FedRAMP Couldn’t See Inside the Box. That’s the Point.
Federal auditors at FedRAMP spent five years trying to verify Microsoft’s Government Community Cloud (GCC) High encryption but never obtained a detailed data‑flow diagram, highlighting a systemic gap between compliance paperwork and actual security. The roadblock stemmed from the platform’s legacy‑laden architecture, which makes mapping encryption points extremely difficult, and from an assessor model where vendors hire and pay the third‑party auditors, creating a conflict of interest. FedRAMP’s authorizations are essentially point‑in‑time snapshots, not continuous guarantees, shifting the burden of verification onto agencies and CIOs. The episode underscores the need for transparent, architecture‑driven evidence rather than reliance on compliance labels.
Federal Agencies Are Using AI to Evaluate Proposals. Is Your Team Ready?
Federal agencies such as the GSA, IRS and the Army are deploying AI tools that automatically evaluate proposal compliance, flag missing forms, and draft contract language. These systems can eliminate non‑compliant bids before a human ever reviews them, raising the...
Why DHS No Longer Has a Compliance Mindset for Cybersecurity
Hemant Baidwan, departing DHS CISO, says the agency has moved beyond a compliance‑first posture to an operational risk‑management model. The shift emphasizes real‑time threat monitoring, continuous Authority‑to‑Operate (ATO) assessments, and a “flywheel” approach that ties risk data to budgeting and...
Artificial Intelligence May Offer Federal Financial Managers Real Visibility Across Programs and Payments
IBM Center for the Business of Government released a report showing how artificial intelligence can enhance federal audit processes by mining metadata to uncover fraud, waste, and abuse that traditional sampling misses. The study builds on a prior AI‑for‑payment‑integrity report...
Army Corps Reviews Google Data Center Proposal, Seeks Public Input
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Little Rock District is reviewing a Google‑backed proposal to build a 1.43 million‑square‑foot data center in Arkansas. The plan would consume over 100 megawatts of power—roughly the electricity used by all 88,000 households in Little Rock—and...
Visibility Is the only Way to Fix the Public’s Growing Security Debt
Government agencies are grappling with a massive security debt, with 78% of public organizations leaving vulnerabilities unpatched for over a year. On average, it takes more than 300 days to remediate half of their software flaws, far exceeding private‑sector benchmarks....
Health‑coverage Decisions in Retirement Can Shape when and How Federal Retirees Tap Their Money
Federal retirees must navigate FEHB coverage abroad, the eight‑month Medicare Part B special enrollment period, and decisions about their Thrift Savings Plan. Overseas, some FEHB plans like Blue Cross Blue Shield process claims locally, while others require out‑of‑pocket payment and reimbursement,...
Artemis II Is Showing How Federal Education and Operational Experience Come Together in Space
Artemis II marked the first crewed flight of NASA’s Orion capsule atop the Space Launch System, taking four astronauts on a lunar flyby and returning for splash‑down. The mission served both as a flight‑test of new hardware and procedures and as...
The RFO Highlights the Need for Evergreen Contracting
The Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation Overhaul (RFO) moved FSS ordering rules from FAR 8.4 to GSAR 538.7100, slashing the guidance from 9,449 to 2,363 words and clarifying competition requirements. While the new language streamlines blanket purchase agreements, it unintentionally halves the effective...
DoD Expanding Hiring Flexibilities to Reduce Military Spouse Unemployment
The Defense Department is allowing DoD Education Activity schools to hire military spouses as soon as they receive official change‑of‑station orders, removing the previous 30‑day waiting period. Undersecretary Anthony Tata also urged hiring managers to consider spouses for non‑competitive appointments...
Secret Service Budget Request Amps up Hiring Goals
The Secret Service has asked for a $3.5 billion budget for fiscal 2027, proposing to add 852 positions, including 520 special agents, 256 uniformed officers, and 50 technical law‑enforcement roles. The request builds on a $1.2 billion allocation through 2029 aimed at...
After a Nearly a Decade, GSA on Track to Fully Implement TDR
In his first 100 days, GSA Administrator Ed Forst moved to complete the decade‑long rollout of Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) across all Multiple‑Award Schedule (MAS) contracts. The agency will issue MAS Refresh 31 later this month, mandating TDR for the remaining...
The Government Paid $4.5 Billion to Feds Who Took the DRP, One Estimate Shows
The Partnership for Public Service estimates the Trump administration’s Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) cost the federal government roughly $4.5 billion in salary and benefits for employees who were paid while not working. About 137,000 workers entered the DRP in 2025, with...
Personnel Security and the Evolving Threat Landscape
Federal personnel security faces a rapidly evolving threat landscape, where cyber intrusions, foreign influence and insider risk intersect with a mobile workforce. More than four million cleared individuals rely on legacy vetting systems that were built for periodic investigations, not...
