The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear
Boeing has submitted its bid for a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract. Company leaders on Friday hand-delivered an 8,000 page proposal to the tanker program office in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Boeing has proposed a customized version of its 767 commercial aircraft to replace an aging fleet of KC-135 midair refueling tankers. Rival EADS submitted its bid last Thursday.
We told you the cuts were coming. Now we learn that layoffs at NASA have already begun. NASA officials let 500 aerospace workers go in Huntsville, Alabama in June. These are workers affiliated with the Constellation program, which the White House has wanted to kill. Congress is skeptical and wants to keep the program. Dr. Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, says that some new ideas include financial support for private firms to create rockets to haul cargo and humans to low-Earth orbits.
Federal agencies and contractors will need to begin reporting information on first-tier subcontracts. The interim rule published in the Federal Register also requires contractors to disclose the names and salaries of their five highest-paid executives. The rule is designed to bring the government into compliance with a contracting law signed almost four years ago, under former President Bush. The changes will be phased in slowly. Until September 30th, the rule applies only to awards where the prime contract amount is worth at least 20 million dollars. But starting in March of next year, it will apply to prime contracts worth at least 25-thousand dollars. There are exemptions.
The Office of Management and Budget wants to get agency financial system projects going again. So staff will start meetings this week with agencies to review revised plans. Last month work was halted on new financial systems or upgrades to existing ones. The White House found most of the projects late and over budget. CIO Vivek Kundra told reporters, the reason is that the projects are overly ambitious. He wants them trimmed back to more realistic goals. Thirty projects came under the moratorium.
A final vote on banking overhaul will take place this week. But already, the Securities and Exchange Commission is in overdrive, writing new rules expected to be part of the bill. Staff members are working on 90 new rules and conducting 20 new studies in anticipation of the president signing the bill, according to the Wall Street Journal. Under law governing rule-making, the agency has got to publish proposals immediately in order to have final regulations in place next year
The Federal Aviation Administration wants airlines to inspect their cockpit window heaters on more than 12-hundred Boeing aircraft. The window heaters have been tied to dozens of incidents involving in-flight fires, smoke, open streams of electricity known as electrical arcing, and shattered windshields in Boeing planes. In many cases, pilots have made emergency landings. The source of the problem was identified in 2004 as a simple loose screw that chafes power wires where they connect to heating wires in the windows. NTSB has been pushing the FAA since then to use a new window design that uses pins instead of screws. The safety order will be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.
OMB Director Peter Orszag will join the Council on Foreign Relations after he leaves government later this month. That’s according to OMB Communications Director Kenneth Baer in a report by CNN. Orszag announced his departure in June. His last day is July 30.
A top General believes that we’ll see a drop in the number of roadside bomb attacks by the end of the year. Lt. General Michael Oates tells USA Today that by December, the counterinsurgency strategy will be fully in place, and troops will have better equipment to deal with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. He believes that’ll discourage the use of IEDs, which is currently the number one killer of U.S. troops and the preferred weapon of insurgents. New equipment includes thousands of all-terrain Mine Resistant Ambush Protected trucks, or M-RAPS. The number of units assigned to clearing IEDs has doubled in the past six months. Soon, they’ll add 50 more blimps to their arsenal to to keep watch over roads.
The Jones Act is a 90-year-old federal maritime law, which requires that all goods shipped between U.S. ports be carried by vessels that are owned and operated by the U.S. Pacific Business News reports it is getting a critical second-look by lawmakers after the Deepwater rig explosion. The Jones Act is also known as The Merchant Marine Act of 1920. Lawmakers called on President Obama to waive the act so foreign vessels could help in the cleanup of the oil in the Gulf. It has come under fire before, but now Arizona Senator John McCain has introduced legislation that would do away with the act. He says it hinders free trade and favors labor unions over consumers. McCain’s legislation is getting bipartisan support from Hawaii’s lawmakers. Critics of the act say it drives up prices for consumers, especially in Hawaii.
Those 10 spies flown back to Russia last had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from their mother country. And they posed a threat to the United States even though they never passed along any secrets. That’s the assessment of Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking on CBS Face the Nation. Holder said the U.S. got a fair deal in sending the 10 back home in exchange for four U.S. spies sent back from Russia.
It’s way too hot to be thinking about winter, but the 2010 Capitol Christmas Tree has been chosen from a site out in Wyoming. The location of the 67-foot spruce is somewhere in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, but the precise spot is being kept secret until November when it’s cut down and trucked across the country. Last year’s tree came from Arizona.
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