Federal Drive

Tuesday Morning Federal Newscast – April 26th

Missile part falls off Navy jet, hits truck Time off due to royal wedding for some feds

Federal News Network Staff

April 26, 2011 9:21 am

4 min read

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.

The Government Accountability Office has handed partial victory to a company protesting GSA’s solicitation for travel services. But the ruling is unlikely to delay an award. GSA has a request for proposals on the street for a follow-on contract to upgrade agency e-travel systems. CarlsonWagonlit Sato Travel protested, saying language in the RFP is ambiguous. GAO said one of four protest grounds filed by CarlsonWagonlit had merit, but dismissed the other three. It asked GSA to rewrite the solicitation.
President Obama has signed an executive order, giving legs to a winning SAVE award idea. Federal agencies must cancel print subscriptions to the federal register – the government’s own journal of official activities. The White House says 4,700 fewer editions will be printed, saving the government at least $4 million a year. The winning idea comes from Federal Bureau of Prisons employee Trudy Givens of Wisconsin. She was honored by the President at a SAVE awards ceremony last month. The SAVE awards gather money saving suggestions from rank-and-file feds all over the country.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has a new economic advisor. Richard Berner, former chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley, joins Treasury as a counselor to the secretary. The Wall Street Journal reports Berner’s main job will be to establish an office of financial research. That office is mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law passed last year. It will feed information to the Financial Stability Oversight Council, also housed in Treasury.
A third air traffic controller has been fired for napping on the job. The Federal Aviation Administration says that since March, five incidents of sleeping on the job have surfaced, along with one of an air controller watching a DVD movie. And a plane carrying the first lady had to abort a landing. Still, on-the-job naps should be considered as part of a plan to address fatigue by air traffic controllers, airline pilots and others who work overnight shifts. That, according to a National Transportation Safety Board member, who cites studies that show short naps of between 20 and 30 minutes refresh workers suffering fatigue and help them remain alert when they return to their duties. FAA officials have said the recommendations are being reviewed.
A piece of a missile fell off a Navy jet, striking a truck in a Virginia Beach shopping mall parking lot. The Navy says the training missile’s wing fell from the Navy fighter jet as it flew back from a routine mission. Military.com reports, nobody was in the truck, nobody was hurt, and the truck was only slightly damaged. The incident is under investigation.
NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development agree to expand joint efforts at disaster relief using satellite imagery and other earth science data. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah sign a five-year memorandum of understanding. It expands a program called SERVIR that dates to 2003. SERVIR lets people in developing regions access Earth observation data to address challenges in agriculture, conservation, climate change, disaster response, weather forecasting, and energy and health issues.
First a letter and now a hearing. Senator Al Franken scheduling a hearing on hidden files found on smartphones and iPads. Franken chairs the newly formed Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law. The hearing will investigate whether American’s privacy at risk thanks to files that record the locations of mobile device users with iPhones, iPads and Androids. Representatives from Apple and Google have been invited to testify. Other witnesses include Justice Department officials and the Federal Trade Commission.
The Royal Wedding will mean a day off for U.S. diplomats in the United Kingdom. The Washington Post reports most embassy staffers will enjoy a shorter work week in honor of the Royal nuptials. Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married this Friday. Many diplomats already had Monday off because of Easter. U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Louis Susman, is scheduled to attend the wedding as the official representative of the U.S. government. No other U.S. officials and no foreign heads of state are invited to the wedding.