices, for example, the chargers that release ordinance from the bottom of airplane wings, that kind of thing.

Ashley Johnson
It has a full spectrum munitions facility, it’s classified as the Navy’s only public arsenal. So we have activities that range from research and development through manufacturing, engineering, as well as tested evaluation, and even as far as it says demilitarization. So, when we say a full spectrum facility, we really do mean in a cradle to grave sense.

Tom Temin
And you also have a facility to make energetics, the stuff that makes pellets go in what looks like the world’s biggest bread mixer.

Ashley Johnson
Yeah, that’s true. Much of what’s used in the manufacture of energetic materials was borrowed from the baking industry. And that’s based on simplicity and the ability for us to control what is inherently pretty dangerous operation with simple equipment. But it’s obviously not quite that simple. But there’s a lot of similarities. And we have incorporated much of that equipment at very large scale, so that we can support production of not only, as you said, the propellants and the explosives or what I would call, more or less, intermediate materials. But we can make those materials and then put them into finished assemblies, like rocket motors, or warheads or other materials for combat capability.

Tom Temin
And tell us about the modernization then. The Navy apparently is committed to Indian Head. What’s going to happen over the next 10 years?

Ashley Johnson
Well it’s no surprise. So for those who are looking at the news, you’ve seen the pressures that have been applied throughout the world, particularly starting with Ukraine and potential adversaries. There is a renewed awareness of the need for conventional ammunition, and the consumption of that ammunition and munitions over a long conflict. So what we have realized is the United States is our munitions industrial base has shrunk over the last 15, 20-25 years, because of our focus in other areas. And as a result, the pressure that’s being put not only on commercial industry, but also on what we call the organic industrial base, or that which is owned by the government is at a premium, and Indian Head is significant in terms of its capacity. We are a very large part of what we call composite manufacturing, which is the modern way of manufacturing rocket motors and warheads and things of that nature. So the Navy, recognizing this, and the Secretary committing to this idea that it owns an arsenal, and it needs to use it in the context of this whole situation, has committed to a 10-year-program to essentially sustain and restore and to modernize the entire facility. Indian head has a site that’s worth replacement values, five to $6 billion. And it would be difficult to duplicate, even if you have that money. So investing in a facility like this is really much more efficient than trying to accomplish it some other way. So the Navy’s gonna invest first, to restore a lot of things that have been taken care of in a way that’s forced us to make decisions. So there’s some things that we should have been taken care of a little bit better than we have. And so we’re going to fix those things to unlock some latent capacity. And then we’re going to modernize equipment to get to more state of the art manufacturing methods, as well as just simply increasing capacity in the sense of multiplying three or four or 5x times the number of things that we can do. And this will get us down the road. As I said 10 years it will take to accomplish this. But we will start to get returns on that investment immediately. And then we will sort of reset the clock, if you will, for Indian head and into the future.

Tom Temin
We’re speaking with Ashley Johnson. He is the technical director of the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head, Maryland. And sounds like that you will be overseeing the construction of additional buildings or fixing up old ones, and also new equipment, new foundry gear and that kind of thing.

Ashley Johnson
Absolutely. It’s pretty much everything that you might imagine. Something very simple, even as simple as paving roads and facing electrical distribution systems or lighting or steam lines or fire protection systems which at first blush wouldn’t be the first things maybe you’d come to mind when you’re talking about state of the art munitions. But those are the things that you’re required right in order to run the factory. And then you know at the high end, as you said there’s very specific mixing presses, cutters, things that are directly related to the manufacturer of the material. And those need to be modernized and taken advantage of where we can depart from industrial age technology and moving into information age technology.

Tom Temin
I was gonna say even basic ordinance today has electronic components in it that might not have had in the World War II era. Tell us more about what that requires.

Ashley Johnson
Most of the advances, to be honest with you, over the last, say 30 or 40-50 years since major conflicts have been in what I would describe as the front end of a lot of these items for missile systems, guidance and control has been where a lot of advances have been made, and for good reason with regard to precision and accuracy. But a lot of what we still need, or still benefit from and need to improve is the items that are directly related to range, right to speed to what we call terminal effects or what the device does when it gets to its target. We also manage the signature or how well you can see the device as it’s doing its job as a function of energy and materials. So these are the parts that also have to be managed. And frankly, those have been left behind as opposed to some of the investments that have been made, as I said, in this guidance in control, or are more front end electronics of the business. So it’s a business of making sure that we don’t put too much emphasis on one aspect of ammunition, it’s all got to get better.

