Friday Morning Federal Newscast – February 11th

House proposes billions more in cuts Final Air Force tanker bids are in

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

  • We told you yesterday about the House Appropriations Committee’s details for $74 billion dollars in cuts. Nevermind. Now, GOP leaders says they are scrapping that plan and upping the amount of non-security spending they want to slash from agency budgets to $100 billion dollars. GovExec reports House republicans including tea party members demanded more cuts from the original proposal at the House Republican Conference. The changes were made late last night. Committee Chairman Harold Rogers of Kentucky didn’t say where the new cuts would come from. Rodgers says in total, the reductions would be the largest in the nation’s history.
  • TSA administrator John Pistole is defending his decision to allow his agency’s employees to vote on limited collective bargaining rights. Pistole told a House Homeland Security subcommittee that granting the right to vote is one way he’s trying to change the work environment for the better. House Republicans called the hearing out of concern that unionization could have an impact on national security. Pistole took a rejected that idea. He said he would fire any workers who strike, slow their work due to disputes or who do anything to adversely affect security.
  • SBA Adminstrator Karen Mills is responding sharply to Federal News Radio’s series about poor personnel and contracting practices at the agency. Those claims have been aired this week in Federal News Radio’s special investigative series, “Discouraged and Disrespected at SBA“. Now, in an email to all employees, SBA Administrator Karen Mills says she and Deputy Administrator Marie Johns couldn’t disagree more with the picture the series paints. SBA has declined to provide an interview with Mills.
  • Food industry workers who become whistleblowers are now safer from retaliation. That’s thanks to a little-noticed provision in the food safety law the president signed last month. The Food Safety and Modernization Act is aimed at preventing food-borne sickness. It gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to order recalls. But the law also protects workers at regulated food companies from being fired, demoted or denied promotions or raises, if they speak up about what they think are violations.The non-profit Government Accountability Project sponsors a conference today to call attention to the new law.
  • The final tanker bids are in! Boeing and EADS have submitted their final proposals in the rematch to build a fleet of Air Force refueling tankers, reports Reuters. The deadline for those final bids is today. Neither the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Defense Department, nor the Air Force has said whether the tanker contract can be awarded under the current continuing resolution. The Air Force could announce a winner without immediately awarding the contract if a budget isn’t passed.
  • The top watchdog at the Securities and Exchange Commission says he’s found many instances of waste but still doesn’t want to cut that agency’s budget. Reuters reports SEC Inspector General David Kotz told lawmakers that the big problems are with procurement. He says the SEC makes excessive payments, unnecessary payments, and leases too much office space. But he says trimming the budget would mean cutting 600 jobs at the SEC, and that’s not what the problem is. To the SEC’s credit, Kotz said the agency has taken many of his recommendations to heart and worked to correct them.
  • The post office continues to lose money at a rapid pace, and risks default. Even though the postal service has cut staff, closed offices and will be consolidating other facilities, it isn’t enough. Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe says it will have a cash shortfall, and reach its statutory borrowing limit, by the end of the fiscal year. That means it could be forced to default on some of its financial obligations to the federal government. Without the requirement for advance health care payments, the USPS says it would have had a net profit of $226-million dollars for the quarter.
  • The Obama administration has closed the curtain on one window of transparency. GovExec reports, the administration has withdrawn a plan for agencies to post contracts and task orders online at a public web site. Fifteen responses came in during the comment period for the rule. Most were critical, saying it would create undue burdens on agencies and stifle competition. One respondent said trying to redact and post 30 million transactions a year would overwhelm agencies.
  • One House member is calling for an end to a federal drug control program she says is wasteful. Rep. Mary Bono Mack says the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, Pennsylvania duplicates work done by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The center is run by the Justice Department but funded by the Defense Department. The California Republican has introduced a bill that would pull its funding.
  • The Forest Service wants industry and conservation groups to get along better. Interior Secretary Tom Vilsack announces an overhaul of planning rules. He wants to give more authority to local forest supervisors in carrying out policies for timber access protection of animal and plant species. Vilsack says letting the supervisors use the best science available will keep the parties out of court. The goals is to let both wildlife protection and economic development advance more quickly. But the new rules would broaden the range of plants and animals subject to monitoring.

More news links

Air traffic control error numbers double

Potentially live Civil War shell found in Va. home

KC project slips from U.S. budget (The Kansas City Star)

CREW: The Capitol is Not a Frat House (press release)

THIS AFTERNOON ON FEDERAL NEWS RADIO

Coming up today on The DorobekInsider:

** Better, faster, cheaper… In procurement and acquisition. For the past three months, the Coast Guard has been testing a way of collaborating on a procurement. We’ll get a status report on how its going.

** And did you know that the government calibrates mercury thermometers? Really! But not for long. We’ll find out about what’s changed.

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