Federal Drive with Tom Temin

The Army is locked and loaded, and not only its weapons. The service has a new readiness strategy focused on people, a strategy with repercussions for the personal lives of soldiers. It's called ReARMM, which stands for Regionally Aligned Readiness Modernization Model. ReARMM challenges some of the most basic tenants of the Army. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione has the latest from the Association of the U.S. Army conference.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The pandemic has damaged the economy. No question about it. But it's also stimulated record levels of federal contract spending. For just how high and where the money has gone, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to Bloomberg Government senior defense analyst Rob Levinson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to cybersecurity, federal agencies, along with many large organizations, are still digging out of the cybersecurity hole. Joining the Federal Drive with the big picture of how the pandemic inflamed the cybersecurity picture, and what to do about it, the Global Advisory Cybersecurity Leader at Ernst and Young, Kris Lovejoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NASA has been busy on a program to use the moon as a launch pad to Mars. It will spend a lot of money to do so. The agency wanted to get an idea of the economic impact of this program. So it undertook a detailed study covering 2019, partnering with the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For highlights, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to the NASA's chief economist in the office of the administrator, Alex MacDonald. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Army says it’s rapidly moving toward an era where all of its weapons systems and sensors not only communicate with one another – but also work together to help make decisions on the battlefield. The service proved out some of the concepts behind what it calls Project Convergence at a demonstration in the Arizona desert this summer. Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu has more on what the Army learned, and what leaders hope to do in future events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal employees and retirees will pay more toward their health premiums in 2021. The Office of Personnel Management announced the premium rates for next year ahead of the upcoming open season. The increases themselves aren't a huge surprise. The COVID-19 pandemic did have an impact, but maybe not in the way you might think. Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko joined the Federal Drive to walk us through what you can expect for next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the pandemic and teleworking drag on, people stuck at home are starting to discover the secondary effect of isolation from coworkers: There's no one to commiserate with, no happy chance encounters, no exposure to bosses for potential promotion. Here to ruminate on the dark side of perpetual telework, long-time leadership scholar Bob Tobias joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Surveys showing how much people like teleworking have a flaw: The respondents are often self-selected telework enthusiasts. Teleworking has some serious financial, career and social challenges, according to Kati Peditto. She's assistant professor of human factors in the department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and she joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's one thing for Congress to give you an extra $700 billion in the middle of a fiscal year. It's something else to be told "get rid of it as fast as possible." That in a nut shell is what the Small Business Administration did earlier this year in the now-famous Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans. The Government Accountability Office was handed the job of auditing the auditing of SBA. The Director of GAO’s Financial Markets and Community Investment team, Bill Shear, spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin about what it's found so far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The IRS, over a decade of budget cuts, has gotten used to doing more with less. But the workload put on the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched the agency to its limits. In getting stimulus funding out the door and managing an extended filing season the IRS has had to make due with limited staff and legacy I-T systems. For more, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department is putting a big down payment on 5G communications technology. It's awarded some $600 million worth of contracts at several locations. For the details from this week's DoD Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Network's Scott Maucione joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Senate is almost totally occupied with a topic of six syllables: Amy Coney Barrett. President Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court. Important as this debate it, it crowds out other important business in a compressed time period. The Federal Drive got a look ahead from WTOP capitol hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The General Services Administration has gone underwater with a reworked small business acquisition vehicle. Dubbed Polaris, the proposed vehicle is a replacement for the failed Alliant SB-2. Now, don't get too excited. The draft request for proposals won't be out for months. But GSA is promising a lot of innovation in this vehicle. For more, we turn to federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine malware, planted somewhere in your infrastructure, that can morph as the news and people's concerns change. That becomes a mechanism for malware-as-a-service to launch destructive ransomware attacks. That's exactly that the cybersecurity community is facing in Trickbot, which threatens to disrupt the upcoming elections. Now Microsoft has taken action against Trickbot. For what's going on, the Federal Drive turned to Microsoft vice president for customer security and trust, Tom Burt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s taken the better part of a decade-and-a-half for all 50 states to implement secure drivers’ licenses. Our next guest hopes the U.S. can pull off the digital equivalent of that in much less time. Congressman Bill Foster, an Illinois Democrat, is the chief sponsor of the Improving Digital Identity Act. The bipartisan measure is the first step in what its backers hope will eventually be a nationwide system of cyber-secure online credentials – and may eventually get rid of usernames and passwords for good. Foster talked about the legislation with Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices