Tuesday Morning Federal Newsstand

Written by Phil Vogel Edited by Suzanne Kubota This morning’s federal news as heard on WFED: The head of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, d...

Written by Phil Vogel
Edited by Suzanne Kubota

This morning’s federal news as heard on WFED:

The head of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, defended federal workers at the second annual excellence in Government conference. He said that federal workers have become an unfair and undeserving political punching bag. The speech also focused on his goal to create better workplace environment for federal workers, including exploring the possibility that federal agencies within close proximity to each other might share facilities like gyms or health care centers.

Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), says the Treasury Department has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations aimed at making the $700 billion dollar program more accountable and transparent. The treasury’s inaction means taxpayers have not been told what the financial institutions that have received assistance are doing with the money. He adds that taxpayers may be burdened with the more than $24 trillion dollars price tag as the federal government tries to save financial companies and the economy.

The General Services Administration is going to release a updated copy of the Smartronix contract for the redesign of Recovery.gov this week, according to a NextGov report. No protests have yet been filed with the Government Accountability Office by competing bidders. The website is supposed to be ready by early October and there is no publicized plan B if it is not ready.

The Department of Justice has Carolina on its mind. DOJ is moving part of its attorney operations from Washington to Columbia, South Carolina. Justice will use buildings on the University of South Carolina’s business school for staffers from the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in Washington. The move is expected to take around four years.

The Obama administration on Monday pushed back its own deadline for devising new anti-terrorism policies. The appointed task forces have failed to meet a six-month schedule for making policy recommendations on how terror suspects should be interrogated and held in custody. The delay is likely to last six-months for the report on detention and two months for the report on interrogation and transfer policy.

President Obama intends to nominate Jill Sommers to another term as a commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Sommers has been the commissioner since August 2007 and her term had expired on April 13, 2009. The CFTC is an independent federal agency that regulates commodity futures and option markets in the United States.

The Department of Energy is allocating $47 million dollars from the Recovery Act for smart grid projects. The goal of the projects is to accelerate the development of a modernized and more secure electrical grid.A transparency website is also being developed by DOE that will be charged with answering questions from the public and distributing information about smart grid initiatives happening nationwide.

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Medicare took one year; overhaul to take nearly 10

Obama, Mormon leader meet in Oval Office

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