Federal Drive with Tom Temin

Among its duties, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors the populations and health of ocean species, including whales and various seals in the polar regions. With how they do it, aided by some artificial intelligence, Marine Mammal Lab affiliate scientist Manuel Castellote, and zoologist Erin Moreland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

They're not quite sure how, but Defense Department planners are pretty sure they want 5G as part of the future of their communications. Who doesn't? To help figure it out, last year the Pentagon began funding a research group called the National Spectrum Consortium. To learn what it's been up to, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with the consortium's chairman, Sal D'Itri. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department is taking a whole new look at childcare services for its employees, starting this June. Single active duty service members and dual-spouse military families will get spots firs. They might even take filled spots from others. That'll come at the cost of DoD civilians and others. Federal News Network’s Scott Maucione joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin for the latest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission seeks to restore two cyber oversight roles eliminated during the Trump administration. Its final report recommends a national cyber director reporting to the president. It would also create a Bureau of Cyberspace Security and Emerging Technologies at the State Department, led by an assistant secretary. Those are two of 75 recommendations that mostly require Congressional enablement. Federal News Network's Jory Heckman discussed this with the co-chair of the commission, Maine Senator Angus King, as well as Tom Fanning, CEO of the Southern Company and a solarium commissioner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Department's attempt to award a cloud computing contract known has JEDI has become an epic drama. The show hit intermission last month when a federal judge issued an injunction, stopping work DoD had started with winning bidder Microsoft. How did Amazon, the losing bidder prevail? For analysis the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to procurement attorney Joseph Petrillo of Petrillo and Powell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Artificial intelligence is coming to the way the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors populations of endangered species in the polar regions. Including, beluga whales, ice seals and polar bears. They'll do it from a camera-equipped, turboprop airplane. How they came to partner with Microsoft is a story in itself. First, we hear from Microsoft principle scientist with the AI for Earth program, Dan Morris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies are testing their telework programs to prepare for the possibility of a local coronavirus outbreak. But there's one portion of the federal workforce where telework is not an option. The Intelligence and National Security Alliance is looking for some reassurances from the intelligence community, that classified federal employees and contractors will be protected and will get paid if secure facilities are forced to close. For more, and why classified workers can't work from home, Federal News Network's Nicole Ogrysko spoke with INSA's vice president for policy, Larry Hanauer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The whole premise of the mission act, to provide veterans with health care services outside of the VA system, won't work if providers don't get paid. But reports of that very phenomenon keep coming in. That's prompted demands for action by the Veterans Health Administration from members of Congress. Among them, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee, New Hampshire's Chris Pappas who joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to lay out his concerns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal administrative agencies — and that’s nearly all of them — get their name because they administer regulations spawned by laws. It takes people to make the countless decisions made in the every administrative state. Now some academics have looked into whether artificial intelligence might help agencies do our work. Stanford Law School law professor David Freeman Engstrom joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin with what they found. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Federal employees sometimes face hell or high water. When disaster of some sort strikes, feds often turn to the Federal Employee Education and Assistance Fund for help. This June, FEEA will be one of charitable recipients of proceeds from Federal News Network's Motorcycle Ride for Charity. For more about FEEA, joining me in studio is FEEA's executive director, Joyce Warner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's not easy accounting for each of the $5.1 trillion it takes to operate the government every year. But someones got to do it. He may not count them all personally, but our guest tries to make some sense of out of this immense sum. Here with a summary of the summary, the chief accountant of the Government Accountability Office, Robert Dacey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Navy’s global supply chain for parts and other supplies is vastly complicated. As it stands now, parts of it have too much inventory, and others have too little. To help balance things, Naval Supply Systems Command is turning to a private sector concept called an integrated supply chain control tower. It uses the Navy’s vast data warehouses – plus machine learning – to build better forecasts of what’s needed, where, and when. Kurt Wendelken is the vice commander of NAVSUP. He talked about the control tower idea with Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Office of Personnel Management is attempting to reassure federal employee unions: Those long-awaited paid parental leave benefits will be ready on time and as intended. The National Treasury Employees Union had raised some doubts about OPM’s plans for paid parental leave. Federal News Network’s Nicole Ogrysko joins me now to explain the debate and what feds might be able to expect with the new benefit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remember the N-1 virus? How about ebola? Now that the corona virus is the big scare du jour, federal contractors are reworking some time proven plans for dealing with a government that might itself be in crisis. With more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to the Professional Services Council's executive vice president and counsel Alan Chvotkin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Agencies have a lot of questions about how they're supposed handle telework, sick leave and other unexpected scenarios that seem to be popping up daily with the spread of the coronavirus. The Office of Personnel Management has brand new guidance that tackles some of these questions. And agencies are starting to ramp up other preparations. The military is preparing in multiple ways too. Federal News Network's Scott Maucione and Nicole Ogrysko joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to explain what agencies are doing, and what else they should do to prepare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices