Navy launches new ocean science task force

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

In today’s Top Federal Headlines, the president’s son-in-law will be in charge of a new office looking to overhaul the federal bureaucracy with ideas from business and technology executives.

• Jared Kushner said he’s going to head up an efficiency drive for the federal government, using technology execs for help. The president’s son-in-law told the Washington Post he’s aiming for what he calls excellence in government, through the White House Office of American Innovation. Kushner said he’ll get advice from people like Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The office will focus on Veterans Affairs issues and the government’s aging IT infrastructure. (Washington Post)

• The Office of Personnel Management is telling agencies to start planning for a government workforce reorganization, and possible reductions in force or furloughs. OPM has a new guidebook for agency leaders on how to plan for a reorg and it also updates its furlough guidance. OPM said agencies should think about the timing and scope of a possible reorganization, and consider how they’ll communicate their plans to employees. (Federal News Radio)

• Major changes are coming to a governmentwide cybersecurity initiative. The Homeland Security Department and the General Services Administration unveiled a new approach to a major cybersecurity program. DHS and GSA will evolve the contract for the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation or CDM program over the next year to a combination of the GSA Schedules and large task orders under governmentwide acquisition contracts. The current blanket purchase agreement expires in August 2018. GSA released an RFI to set up a new special item for CDM products under the schedules as the first step in this evolution.

• Former Defense Department officials and experts are taking a jab at civilian unions. A new study from the Bipartisan Policy Center suggests giving DoD direct authority over its civilian workers. That would hurt workers’ collective bargaining rights, but would also give the Pentagon a way to quickly hire talented people. (Federal News Radio)

• A new bill in Congress would let the president appoint another major government post. The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act would require that position be nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. It would also limit the register to a 10-year term, which can be renewed if the president and Senate choose to. (House Judiciary Committee)

• The Office the Register has created a new team to implement one of the current president’s policies. The Patent and Trademark Office has created the Working Group on Regulatory Reform to look at how PTO regulations can be improved and streamlined. This is to comply with President Trump’s executive order calling for a one-in-two-out regulation policy. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)

• A new task force from the Navy aims to investigate the state of ocean science. The branch’s top oceanographer Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet said Task Force Ocean will help the Navy advance ocean science to help maintain its competitive advantage in the undersea domain. (Department of Defense)

• The price of the Air Force’s forthcoming aerial refueling tanker is continuing to come down, but it’ll be delivered more than a year later than officials had planned on. According to the Government Accountability Office’s latest annual review of the KC-46 program, the total acquisition cost for 175 airplanes now stands at $44 billion dollars, about 14 percent less than when the Air Force first signed its contract with Boeing in 2011. GAO said that’s mostly because the military has resisted the temptation to change its requirements, and because the contract was structured so that Boeing absorbs the cost of unforeseen development problems. And there have been a few problems. Because of that, the delivery of the first 18 planes isn’t expected to happen until October 2018, 14 months later than planned. (Government Accountability Office)

• Former Obama administration Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz has found his post-White House post. Moniz will become CEO and chairman of the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is a nonprofit organization working to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. Moniz will assume the role in June. (Nuclear Threat Initiative)

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