Tom Temin
And what about the manpower to do this production, it sounds like pretty skilled work. And you only got about 25, 2600 people down there. What about the human capital side of it?

Ashley Johnson
It’s a challenge for not only us, but also the entire industry. There’s a huge swing in these things. As you look over the years. In the United States there used to be 12 tactical rocket motor manufacturers at one point. Now there are only two, that’s commercial. And so the number of individuals that were associated with this in the commercial space, as well as the government space. And I do mean from laborers, to technicians, to engineers to advanced degree folks, the whole numbers down. So as an industry, both commercial and government, it’s a challenge for us to find folks that have any experience in this area, we’re taking on folks that are knowledgeable skilled, they have degrees, they have all that training. But it does require a significant amount of on the job training, as you might expect to handle something that says dangerous, is what it is that we handle. As I finally said, we don’t make toasters here. And that’s not an affront anybody that makes toasters, but the problem is it’s dangerous, and we can’t afford to make mistakes. Because it could be a significant risk to mission or risk to our force. And so we take that training very seriously. And it puts a premium on finding individuals that have the skills, but also on the time that it takes us to get them ready to do the job.

Tom Temin
The toasters are all made in China anyway, so who cares about them, but you’ll have to get more people, you have to increase the workforce, and therefore have a way of attracting them to Indian Head, Maryland, which is beautiful country, by the way. But it’s a little out of the way, relative to the Baltimore-Washington area.

Ashley Johnson
It’s funny you say that. It’s really an issue of first, of course, attraction. We don’t have a lot of problem, honestly, attracting people. The nature of our business is pretty exciting for lots of reasons. You can be a patriot, you can defend your country, you can be a civil servant. And people are excited about that one. So they learn what level of impact that they can have. I think the other is or the nature of our businesses exciting. Things that go wish and things that go bang and it’s an unusual, it’s an off the beaten path. Again, it excites people. The hardest part for us is really the time that it takes to get people to a high level of competence, as I started this on the job training and the patience that it requires to be there. And then also the retention which speaks to what you said, what is the area look around, people want nice things, people want a nice place to live, they want whatever their dunkin donuts or subways or whatever it is that they’re looking for close by. And so they look, and then they determine how long they want to stay. And these is really the issues that address how it is that we can maintain a workforce. And that’s why we work so hard to partner with local and state governments to make sure that we put our best foot forward. Because as we go to all that trouble of attracting and training talent, it’s pretty debilitating or disappointing when when people leave.

Tom Temin
And you have been at Indian Head now yourself for about 35 years fair to say, this must be kind of exciting from a personal standpoint.

Ashley Johnson
It is. Obviously you got some level of commitment to this. But it’s interesting, quite frankly, to see some of the parallels. They’re all story if you want a new idea, read an old book. I see a lot of similarities. I came here in 1987 nearing the end of the Cold War, and I was facing the adversary that was the Soviet Union. I see a lot of parallels. I’m not gonna make any predictions, but I see a lot of parallels to our situations now. And so it’s interesting to watch that happen. And it’s humbling and gratifying at the same time to be able to be a part of this renaissance in this resurgence in a facility that’s one of the oldest the Navy has. It’s got a rich and storied past of being able to deliver what the Navy needs and it’s getting ready to do it again.

The post How the Navy plans to modernize its one-and-only arsenal first appeared on Federal News Network.

In a step toward enabling the next-generation synchronized command and control, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks recently announced the Defense Department has delivered its initial iteration of the Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) capability. While this marks a notable advancement, DoD must continue its efforts to evolve CJADC2 beyond its current basic operational ability. To achieve seamless integration of assets and personnel, defense leaders should model after the successful implementation of the Mission Partner Environment (MPE) in the Indo-Pacific region, which offers valuable lessons.    

The operational intricacy    

At their core, MPEs are designed to facilitate real-time communication of relevant information among U.S. military and mission partners while maintaining necessary security levels to guide warfighter decision-makers. Traditionally, it involves a desk with multiple screens, each connected to a different network, unique access codes and encryption protocols, and a KVM switch to control it all.     

In the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), those days are gone.     

Taking a multi-enclave client (MEC) approach, the desk is now simplified to a single console. Authorized users can access and share relevant information from various sources using an integrated mission network, so decisions can be made in real time, and coalition environments can be formed in days instead of weeks.    

