Category: Congress

Congress aims to reauthorize Commerce telecom agency for first time in three decades

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Congress is considering reauthorization of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration this year, with leading lawmakers casting the agency in a critical role overseeing issues ranging from federal spectrum management and broadband Internet expansion to emerging developments in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. NTIA was last reauthorized 30 years ago. During a House Energy and Commerce communications and technology subcommittee hearing last week, Chairman Bob Latta (R-Ohio) introduced a discussion draft of his “National Telecommunication and Information Administration Reauthorization Act of 2023.” The bill is among a raft of legislation the…

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Dissatisfied with OPM’s data, Republicans ask individual agencies for telework details

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With many agencies’ return-to-office plans still uncertain, Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee want to take matters into their own hands. GOP committee leaders changed their strategy for trying to get more federal telework data, now reaching out directly to agency heads. In a series of 25 letters, the lawmakers asked for up-to-date  numbers of teleworking federal employees, after saying the Biden administration was “not adequately tracking the specific levels of telework.” The Biden administration “has not provided current data about the specific amount of telework occurring within…

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After four year delay, agencies to get 21st Century IDEA Act guidance this summer

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First, there as the pandemic. Then, there was the change in administration. At the same time, there were several high profile cyber threats to deal with. But the time has come to put the 21st Century IDEA Act, passed and signed into law in 2018, to the front of the priority list. The Office of Management and Budget finally is ready to issue implementation guidance for the nearly four-plus-year-old law. Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana said yesterday the new guidance will hopefully come out this summer, following a similar…

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VHA on track to meet 2023 staffing targets, but House lawmakers urge further hiring reforms

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Ongoing recruitment challenges for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care workforce are gaining more attention — and concerns — from Congress. The Veterans Health Administration is on track to reach its year-end target increase for its total number of employees. But problems persist in VHA’s hiring and onboarding processes, lawmakers on the House Veterans Affairs Committee said. “We all know that this is a crisis situation. It was a crisis before COVID. It’s a bigger crisis now. And we have to treat it accordingly and work on this in…

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GOP resurrects effort to make some feds at-will employees, thus easier to fire

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Republicans have renewed their push to try to make it easier for agencies to fire federal employees. GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate reintroduced a bill to make feds at-will workers. Proponents of the Public Service Reform Act said it would make it easier to remove poor performers, and create more accountability and efficiency. It is an idea that former President Trump originally touted through a now-revoked executive order that created the Schedule F position classification. Republicans’ new bill would also abolish the Merit Systems Protection Board. Democrat…

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Chairman McCaul threatens to hold Secretary of State Blinken in contempt of Congress

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The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is threatening to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for not turning over confidential messages from career diplomats. Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Blinken hasn’t complied with a subpoena demanding access to so-called dissent channel cables from State Department personnel during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The dissent channel serves as a forum for diplomats to critique department policy decisions. McCaul said a State Department briefing last month on the content of those cables fell short…

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