Friday federal headlines – July 31, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows. 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.

• Retired Rear Adm.  Earl Gay’s nomination to be the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management has been withdrawn. The White House sent Gay’s nomination to the Senate back in January. There’s no word yet on why Gay is no longer being considered for the position. (Federal News Radio)

• Agencies will have to designate one person to support the next President and incoming administration six months before Election Day. The Senate passed the Presidential Transitions Improvement Act. The bill also requires the General Services Administration to appoint a federal transition coordinator to oversee the team. No companion bill exists yet in the House. (GovExec)

• The FBI is having trouble filling key cybersecurity roles. The Justice Department inspector general reported the bureau did not fill all of its computer science vacancies. Some local cyber task forces are going without a specialist in the field. The IG said the bureau’s background investigation process is onerous. Job candidates have an easier time securing work in the private sector. And they can make more money there too. The FBI agreed with the IG’s recommendations to fine-tune its recruitment and hiring and retention strategies and work more closely with the private sector. (Justice Department OIG)

• A group representing 400 companies that do business with the government said the Office of Personnel Management needs to hurry up and help victims of the breach of its security clearance database. The government expects to award a contract for identity-protection services by mid-August. The Professional Services Council said victims, many of whom are contractors, should not have to wait that long. It said OPM should use an existing contract to provide interim coverage for 18 months. That’s what OPM is doing for the current and former federal employees, who were victims of a breach of its personnel database. (PSC Council)

• The Senate voted to fill a $3.3 billion gap in the Veterans Affairs Department’s budget. That means the department won’t have to close hospitals and clinics next month, as it had threatened. The bill lets the VA take money from its new Veterans Choice Fund to cover the shortfall elsewhere in its budget. The VA said use of the Choice Card program has been sluggish. At the same time, it’s paying more for veterans to get care at private facilities and for costly drugs like Hepatitis-C treatments. (Congress/Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs)

• The White House launched a national supercomputing initiative. President Barack Obama signed an executive order calling for collaboration among federal defense and civilian agencies, academics and computer companies. The National Strategic Computing Initiative aims to come up with the next generation of high performance computers, those that can execute quadrillions of operations per second. The initiative will be co-chaired by the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. (White House)

• The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council, ACT-IAC, is planning to deliver a slew of innovative cybersecurity ideas to the White House. Between now and the end of August, it’s collecting ideas using the idea-scale online platform. Organizers are breaking down the idea-gathering into eight topics, each defined by a single question, such as, how can agencies and industry build a better threat information sharing environment? ACT-IAC said it will deliver the best cybersecurity suggestions to federal CIO Tony Scott (ACT-IAC)

• The United States has spent billions of dollars bombing the Islamic State militants. Together with allies, it’s killed 10,000 of its members. Yet, intelligence agencies conclude, it’s all barely made a dent. The Islamic State militants can recruit and train people from all over the world faster than the United States and its allies can knock them off. The result is an expensive stalemate. Officials think the Islamic State is no weaker than it was when it got started. The views, given secretly to the Associated Press, contradict the optimism expressed by former envoy Gen. John Allen at a forum in Aspen. He said the United States is winning against the Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. (Federal News Radio)

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