US Border Patrol has new leader

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive.

• Two top Senate Armed Services Committee members said there’s hope in ending sequestration next year. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said sequestration is gutting the military when it needs funds the most. He said he’s willing to close some tax loopholes to increase military spending. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I) said he would also make concessions to get rid of sequestration forever.

• Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald said how good 2016 will be for the agency is up to Congress. McDonald wants it to fully fund the agency and pass legislative reforms to help VA transform itself. VA has requested about $79 billion in discretionary spending. It also wants the secretary to be able to appoint and discipline senior executives. (Federal News Radio)

• Boeing and Iran Air reached an agreement, marking the completion of the first major deal with an American company in the Islamic Republic since the nuclear deal was signed last year. Boeing didn’t give many details, but Iran Air said it wants new generations of Boeing jet liners. An Iranian official said the deal could be worth around $25 billion. (Associated Press)

• The Defense Department lifted a temporary hiring freeze for civilian jobs. The freeze applied to what the Pentagon calls the fourth estate, the sprawling headquarters activities outside of the three military departments. It was lifted after defense agencies and combatant commands detailed their plans to comply with an earlier initiative that required them to cut back their spending on civilian positions and reduce their number of supervisors compared to rank and file workers. Those plans are now part of a centralized database the DoD said it would use to hold officials accountable for a delayering initiative it announced a year ago. (Federal News Radio)

• The U.S. Border Patrol has a new leader. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske has picked Mark Morgan to be the new Border Patrol chief. Morgan was previously the assistant director for the FBI, where he led the training division. He’s been in the FBI for 20 years and served as the special agent in charge of the El Paso division. Morgan will oversee 21,000 border patrol agents. (Customs and Border Protection)

• The ban on using personal email on government computers appears to have been optional at Homeland Security. According to Judicial Watch, Secretary Jeh Johnson and 28 others accessed personal email accounts using their office machines. The practice was officially banned in February 2014 because of cybersecurity concerns. Judicial Watch sued DHS and got nearly 700 pages of records. They showed Johnson received his exemption on Day One. DHS officials denied to Congress the waivers existed. (Judicial Watch)

• The Commerce Department has a new director of its National Technical Information Service. Bloomberg News reports Avi Bender will serve as the new head of the data agency. He is the former chief technology officer of the Census Bureau. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said Bender will lead the NTIS as it heads in a new direction. (Bloomberg Government)

• Two projects received the majority of the funding in a special account to support governmentwide technology last year. The Office of Management and Budget spent just over $14 million on e-government projects in fiscal 2015. OMB’s latest report to Congress details the three areas that received all of the help. OMB said it spent almost $7 million on cloud computing and security services under the FedRAMP program. The administration gave almost $6 million to support the Data.gov effort. The final $1.25 million went to supporting the Performance.gov platform. OMB received $20 million in 2016 as part of the Information and Technology Oversight and Reform Fund. (The White House)

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