Federal Drive with Tom Temin

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Persistence and focus have paid off for one Labor Department policy advisor. His beat for 23 years of federal service has been access for people with disabilities, access to transportation, jobs, and technology at the federal and state levels. For his work he's a finalist in this year's Service to America Medals program. Supervisory Policy Advisor Michael Reardon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At a recent financial industry conference, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission called for a shift in how organizations think about cybersecurity. She called for a change from an incident response mentality, to a resilience mentality. My next guest has some ideas for how that might actually happen. Igor Volovich is vice president for compliance strategy at Qmulos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ever since the first Microsoft Word macro attack, documents have been a source of malware delivery. Thirty years later it's still a problem. Word documents, PDFs, photographs, spreadsheets, they all remain potent delivery mechanisms for hackers. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has for several years run a program called SafeDocs, aimed a creating documents that do not become attack surfaces. The Federal Drive got an update from DARPA program manager Sergey Bratus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The government has managed to trim improper payments, after a surge at the height of the pandemic. A group of agencies have a three-year plan to really take on improper payments. In fact, the Joint Financial Management and Improvement Program will to release a Payment Integrity Plan this fall. For a preview, Federal News Network’s Jory Heckman spoke with the Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Accounting Policy and Financial Transparency, Renata Miskell  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, has launched a new challenge competition with help from some of the top artificial intelligence companies. It’s aimed at using AI to find and fix software weaknesses in critical networks. White House officials hope it will showcase something good about AI. Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday has more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's cybersecurity, and then there's cyberwarfare. My next guest is both an academic and a practitioner of cyber wargames. He's here to update us on the types of exercises going on right now in federal agencies. David Brumley is CEO of AllSecure, and recently returned to Carnegie Mellon University as a computer science professor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We just heard the macro view of how the immigration situation is cascading down to the Justice Department's immigration courts. For how it looks from the inside, the Federal Drive turned to the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, Mimi Tsankov. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Immigration courts have become what my next guest calls the dumping ground for the nation's systemic immigration failures. And that's caused enormous backlogs on the immigration court dockets. For more the Federal Drive turned to senior research associate at the University of Notre Dame, Don Kerwin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Six months after it was established by law, the Defense Management Institute has found its groove. The Institute, a sort of think tank for Pentagon management, has established human resources, healthcare and acquisition as topics to focus on. For more, Federal News Network's Alexandra Lohr spoke with the Institute's director, Peter Levine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The higher the ranks of the federal workforce, the less diversity. That been the case for decades in the Senior Executive Service. It's gotten a little more diverse in more recent years. But federal associations have ideas for how to widen representation in the government's top ranks. Federal News Network's Drew Friedman got more from Tyra Dent, president of the African American Federal Executive Association, and Marcus Hill, president of the Senior Executives Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Buy-American and not-buy-from-China rules have raised concerns from contractors. Meanwhile the FTC proposes new rules on contractor mergers that look practically unworkable. The Federal Drive got industry analysis from the executive vice president for policy at the Professional Services Council, Stephanie Kostro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Among the 40,000-odd counties in the United States are some really big ones. Like San Diego County, California. At the recent National Contract Management Association's World Congress, I caught up with the buying chief of San Diego, who would like to see the GSA multiple award schedules open permanently to states and counties. Among the topics I discussed with procurement and acquisition director Jack Pellegrino. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The great comedian Rodney Dangerfield became famous for his jokes about lack of respect, partly for being ugly. One went like this: He was so ugly as a child, his dad carried around the picture that came with the wallet. If buildings could talk, the Hubert H. Humphrey Federal Building, home to headquarters for the Health and Human Services Department, might also lament about being considered ugly. In fact, its become something of an internet thing, after a Washington newspaper called HHS the ugliest building in D.C. Here to speak for the 1976 structure, from Health and Human Services, online communications director Kelly Langford, and the acting assistant secretary for public affairs, Kamara Jones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Security Administration employees just got a historic pay raise. Now, the union representing TSA airport screeners is negotiating an expanded collective bargaining agreement. The progress for TSA employees in recent years has been swift. But it follows more than a decade of efforts to address low morale and high attrition at what is still one of the youngest federal agencies. For more, Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday joined the Federal Drive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices