Monday federal headlines – October 5, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows. 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.

• President Barack Obama said he will not accept another short-term funding bill after the current one expires Dec. 11.The President said he wants a long-term bill to fund the government that lifts the freeze on the budgets of both the Pentagon and domestic agencies. Obama also said he will not negotiate over increasing the debt ceiling as part of the budget discussions. Treasury alerted Congress that the government would run out of money in early November. (Federal News Radio)

• A contested provision of the Defense authorization bill is making it through a congressional conference. A section of the bill recommends the Defense Department’s independent weapons tester evaluate unnecessary costs and schedule delays related to operational testing. DoD has taken a public stance against the provision saying multiple reports have shown that current testing procedures do not increase cost or cause schedule delays. Some members of Congress think otherwise and have included the section to signal to DoD it needs to work on the problem internally. (Federal News Radio)

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency is re-engineering DisasterAssistance.gov to better meet its customers’ needs. Visitors to the site now have to enter their personal information every time they need help after a major disaster. FEMA wants to change that. It said the survivor should be at the center of FEMA’s customer service process. The re-engineering project should be done in about two years. (Federal News Radio)

• The Defense Department wants all of its contractors to report cyber incidents. DoD issued an interim rule with a request for comments expanding the requirement for more than just vendors in the defense industrial base or DIB program to report cyber problems.
  The Pentagon wants to create a single approach to reporting any cyber incidents against unclassified systems. DoD especially wants to focus on attacks against technical information controlled under the traffic arms in regulations or export administration regulations.
  DoD is accepting comments through Dec. 2. (GPO)

• Industry and government experts finalized a matrix to help federal chief information officers comply with the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act. ACT-IAC released the matrix last week focusing on five broad areas including governance, budget and program management. A group of 50 experts developed the matrix over the last few months to give CIOs explicit linkages to the common baseline developed by OMB. OMB is currently reviewing agency plans for how they will transform to meet the common baseline as required by FITARA. (ACT-IAC)

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