Federal Drive with Tom Temin

A non-profit think tank known as the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology assembled the thinking of more than 50 thinkers in both cybersecurity and infrastructure. The result is a book that is intended to inform the thinking of both government officials and operators with responsibility for critical infrastructure. To hear how it all came together, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Joyce Hunter, the Institute's Executive Director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Civil Service Federal Employee Serving Overseas Pay Equity Act will establish a locality pay equivalent for some 265 active civilian federal employees, mostly State Department employees, working under the DETO program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Long controversial, the military vaccine mandate has been killed off by the just-enacted 2023 National Defense Authorization law. So now what? Can fired services members rejoin? To get some answers, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Anthony Kuhn, managing partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diversity and equity in the federal government is a top priority for the Biden administration. The 2021 executive order created a chief diversity officers' executive council led by OPM. The diversity leaders are at work on long-term changes, with a lot of planning, two council meetings and a DEIA summit. Federal News Network's Drew Friedman got the latest from the chief, Chief Diversity Officer, Janice Underwood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With a record-breaking new defense budget, Defense Contracting Management Agency wants to make sure individual agencies have the skills necessary to fulfill contracting obligations and follow all the rules. While many bigger agencies have internal review programs, smaller agencies rely on a procurement management review (PMR) to find errors in their contracting programs and identify best practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fighter plans and attack planes are known as tactical aircraft. The armed services have a lot of them, mostly old. So old, most of them are past their services lives. Yet they are still in the inventory and the Defense Department wants to spend a hundred billion dollars to refresh the fleet. The Government Accountability Office finds, DoD needs more detailed analysis before proceeding. To explore the details, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Marie Mak, GAO's Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions Issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal employees will be getting a nice raise now. But federal contractors are not totally certain they will be able to get inflation adjustments from their agency customers. That's despite the fact that the defense authorization law specifically mentioned contract modification for inflation relief. What's going on? Federal Drive host Tom Temin checked-in with the President and CEO of the Professional Services Council, David Berteau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For every would-be immigrant to the United States, there is a government form. Or several forms. A recent count of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services forms shows astonishing growth in the number and length of forms. To get some more details on all this, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the Cato Institute's associate director of immigration studies, David Bier. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The customer experience drive has not been lost on the Social Security Administration. Few if any agencies exceed the 180 million online visitors SSA receives every year. Now Social Security has made a significant upgrade to its public website to make it easier to use. To get the details, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with SSA's acting chief business officer, Eric Powers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Office of Personnel Management is ramping up work on IT modernization for both its main website and federal retirement services, but those are not the only changes coming from the agency’s Office of the Chief Information Officer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Department of Veterans Affairs expects to keep growing its benefits division’s workforce through the end of the fiscal year, now that it’s able to tackle a trove of veterans’ claims that’s been growing since the summer. The VA on Jan. 1 started processing all claims submitted under the PACT Act, which enables a historic expansion of eligibility for VA health care and benefits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Besides the tragedy-comedy drama over selection of a House Speaker, there is a rather potent agenda for the 118th Congress. Authorizations. Appropriations are so far off. Debt ceiling. And the gambits Republicans in the house are hoping to launch. To cover it all in 10 minutes, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should the government use its footprint in the mortgage market and disaster relief to force electrification of homes and schools? One froup called Rewiring America thinks so, and it has a long list of agenda items. To find out more, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Rewiring America's research director Stephen Pantano. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Forest Services, part of the Agriculture Department, is in the midst of a 10-year effort to better prevent wildfires, the kinds of seemingly out-of-control blazes that have charred millions of acres out west. With six months until the peak danger season, Federal Drive host Tom Temin checks-in with the strategy's program manager, Brian Ferebee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erv Koehler, the assistant commissioner of the Office of General Supplies and Services in the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, said upgrades to the pricing tool, the catalog and a pilot around creating a market basket will help improve the schedules program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices