House Oversight Committee may subpoena agencies not providing info on private email use

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• House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) threatened agency leaders with subpoenas if the committee does not receive answers on private email use for conducting official business. The committee’s original request set a deadline for Oct. 9. Gowdy said 16 agencies did not provide sufficient information. (House Oversight and Government Reform Committee)

• The Senate narrowly passes a 2018 budget resolution with a 51 to 49 vote. Unlike the House version, the Senate’s resolution does not include reconciliation instructions for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to make changes to the federal retirement system. It does pave the way for tax reform in the coming months. House and Senate members will next go to conference to write a concurrent resolution. (Federal News Radio)

• A big payday in the 2018 budget resolution could be heading the Defense Department’s way. It gives $640 billion to the Pentagon. The amendment does not require Congress to offset the defense increases with domestic spending increases, if lawmakers come to a budget deal on sequestration. (Senate Budget Committee)

• President Donald Trump signed an executive order letting the Air Force order retired pilots back to active duty, but the Air Force has no immediate plans to use the authority. Trump’s order on Friday invokes a section of federal law that lets the military recall retired officers during times of national emergency. A Pentagon spokesman said the order was signed to help solve what the Air Force has termed a “crisis” in its pilot manning levels, and that it could be used to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots. But an Air Force spokeswoman said on Sunday that while the service appreciates the extra authorities, it does not have any immediate plans to use them. (Federal News Radio)

• A law firm formerly contracted by the General Services Administration and the operation managing the Trump Old Post Office building is still receiving confidential information. GSA’s Inspector General sayid Cavanaugh and Reno continues to receive business information about the Trump company, even though the 2012 contract has been terminated. It wants management to take appropriate action. (General Services Administration Office of Inspector General)

• The Veterans Affairs Department needs a better data management system. The Government Accountability Office said VA lacks a way to count how many contract physicians and medical residents it has on board at any given time. The department also has problems with the methods it uses to measure doctors’ workloads, and VA can’t track how productive its medical centers are. Inaccurate metrics mean VA can’t evaluate which recruitment and retention strategies are working best. VA said recently it has more than 35,000 full time equivalent vacancies. (Government Accountability Office)

• Cybercriminals are targeting many government domain names. The cybersecurity firm Agari said 25 percent of emails claiming to be from federal agencies are fraudulent and 90 percent of the 400 domains it protects have been targeted with deceptive emails, appearing to come from a federal agency. A recent directive from the Homeland Security Department ordered all federal domains to implement Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance polices (DMARC). (Agari)

• Federal employees have newly-expanded representation at the highest levels of the labor union movement. Following weekend voting, the American Federation of Government Employees now has two members on the 55-member executive council of the AFL-CIO. Newly elected was George McCubbin III, AFGE’s national vice president for California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. He’s a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, and was president of the National Border Patrol Council. AFGE president J. David Cox was re-elected to a four-year term. (American Federation of Government Employees)

• NASA may need to address its management issues for its human space travel programs. The Government Accountability Office said the agency’s attempt to merge it’s three spaceflight programs into one system creates oversight challenges, making it difficult to gauge the programs’ success. (Government Accountability Office)

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