Conquering the complexity    

DoD can duplicate USINDOPACOM’s transformation to rapidly implement multi-enclave environments on a broader scale in support of CJADC2. The sheer volume of approximately 17,000 isolated and protected computing environments supported by the command’s network is a testament to the MEC capability built on a hyper-converged infrastructure and private cloud architecture. Virtual infrastructure, which includes desktop virtualization hosting desktop environments on a central server, plays a vital role in connecting all the elements of the MPE landscape, such as applications, data, clouds, APIs, processes, chat, voice and video devices.     

USINDOPACOM’s effective consolidation of siloed data, duplicate copies of information, and separate networks into a single sign-on, data-centric information domain represents a pivotal stride toward the realization of JADC2 and, ultimately, CJADC2. This demonstration of the U.S. military’s robust capability to share information across domains instantly and securely will encourage allies and partners to actively engage in the exchange of intelligence and collaboration necessary to establish a formidable and unyielding collective defense posture.     

However, the next step of enabling instantaneous but strictly controlled access to ensure the right data is released to authorized users is an intense undertaking. It requires a ground-up, zero-trust architecture design that undergoes continuous testing to detect vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them.    

To facilitate safe and secure communication for the U.S. and its allies during peacetime and conflict, USINDOPACOM transitioned defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on the users, assets and resources. Bolstering security through zero trust identity verification to provide the right people access to the right information in the right place enabled granular control of data and assets, resulting in a more secure and controlled mission partner environment.    

Setting the stage for AI     

By prioritizing data and taking a rigorous approach to its access to ensure integrity, USINDOPACOM has paved the way for the adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning to support decision-making. In such a data-centric network environment, artificial intelligence and machine learning can be deployed to continuously monitor and analyze information to identify threats or opportunities as they emerge. The ability to quickly scour through thousands of pieces of data to elevate pertinent information for review and flag trends, threats and opportunities provides a significant decision advantage, allowing accelerated tasking and advanced force management. It is an example of a proactive approach to future readiness that can guide the evolution of CJADC2.     

Success template    

The deployment of USINDOPACOM’s MPE has been a sophisticated and collaborative effort that required a combination of best practices, advanced technologies and skilled personnel. It relied on a multi-team integration framework that functioned as a requirements traceability matrix for all projects. The project lifecycle comprised repeatable processes mapped to a structured work plan that supported over 250 standard and non-standard USINDOPACOM Theater Component Command requirements.    

Several operational lessons can be drawn from USINDOPACOM’s MPE deployment to aid CJADC2 success. First, designing, implementing and maintaining information domains involves adept configuration of hardware and software, security and integrity assurance, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting for numerous application service centers, hundreds of service points and thousands of endpoints. Second, a team of proficient network engineers is essential for this rigorous undertaking. Lastly, managing MPE enclaves and their authority to operate necessitates a disciplined, structured process and the integration of information security and risk management activities throughout the system development life cycle.  

 Proof positive  

USINDOPACOM has dramatically enhanced its capacity to exchange information and intelligence, collaborate, and establish interoperability with partner nations and organizations. That transformation illuminated the path forward for enabling JADC2 and, subsequently, CJADC2.  

Steve Robles is vice president of Coalition Network Engineering at SOSi.  

The post USINDOPACOM Mission Partner Environment success:  A blueprint for CJADC2 path forward  first appeared on Federal News Network.

