Federal Drive with Tom Temin

A reskilled workforce and a continuing move toward a digital future are among the strategic imperatives laid out by the Government Publishing Office. GPO's new, five-year plan has a theme: America Informed. Federal Drive host Tom Temin talk about the details with GPO director Hugh Halpern. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Army is just weeks away from finally letting a significant cadre of soldiers and employees use personal mobile devices to connect to government systems. It’s part of a much larger endeavor to create a “unified network” that relies much more heavily on cloud technologies, zero trust principles and commercial solutions.The Army has been engaged in serious testing of technologies to underpin a bring-your-own-device strategy (BYOD) since at least last year. Now, officials are ready to roll it out to an initial user base of potentially thousands of soldiers and Army civilians.The pilot project should be underway within the next 45 days, said Lt. Gen. John Morrison, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for command, control, communications, cyber operations and networks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Halfway through an interagency goal to reduce food waste, the Department of Agriculture may have found the answer in a new way to keep food fresh. An investment from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is paving the way for a new type of ice cube to revolutionize how industries and individuals keep food cold and curb food waste. In 2015, the USDA, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration, set the country’s first-ever food loss and waste reduction goal, to cut food waste by 50% by 2030. Jelly ice is just one component to reducing food waste. Since 2017, NIFA has invested approximately $123 million across 527 projects Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A top artificial intelligence expert in the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations is leaving government. Lynne Parker, the deputy U.S. chief technology officer and director of the White House’s National AI Initiative Office, is returning to academia after seven years of federal service. Parker helped stand up the National AI Initiative Office last year, meant to help put federal AI research and development resources in the hands of more industry and academic partners. She’s also led efforts to develop the first federal R&D strategic plan, as well as subsequent updates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might say Voice of America was in turmoil. Big disagreements between agency staff and the Trump administration meant people were leaving, put on leave, or under investigation. A series of leaders had come and gone for several years. A day after the Biden administration started, it appointed Yolanda Lopez -- who had been removed from her job as news director only a week earlier -- as acting VOA director. Since then, employee engagement scores rose 13 points from below average to above average. Now Lopez is a finalist in this year's Service to America Medals program. Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked to her in-studio at Federal News Network HQ in the DMV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal agencies’ electronic medical records are about to get a lot more interoperable with private sector health providers. Agencies like DoD and VA are already members of eHealth Exchange, the country’s biggest health information exchange network. But they’ve now reached legal agreements that will let them start using a much broader health interoperability framework. That’ll add another 20 networks to the federal interoperability picture. Alan Swenson is executive director of Carequality, the nonprofit that runs the framework. He talked with Federal News Network’s Deputy Editor Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s been six years since DoD published its first-ever roadmap to build the “information environment” into its warfighting strategies. In the meantime, Congress has been pushing the department to add more details to what “operations in the information environment,” or OIE, really means. But in the meantime, the concept has had a real impact on DoD’s spending behavior. Robert Beuerlein is a recently-retired Army information warfare officer, now a principal consultant at Frost and Sullivan. He talked with Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu about the trends he’s seen in his research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies have a new deadline to ease some of their screening testing restrictions and COVID-19 protocols. As soon as possible, but no later than Aug. 22, agencies must stop certain screening testing programs that differentiate based on a visitor’s vaccination status, the Safer Federal Workforce task force said in updated guidance on Aug. 11. Agencies can still continue to conduct any screening testing that’s consistent regardless of an individual’s vaccination status. But agencies should wait for more guidance from the task force before revising or adding any screening program Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in January, the union that represents immigration judges ceased to exist, at least for contract bargaining purposes. The Federal Labor Relations Authority, then dominated by a majority of Trump appointees, determined the judges are actually management employees, and not eligible for union representation. But the board’s leadership has turned over since then. The National Association of Immigration Judges is now trying to get re-recognized as a federal union. The effort has two tracks. One is before FLRA itself, which now has a majority of Biden appointees. The other is a case now pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. To take a deeper look into all of this, Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu spokw with Mimi Tsankov, the union’s president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in the mid ‘90s, when the Education Department first started its current Direct Loan program for college students, the program was expected to turn a profit for the U.S. Treasury. The initial estimates were that it would bring in $114 billion over the next quarter century. Now that were here, that estimate turns out to be wrong...way wrong. The Government Accountability Office discovered the program has actually cost the government $197 billion. The reasons for that giant difference are pretty complex, so Federal Drive Deputy Editor Jared Serbu talked wit the lead author of a GAO report that examined the Direct Loan program: Melissa Emrey-Arras, GAO's Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A variety of local governments and non-profits recently received workforce training federal grants. The Economic Development Administration, part of the Commerce Department, awarded the grants under a program called, "The Good Jobs Challenge." The goal is to create job opportunities for 50,000 people. To find out how the program works, Federal Drive host Tom Temin spoke with Michele Chang, the deputy assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Innovation challenges were once a budding idea within the Defense Department, a fun way to listen to ideas within a community and award some cash for cool products that could help agencies. But now, after changes to sexual assault and harassment policies, an app that helps soldiers book ranges, aids for loading ammunition and gadgets to save energy, it seems like Shark Tank-like innovation challenges and the products they produce are here stay. There’s Spark Tank, STEAM Tank, the Maneuver Innovation Challenge, Dragon’s Lair, the Maintenance Innovation Challenge, Pitch Days, the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Innovation Challenge, Inventors Sprints, Innovation Discovery and plenty more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You might not think of the Navy as being in the space business. Yet the Naval Research Laboratory has a mission that spans pretty much every domain from underwater to space. In fact, there's a new director of the Lab's Naval Center for Space Technology. Steven Meier talked with Federal Drive host Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Usually, when people make something creative – a book, a photograph, a website – the person who made it owns the copyright, and anyone who wants to use that work needs to negotiate the rights to use it. That’s the general rule. But general rules don’t apply all the time, which is why we have lawyers. The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board deals with a special part of copyright law where Congress has said rightsholders don’t actually have a choice over whether their works can be used, but they do need to be compensated. The board has a new chief judge. He’s David Shaw. He talk about this specific part of copyright law with Federal News Network Deputy Editor Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody’s heard the term “space junk.” You’re probably aware there’s a bunch of it and that it’s a risk to satellites. The Space Force tracks tens of thousands of pieces of debris every day, but that’s only the big stuff. There are an estimated 100 million pieces of smaller bits – ten centimeters or less – that we can’t see from Earth with current technology. But just because they’re small doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous, Alexis Truitt, program manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, told Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices