Tuesday federal headlines – July 7, 2015

In today's news, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) asks OPM's inspector general to conduct another investigation, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announces his ...

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.

  • Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) sent a letter to the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management and asked him to conduct another investigation, according to Defense Daily.  While the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigative Processing, or e-QIP system, has been taken offline, Tester said EPIC, the larger suite of products under which e-QIP is housed, remains vulnerable, despite significant investment into the system. Tester said OPM has never done a comprehensive security assessment of EPIC to make sure the system’s security controls meet requirements.  (Federal News Radio)
  • The White House is asking federal agencies to take climate change into consideration when crafting funding requests for buildings and other facilities. Its vehicle is the latest version of Circular A-11, the Office of Management and Budget document on how to prepare budgets. New language in A-11 is aimed at carrying out an earlier executive order to ensure government agencies are resilient in the face of natural disasters. Ali Saidi is OMB’s associate director for natural resources, energy and science. In a blog post he said the specific climate mitigation strategies will depend on the facility under consideration. (Federal News Radio)
  • Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced his 10-step plan for overhauling TSA’s training and security measures in a press release on Monday. Parts of the new plan include assessing performance standards for screening equipment, conducting random covert testing and increasing manual screenings with hand-held metal detectors at checkpoints. This comes a little over a month after preliminary results from the inspector general’s random TSA screenings revealed critical flaws in airport security. Johnson outlined the steps while introducing Pete Neffenger as TSA’s new administrator. (DHS)
  • President Obama said he will veto a final defense authorization bill the House and Senate hope to take to the White House in the coming days. The president said in a press briefing he won’t accept a budget that adheres to sequestration budget caps, because it shortchanges long-term requirements for new technologies and readiness. The Republican bill would keep sequestration caps in place, but adds an extra $38 billion to Overseas Contingency Operations funds in order to boost overall spending. Obama said non-defense spending on education and research was as important as spending on the military. (The Hill)
  • The Office of Personnel Management plans on hiring at least four more senior IT project managers for a security systems overhaul dubbed “The Shell.” Next Gov reports the new hires will lead critical upgrades to OPM’s decades-old systems. Parts of the overhaul will reinforce holes in data security, with features like a 24/7 security operations center and restricted remote access. Plans for upgrades began before OPM’s data breach last month. Job listings for the project managers positions are on USAJobs.gov. (NextGov)
  • FBI Director James Comey wrote an op-ed in national security blog Lawfare clarifying the Bureau’s position about the encryption standards. Comey has been pressing for Congress to give investigators a legal framework that would guarantee access to encrypted data with a warrant. Comey said his job is to keep people safe and that universal strong encryption will affect his ability to do that job. (Lawfare)

 

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