• When it comes to speeding up the Defense Department’s acquisition processes for big weapons systems, things are headed in the wrong direction. That is one of the findings of the Government Accountability Office’s annual assessment of the Pentagon’s major procurements. GAO said on average, DoD’s major acquisition programs are taking 11 years to deliver their first capabilities — about three years longer than planned. The report also found slowdowns in DoD’s so-called “middle tier” of acquisition — a pathway that’s explicitly designed for speed.
  (Weapon Systems Annual Assessment - Government Accountability Office)
• The IRS is taking major strides to wean itself off paper. The IRS estimates more than 94% of individual taxpayers no longer need to send mail to the agency, and that 125 million pieces of correspondence can be submitted digitally each year. For taxpayers who still prefer filing paper tax returns, IRS is working on being able to digitize that paper return. “If you choose to send us the paper, we will process it. But we are ushering in some nice tools with the modernization," said Darnita Trower, the director of emerging programs and initiatives at the IRS. "We don't intend to have people continue keying in tax returns manually. We want to scan and extract that data,” Trower said.
  (IRS hit a ‘big milestone’ to wean itself off paper. What comes next? - Federal News Network)
• A National Science Foundation initiative aims to bring better data to the cyber workforce challenge. The Cybersecurity Workforce Data Initiative is out with a new report explaining how many official labor data sources do not fully account for cybersecurity work. That includes classifications used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Education Department. The initiative’s report recommends marrying up cyber workforce definitions with federal labor databases. And the initiative, led out of the NSF, is now preparing to potentially conduct a survey of the U.S. cyber workforce.
  (NSF initiative aims to bring better data to the cyber workforce challenge - Federal News Network)
• The Senate Armed Services Committee has greenlit a number of AI-related provisions in its version of the 2025 defense policy bill. The committee's version of the bill requires the Defense Department to initiate a pilot program that will assess the use of AI to improve DoD shipyards and manufacturing facilities operations. Lawmakers also want the Defense Department to develop a plan to ensure that the budgeting process for AI programs includes cost estimates for the full lifecycle of data management. The bill would also expand the duties of the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer Governing Council.
  (Senate lawmakers pushing a number of AI-related provisions - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• Victims of identity theft are waiting nearly two years, on average, for the IRS to give them their tax refunds. In cases where a scammer stole someone’s identify to get that person's refund check, the IRS took about 22 months to complete those cases. The National Taxpayer Advocate said the COVID-19 pandemic drove up wait times when the IRS shut down processing centers. But, so far this year, wait times are not going back down to pre-pandemic levels.
  (Identity theft victims are waiting nearly two years to receive their tax refunds - National Taxpayer Advocate)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency just ran the federal government’s first artificial intelligence tabletop exercises. It involved more than 50 AI experts from government and industry, who convened last week at a Microsoft facility in Reston, Virginia. The exercise simulated a cybersecurity incident on an AI-enabled system. The event will help shape an AI Security Incident Collaboration Playbook being developed by CISA’s Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative.
  (CISA, JCDC, government and industry partners conduct AI tabletop exercise - CISA)
• Senate lawmakers are seeking to limit funding available for the Defense Department's initiative designed to support cyber operations across the military services. It is known as the Joint Warfighting Cyber Architecture (JCWA). The Senate version of the defense policy bill is looking to restrict funding available for the effort until the commander of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) provides a comprehensive plan to minimize work on the current JCWA. The Senate Armed Services committee also wants CYBERCOM to create a baseline plan for a more advanced version of JCWA. House and Senate leaders will begin negotiating the defense bill once the Senate clears its final version of the measure.
  (Senate seeks to limit funding for JCWA - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• The Biden Administration is contemplating a new acquisition policy that would clear up some confusion on when contractors have to follow the government’s rigorous cost-accounting standards. The Cost Accounting Standards Board is asking for public feedback on potential rules that would lay out exactly how those standards apply to indefinite delivery contracts. According to the Government Accountability Office, those types of agreements make up about half of federal contract spending, but there are not clear standards on when the cost accounting standards apply to them.
  (Whether and How to Amend CAS Rule - Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Cost Accounting Standards Board)

The post Major DoD acquisition programs taking too long, GAO says first appeared on Federal News Network.

After June 2024, the National Archives and Records Administration will no longer accept analog records into their collections. Agencies across the country are tasked with transitioning paper and physical records into digital formats. One of those agencies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, has already taken significant steps to meet those requirements.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility corporation, provides services to Tennessee, along with portions of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia, a population of approximately 10 million customers. With that mission comes the responsibility to collect, maintain and provide public access to an enormous and ever-growing number of records and documents like annual and quarterly reports, bond offerings, notice of reservoir levels, maps, charts, models and other general information.

“Over the last five years, we’ve consistently generated around five million electronic records a year. That’s just under about 10 terabytes of records. Now overall, on any given day, we manage around 200 million temporary and permanent records that are in various stages of the records management lifecycle,” said Rebecca Coffey, Tennessee Valley Authority agency records officer and senior manager of enterprise records, on Federal Insights – Records Management.

Temporary and permanent records

The TVA, like most agencies, manages a collection of temporary and permanent records. The process for disposition of records is public to provide stakeholders continued access to where they are in the records management lifecyle.

