Federal Drive with Tom Temin

A government shutdown in three weeks is unlikely, but Congress still has to work out the details of a Continuing Resolution. Then there's the matter of the $47 billion in immediate spending the White House has requested for COVID relief and a few other things. For the latest , Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked with WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A three-member panel of federal judges upheld an injunction that stopped the mandate that federal contractors have COVID vaccinations. It was not a unanimous decision. The same panel -- to which the Biden Administration had appealed the injunction -- agreed that the injunction should not be nationwide. Confusing? You bet. Federal Drive host Tom Temin tried to cut throught the confusion by talking with Jenner and Block partner Matthew Haws. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A program established by the National Academy of Public Administration just marked its first year of operation. The Center for Intergovernmental Partnerships has already contributed to NAPA's work on the grand challenges in public administration. For more, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the center's director Nancy Augustine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The White House is pulling together a new cybersecurity workforce strategy that promises to help the federal government grapple with longstanding cyber workforce challenges, including an emphasis on stronger implementation mechanisms to ensure agencies follow through on the plan’s goals and objectives. Agencies have long struggled to compete with the private sector for cyber talent. Mounting cyber threats combined with a tight labor market cast an especially acute focus on efforts to recruit and retain the technology workforce at this year’s Billington Cyber Summit in Washington. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Industry has lodged a pretty strong objection to the latest version of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, known as CMMC. The Defense Department has been working and reworking CMMC for several years. It's an attempt to make sure contractors have the controls in place to safeguard controlled unclassified information. The Coalition for Government Procurement has raised the latest objections. In this interview, Federal Drive host Tom Temin gets the latest from Rob Metzger, a coalition member and procurement attorney. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've heard the stories. People receiving Social Security payouts after they've died. It all stems from whether the Social Security Administration has the latest and most complete death records. Problem is, those are administered by the states. Last year Congress asked the National Academy of Public Administration to examine the sources of data for Social Security and how well it can access them. To ask about what they found, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the study's co-author, Barbara Bovjberg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department is preparing new guidance that would give its contracting officers more flexibility to reimburse vendors whose costs have ballooned because of inflation, updating an earlier policy document that industry groups complained did too little to prevent contractors from bearing the full brunt of higher prices.The update is in the final review stages and should be published within the next week, said Dr. Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment. A key focus would be to offer relief to companies who signed firm fixed-price contracts with the government before inflation took hold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department is preparing new guidance that would give its contracting officers more flexibility to reimburse vendors whose costs have ballooned because of inflation, updating an earlier policy document that industry groups complained did too little to prevent contractors from bearing the full brunt of higher prices.The update is in the final review stages and should be published within the next week, said Dr. Bill LaPlante, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment. A key focus would be to offer relief to companies who signed firm fixed-price contracts with the government before inflation took hold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four years ago when the Office of Federal Procurement Policy set a deadline of 2022 to train acquisition workers to buy technology differently, it thought it was giving agencies plenty of time to accomplish this goal. The idea of the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Program (DITAP) came from a competition held in 2015 to improve the federal government’s approach to buying digital services. Joanie Newhart, the associate administrator for acquisition workforce programs at OFPP, said agencies will come close to meeting deadline set in 2018 to institutionalize the DITAP process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'd think the government would be the most skilled buyer of office supplies in the world. It has the most offices after all. But a recent attempt at a blanket purchase agreement landed the General Services Administration into a big fat protest with Office Depot. To learn more about this, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Smith Pachter McWhorter procurement attorney Joe Petrillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Institutes of Health could be called Clinical Trials - R - Us. It funds or conducts dozens of medical trials every year. Trials come with statutory requirements to report results. Now the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has found shortcomings in NIH reporting on clinical trials. For more on this, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with HHS assistant regional inspector general Sylvie Witten. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Science Foundation has joined up with the Czech Science Foundation, the NSF's counterpart in the Czech Republic. The two agencies are funding research into an area you probably never thought of. Namely: How to produce gamma rays with high powered lasers. Somebody has to think about this and Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with one of them, the head of the NSF office of international science and engineering, Kendra Sharp. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In recent years, the Navy struggled with a handful of accidents that led to the death of sailors and damage to expensive warships.The collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a commercial ship in 2017, which killed 17, was an alarm bell for the Navy. Since then, after multiple reviews and Congressional investigations, the Navy is changing its approach to safety and in March elevated its Navy Safety Center to the 2-star-led Navy Safety Command. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biden administration, expecting Congress will need more time to pass a comprehensive spending package for fiscal 2023, is requesting $47 billion in emergency funds to last through the end of the calendar year. Nearly half the funding would go toward the federal government’s response to COVID-19. That includes the rollout of updated booster shots approved this week by the Food and Drug Administration and restarting a program to deliver free COVID-19 rapid tests to households. The administration is also seeking emergency funding for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 to support its response to the monkeypox outbreak, as well as supporting the war in Ukraine and providing domestic disaster relief. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Services contractors are wondering just what their options are now that the Biden administration lost an appeal of a federal court ruling. The ruling upheld an injunction against the contractor vaccine mandate. But the same three-judge panel also said the injunction should not be national. Now companies are wondering whether every contracting officer will have read the confusing advice from the White House. To learn more, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with the president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, David Berteau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices