Wednesday federal headlines – November 19, 2014

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows each day. Our headlines are updated twice per day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — with the latest news affecting federal employees and contractors.

• One of the top cybersecurity officials at the Postal Service is leaving. NextGov reports Corporate Information Security Office Director Charles McGann is retiring. He’s been with USPS for 27 years. USPS told NextGov McGann’s retirement is not connected with the agency’s recent cyber attack. The breach potentially compromises personal files for about 800,000 USPS employees. (Nextgov)
• The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee elects as its next chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Chaffetz will take over for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). Chaffetz defeated Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Michael Turner (R-Ohio). Chaffetz has been active in bills affecting federal employee pay and benefits. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) will chair the Budget Committee. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) will succeed Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. (Federal News Radio)
• A Senate vote ensured business as usual for the National Security Agency. Senators defeated a bill that would have ended the NSA’s bulk collection of American phone records. It would have required the agency to seek a court order every time it wanted to analyze the records. Records themselves would be held by telecommunications carriers. The vote was nearly on party lines. The data collection is authorized under the USA Patriot Act. The whole thing comes up for renewal next year. (Federal News Radio)
• Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James wants to make all jobs in the service open to women. Right now, seven Air Force jobs are closed to women. The service is working on gender-neutral standards for those seven positions. They include combat rescue officer and enlisted combat controller. James said the Air Force already has more jobs open to women than any of the other military branches. She said she wants all Air Force jobs open to women in the next year and a half. (Federal News Radio)
• The House Oversight Committee is demanding answers on a suspected cyber attack at the State Department. The agency shut down its unclassified email system earlier this week. Lawmakers wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. They want to know when State first discovered the breach and what the agency has done since then to protect its systems. As of Monday, the email system was still down. Spokesman Jeff Rathke said the agency is investigating who, or what, caused the attack. (Federal News Radio)
• Telework at the Patent and Trademark Office came under fire at a House hearing. Commerce Inspector Generral Todd Zinser said PTO managers were denied access to time cards and other documents relating to examiners working from home. Zinser said this makes it look as if time-card abuse is tolerated by agency top executives. About half the agency’s examiners telework fulltime. Zinser told the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees there’s little supervision and it’s hard to tell how much abuse takes place. (Federal News Radio)
• Members of the House Transportation Committee from both parties seem ready to consider privatizing the air traffic control system. The Wall Street Journal reports the move could be included in the re-authorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration. At a hearing, witnesses from both the air transport industry and the controllers union expressed support for the idea. It would separate modernization and operations costs from the FAA’s other activities. That way, user fees would cover the billions needed to update the air traffic system. Several other countries, including Australia, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, have privatized air traffic control systems. (Wall Street Journal )
• Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Frederick Padilla is the new president of National Defense University. He was handed the university flag by Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Padilla succeeds Ambassador Wanda Nesbitt. Ceremonies took place in Lincoln Hall at NDU’s Fort McNair in Southwest Washington, D.C. Dempsey told faculty that they and the students who pass through NDU will deal with both nation-on-nation challenges as well as how the military deals with cartels, terror groups and national disasters. National Defense University admits both service members and civilian federal employees who study a range of military and public administration topics. (DoD)
• The Veterans Affairs Department is mailing its second round of choice cards this week. The cards go to veterans who are waiting more than 30 days for an appointment at a VA facility. Veterans can use the cards to get health care from local doctors and VA will foot the bill. The department said the choice cards have reduced wait times by 18 percent. VA sent its first round of cards two weeks ago. Those went to veterans who live at least 40 miles from a VA hospital or clinic. (VA)
• Auditors found a discrepancy in how much money union business costs an agency. A report from the Government Accountability Office showed official time could be much more than what the Office of Personnel Management estimates. GAO used a different method to calculate the costs of official time. That calculation is $5 million more than OPM’s. According to the report, OPM does not make reporting official time a priority. Auditors said OPM is missing an opportunity to improve data quality. GAO recommended that OPM consider other approaches to its cost estimate. (GAO)

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