“An agency will prepare a proposed schedule, send it to their designated archivist. Once we get an informal nod that this looks good and it aligns with other agencies, then those schedules get published in the Federal Register, and the public and other federal agencies have a chance to comment on them.” Coffey said

Records are made up of a variety of formats. What were primarily reports on paper make up about 70% of what is generated at TVA. The other 30%, considered mixed media, consists of text messages, emails, instant message chats, maps, photographs and other data streams that are generated as TVA conducts its work, like monitoring river levels.

“When they go to NARA for the final approval, they will decide the time frame. If the records have significant value, historical value, whether they are telling the story of TVA or the impact in the national story, the federal records will become permanent, which means that at a designated time, they will get sent to NARA. We will turn over ownership of those records to the National Archives,” Coffey said, on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “We obviously have different plans for how we’re going to manage those records, and it changes every year. With new technology comes new formats.”

Digital Transformation

“NARA is not focused so much on ‘have you digitized everything by this deadline,’ as much as it is ‘what is your plan,’ because obviously, across the federal agencies we don’t all have the resources to be able to implement it immediately,” Coffey said.

Agencies must also contend with digital records organization. Once transformed from paper to a digital entity, documents must also be encoded with metadata to make it searchable and easily retrieved when needed. NARA works as a partner for agencies in the digitization process. In the past, most records could be counted on to be a printout, but that has changed. Following directives from NARA and the Office of Management and Budget in 2011 and beyond, requiring an overhaul of records management, TVA has been operating under a series of initiatives.

“I’m really proud of the work our TVA team is doing. This has to do with some of our cultural resource records, our mapping and aerial photographs. We have a collection that goes back 100 years, and obviously those are not going to be the easiest things to digitize. We have our project: We are processing over a million frames of film and about 300,000 hard-copy maps. And what the team has done is they’ve thought about not just how we use them today, but how we could possibly use them in the future,”  Coffey said.

The post Tennessee Valley Authority takes on NARA’s digitization mandate first appeared on Federal News Network.

As its own ‘client zero’, IBM identified its human resources function back in 2017 for transformation with artificial intelligence. Today, the function is fully automated, and IBM has a wealth of insights and learnings to share that they hope can help federal agencies avoid some of the same pitfalls.

IBM took an AI-driven approach to transforming its HR function. For its test bed, the company used itself and came away with valuable lessons learned.

Now IBM can help federal agencies apply those lessons and — hopefully — avoid some of the same mistakes. That’s according to Mike Chon, IBM’s vice president and senior partner of talent transformation for the U.S. federal market.

“IBM has gained the efficiencies, it’s delivered on the employee experience, it has achieved a lot of the automations [and] productivity gains,” Chon said.

He cited statistics that tell the story. IBM employees have had nearly two million HR conversations with a virtual agent. Those have achieved resolution in 94% of the cases, meaning the employee didn’t need to proceed to a conversation with a live person.

Manager productivity

When seeking HR efficiencies, organizations tend to think initially in terms of self-service for employees. But Chon urged IT and HR staffs to think more broadly to include managers too.

“I also want to emphasize manager self-service,” he said. “I think that’s where the additional value can come in.”

It also requires a bit of rewiring of manager habits. Chon said that initially, he, like many experienced managers, was less inclined to invoke a chatbot than to simply call his HR representative with questions.

“I myself did not really adopt that [AI] paradigm right away,” he said. “My muscle memory was to call an HR person. Clock forward to today … I actually tend to go to our AI chatbot more than an HR manager.”

He added, IBM managerial uptake of the HR chatbot has reached 96% worldwide, accounting for 93% of the transactions.

HR presents a natural entry point for AI because it touches everyone.

“By introducing AI through HR, you’re really having this ability to embed the use of these tools throughout your enterprise,” Chon said. “I think that really starts to get people more comfortable.”

Use case approach

Having chosen the HR function, Chon said, IBM initially tried an overly comprehensive approach.

“When we first started this journey, we tried to boil the ocean. It was this big bang approach,” Chon said.

The company realized almost immediately that the tool wasn’t quite right, and people weren’t embracing it.

Lesson learned?

“Never seek the silver bullet,” Chon said. “It really forced everyone to put the brakes on this process” and rethink their approach.

The rethinking resulted in what Chon called a building block, use case-by-use case approach. The team started by identifying specific high-frequency or highly repetitive tasks, the automation of which would allow the team to spend less time on routine tasks and more on strategic, value add work. Data connected to each task helped with this identification, which  ultimately allowed the team to identify two use cases: employee time off and proof-of-employment letters. Before AI, employees would ask their HR representative how many vacation days they had left, and it could take days for HR to prepare and send employee proof of employment letters, Chon said. These tasks represented some of the most repetitive and time consuming for the function.

