Category: Congress

NDAA backs State Dept efforts to build up workforce, modernize diplomatic mission

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Congress is backing many of the State Department’s plans to modernize its workforce and bring its diplomatic corps into the 21st century in the latest defense policy bill. The fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act lawmakers passed this week directs the department to keep the House and Senate up to date on its plans to stand up its Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, as well as provide updates on its hiring efforts. The NDAA specifically requires the department to inform lawmakers how well it’s meeting its long-term goal of…

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Defense authorization bill comes in for a landing

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Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne. It will have things to love and hate, but it looks like the National Defense Authorization Bill will make it to passage in the remainder of the 117th Congress. But what about Friday’s government funding deadline? The Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets the latest from Loren Duggan, Bloomberg Government deputy news director. Interview transcript: Tom Temin: There seemed to be last minute progress last week in the House side on NDAA. And…

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Defense officials say a year-long continuing resolution would be ‘The Bad Place’

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With no solid prospects for passage of the 2023 federal budget, the Department of Defense wants lawmakers to know just how bad life will be if they have to function for a full year on a continuing resolution (CR) instead of a real budget. “DoD has never lived with a year-long CR. So there’s probably some levels of badness we haven’t fully explored because we haven’t had to live it yet,” said Mike McCord, DoD undersecretary of defense and comptroller at the Professional Services Council Federal Market Forecast Conference on…

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Social Security Administration asks for billions more dollars to do its job

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Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne. The Social Security Administration said the $ 400 million that Congress gave the agency through December is not enough to fix many of its workforce problems. To make long-term improvements, SSA said it will need the White House’s $ 14.8 billion budget request. That’s a $ 1.4 billion increase over 2022. The funding would go in part toward hiring thousands of more employees and modernizing IT. The American Federation of Government Employees…

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Congress continues to work on what amounts to an agenda for the lame duck session

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Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. Subscribe to Federal Drive’s daily audio interviews on Apple Podcasts or PodcastOne. The remaining days of the 117th Congress leave both chambers with a bit of an agenda. Perhaps topping the list for the Senate is keeping its record of passing Defense authorization bills by the end of the calendar year. To get an update on all this, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government deputy news director Loren Duggan. Interview transcript: Tom Temin: And now the lame duck is paddling away.…

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Bills, amendments linger in Congress with lasting implications for feds

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Lawmakers have until Dec. 16, when the current continuing resolution expires, to pass the rest of the appropriations bills and fund the government next year, but it’s not the only item on the congressional to-do list with big implications for the federal workforce. Many of those additional items are included as amendments under the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2023. There are more than 1,000 amendments to the NDAA, and at least a handful of them have the potential to change the federal hiring process, federal benefits, retirement and…

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