“AI gave employees the ability to find out their vacation days in seconds and generate their own employee verification letter from anywhere, anytime. And they get instant satisfaction because it happens right in front of them,” Chon said.

In the employment verification letter  use case, AI took the form of robotic process automation, he added.

Moreover, if a particular step to a task doesn’t work, HR and IT could simply turn it off and improve it, without affecting everything else that’s working well.

It’s also important to understand that in a small percentage of cases, employees will need to interact with humans; no AI agent can do everything. Therefore, Chon said, “we always give people the ability to connect to a live agent.” Careful data analysis of what leads to “off-ramps” helps with continuous improvement of the AI tool, he said.

Ultimately, Chon said, the HR AI-driven self-service option for employees and managers lets HR professionals become more productive, taking the drudgery out of HR processes, leaving people more time for “tackling things like recruiting and other high value activities like talent development.”

Ultimately, the key lessons learned from IBM’s experience center on employing a use-case driven approach. AI is successfully adopted with small wins, building blocks and steps. Larger, more strategic and transformational use cases don’t have one clear answer or outcome. The key is finding a use case — a workflow, process or task — that could be accelerated or improved through automation. This also allows for easier scaling to other parts of the agency.

“Now, I would say, seven years later, each time the team launches a new use case, it’s actually getting better and better,” Chon said.

Listen to the full show:

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In Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike frequently sponsor bills to invest more in STEM education and fill gaps in the cyber workforce. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is also implementing a widely supported national cyber workforce and education strategy.

But while everyone agrees there’s a gap, data on the U.S. cyber workforce is severely lacking compared to many other occupations. And as a new report shows, it’s often because official labor and education sources don’t yet reflect the changing landscape of cybersecurity work.

The Cybersecurity Workforce Data Initiative, authorized as part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, aims to “assess the feasibility of producing national estimates and statistical information on the cybersecurity workforce.” The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, housed within the National Science Foundation, is leading the initiative.

In May, the CWDI released a report on “cybersecurity workforce supply and demand” led by RTI International, a nonprofit research institute.

The report lays out many of the challenges in obtaining granular, ground-truth data on the cybersecurity workforce, as well as some recommendations for addressing those problems.

For instance, one of the most commonly used guides for explaining cybersecurity work is the “NICE Framework,” maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Widely regarded as essential to understanding different cyber roles, the NICE Framework has not been translated to align with traditional federal labor data used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Census Bureau.

“The NICE framework is not intended to be a prescriptive taxonomy. By our definition, and that within the NICE framework, cybersecurity does not fit easily into a single occupation code or title, and this presents a challenge to using existing labor market data,” Michael Hogan, one of the lead authors on the new repot, said during a June 10 workshop hosted by CWDI.

“In the absence of traditional data, administrative data providers have filled that gap,” Hogan added.

Those administrative providers include CyberSeek, a public-private partnership, that serves as one of the most commonly cited sources for cyber workforce data. CyberSeek currently estimates that there are nearly 470,000 open cybersecurity jobs across the country.

Another commonly referenced resource is ISC2’s cyber workforce study, which recently estimated there are 5.5 million cybersecurity workers and nearly 4 million job opening across the globe.

“These data and surveys are very valuable for capturing a subset of the workforce, but we believe that this data does not yet encompass the entire state of supply and demand for cybersecurity workers,” Hogan explained.

While many new pieces of legislation focus on increasing STEM education and expanding the pipeline of STEM graduates, the CWDI report notes that only 46% of college graduates in core cybersecurity positions had a degree that was closely related to their work.

“There is a lack of information about the knowledge, skills, and credentials required for cybersecurity work, the on-ramps into cybersecurity jobs, and the source of a potential mismatch between the work experience sought by employers versus the experience held by new graduates,” the report explains.

Part of the challenge is that cybersecurity is still a relatively new and evolving field. But yet another wrinkle is that while there are jobs that are clearly cybersecurity positions – information security analyst, for example – many other jobs could be considered cybersecurity-adjacent, as the CWDI report notes.

“We know that nearly every occupation today touches digital technology, and there are cybersecurity components to go along with it,” Hogan said. “This presents a challenge for us in putting a boundary around the cybersecurity workforce.”

The report offers a range of initial recommendations to better understand the cybersecurity workforce. It recommends, for instance, merging NIST’s NICE Framework with the Occupational Information Network, a public database sponsored by the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration.

It also recommends improving the Standard Occupational Classification to better reflect cybersecurity workers. The SOC is maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is used by federal agencies to classify workers into occupational categories.

Similar, the report recommends improving the Education Department’s Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) to better capture cybersecurity schooling data.

Meanwhile, Hogan said CWDI will continue to collect data and feedback as it prepares to potentially launch a pilot survey of the U.S. cybersecurity workforce later this year.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

The first known computer virus (worm) to replicate over a computer network (The Creeper worm) was created by BBN engineer Robert Thomas in 1971.

Source: Computer Timeline

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Beginning in 2025, OPM is adding stricter eligibility requirements to try to root out ineligible enrollees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program — something that’s been high on GAO’s radar for at least the last few years. A 2022 GAO report showed that OPM spends up to $1 billion each year on ineligible participants erroneously enrolled in FEHB.

“One of the biggest benefit systems in the country, and for decades, nobody checked these things,” Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told lawmakers on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a June 13 hearing.

Each year, GAO releases a report of the programs and spending areas across the federal government that could lead to significant cost savings for agencies. The changes that GAO recommends aren’t always complex, but to be able to implement the measures, agencies need resources, Dodaro said.

“This isn’t rocket science — I mean, it’s basically looking at those things and doing some good auditing,” Dodaro said. “It could be tackled as soon as the resources could be marshaled to do it.”

Agencies often ‘slow to act’

By putting more controls in place and creating stricter measures on who can actually enroll — and stay enrolled — in FEHB, OPM should be able to more effectively address the cost issues, GAO said. Identifying ineligible dependents has remained a top challenge for FEHB since 2018, according to OPM’s inspector general office.

“[OPM] recognized the significance of the issue, but like in a lot of cases, people are slow to act on a recommendation,” Dodaro told committee lawmakers. “That’s why we keep following up.”

Addressing the FEHB spending challenges will involve a multi-pronged approach from OPM. It’s a matter of finding and removing currently enrolled ineligible FEHB members and preventing new members from enrolling in error, while also making long-term data updates to more easily root out ineligible enrollees in the future.

OPM is already gearing up to take some of these steps beginning in 2025. Starting next year, federal employees will be required to provide eligibility documentation for any family members they want to add to their insurance coverage during Open Season. But on top of that, Dodaro said an audit of current FEHB enrollees is necessary.

“[OPM] has not yet gone back and looked at all the people that are already in the system as to whether they have legitimate numbers of … people who are eligible for services,” Dodaro said. “They could sample across federal agencies, they could get some participation. But there has to be a thorough audit done of existing people that are on the federal employee’s health benefit systems.”

OPM is planning to start on this path as well. During this year’s Open Season, agencies will be required to validate the eligibility of a random sample of FEHB participants. That sample must comprise at least 10% of elections for both Self-Plus-One and Self-and-Family enrollments. Where possible, OPM is also encouraging agencies to validate larger portions of enrollees. If agencies find ineligible members through that data collection, they’ll have to follow OPM’s instructions for removing them.

A centralized FEHB database

But another major barrier for OPM to make improvements, Dodaro said, is the agency’s lack of a central database of FEHB enrollees. Without a centralized system, it’s much more difficult to identify and remove erroneously enrolled FEHB participants.

“Current FEHB eligibility determination and enrollment is highly decentralized and requires cooperation between nearly 100 employing offices responsible for determining eligibility and enrolling more than 8 million members,” OPM said in April. “If funded, OPM could extend this same central enrollment system to all FEHB enrollments, which would allow OPM to manage and make consistent all FEHB enrollments and remove individuals who cease to be eligible for the program.”

OPM, as part of its fiscal 2025 budget request, is proposing legislation to build a centralized enrollment system for FEHB. With a central database, OPM would be able to more quickly address the problem and avoid the spending errors. That system, if it’s implemented, would be modeled after the centralized system OPM just recently built for the upcoming Postal Service Health Benefits program.

During the oversight committee hearing, Dodaro said OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver’s background in insurance should help OPM make headway and get the changes underway — as would asking the Office of Management and Budget for additional support.

“He knows what the shortcomings are,” Dodaro, speaking about Shriver, told House committee members last week. “The question he’s wrestling with is how can he implement all these things that need to be implemented as soon as possible, like getting a central repository in place.”

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