CDC Eases Telework Restrictions for Disabled Employees, as HHS Faces 9,000-Request Backlog
The CDC announced it will again allow supervisors to grant telework as an interim reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities, reversing a stricter HHS policy from last year. The change takes effect immediately for staff awaiting final accommodation decisions, while...
Surprise New Element in DOGE’s Medicaid Experiment: Taxpayers Vs. Health Care Fraud
The U.S. Health and Human Services department unveiled the largest Medicaid provider‑level dataset ever released to the public, marking a shift toward crowdsourced fraud detection. The move follows DOJ staffing cuts and aligns with the administration’s anti‑fraud task force and...
Agencies Warn Iranian-Linked Hackers Targeting Critical Infrastructure
U.S. agencies warned that Iranian‑linked hacker groups are exploiting programmable logic controllers (PLCs) across multiple critical‑infrastructure sectors, causing operational disruptions and financial losses. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint alert with the FBI urging immediate mitigation...
New OMB IT Policy Memo Rings Familiar, but Signals Major Shifts
On March 31 the Office of Management and Budget issued memo M‑26‑10, tightening transparency and oversight of federal IT spending. The guidance forces CIO‑covered agencies to manually report every IT contract, including delegated public‑facing systems, within 30 days and to...
The CAS Board’s Carrying Out a Mandate—And Comments Are Now Open
The Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) Board released a draft rule raising the exemption threshold to $35 million and the full‑coverage threshold to $100 million, aiming to cut the number of contractors subject to the full 19 standards by roughly 30 percent while still...
State Dept Recruits New Diplomats, but Plans to Keep Shrinking Its Workforce Next Year
Despite a recent recruitment push, the State Department is set to shrink its diplomatic workforce in FY 2027. Last summer’s layoff notices affected about 1,350 employees, with roughly 250 Foreign Service officers placed on nine‑month paid administrative leave and no plan...
White House Asks for Record $75.7B for Civilian Agency IT
The White House is requesting a historic $75.7 billion for civilian agency IT in FY 2027, a $7.7 billion increase over 2026. The Veterans Affairs department leads with a $12.2 billion request, a 62% jump, followed by Treasury at $6.2 billion (48% rise) and Justice...
GSA Looks to Rebuild Workforce After Widespread Layoffs Last Year
After slashing nearly 40% of its staff since October 2024, the General Services Administration (GSA) is launching a hiring drive to add roughly 400 employees to its Public Buildings Service over the next six months. The recruitment will focus on facilities...
DoD Modernization Exchange 2026: Navy’s Scott St. Pierre on Modernizing the Service’s Enterprise Information Ecosystem
The Navy is accelerating its IT network and data‑center consolidation, dropping from 124 discrete IT environments to under 100 by the end of 2026. It has already cut networks from roughly 6,000 in the 1990s to 124 today and aims...
Year After Year, the Same Financial Weaknesses Keep Showing up in the Government’s Books
The Government Accountability Office released its FY 2024‑25 audit and again could not issue an opinion on the federal government’s consolidated financial statements, leaving $7.3 trillion of costs deemed unreliable. Persistent material weaknesses stem from the Department of Defense’s financial management, inter‑agency...
Buy American and Made in USA: One Slogan, Two Compliance Systems
Companies often conflate Buy American procurement rules with FTC Made in USA advertising standards, creating compliance risk. The FTC requires an "all or virtually all" domestic content test for consumer labels, while FAR Buy American mandates a 65% domestic content...
The Rubin Observatory Just Turned the Night Sky Into a Live Feed
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has entered early‑operations optimization, beginning its Legacy Survey of Space and Time. In its first night of real‑time operations the facility released 800,000 alerts identifying transient objects, and the system is designed to...
New ARPA‑H Effort Aims to Change How Doctors Understand and Treat Critical Illness in Real Time
ARPA‑H has launched the CIRCLE program to transform critical‑illness care by combining high‑resolution sensors, rapid lab assays, and AI‑driven digital‑twin models that predict patient trajectories in real time. The initiative targets sepsis and other triggers of organ failure, which affect...
Army Drops RFP for MAPS Contract
The U.S. Army issued the final solicitation for its Marketplace for Acquisition of Professional Services (MAPS) contract, a ten‑year, $50 billion vehicle. The contract will award up to 350 task orders across engineering, logistics, operational, and foundational IT services. Proposals must...
White House Budget Proposal Silent on Civilian Federal Pay Raise
The White House’s FY 2027 budget request omits any civilian federal pay raise while proposing a 5‑7% increase for military personnel and a $1.5 trillion defense budget—about $445 billion more than 2026 levels. Civilian workers received only a 1% raise in 2026, the...
Republican Leaders in Congress Announce Plan to End Homeland Security Shutdown
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune unveiled a two‑track plan to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security, ending a 47‑day partial shutdown. The first track mirrors the Senate’s proposal, funding most DHS components while leaving...
STRATCOM Awards $500 Million IDIQ Contract to Accelerate Delivery of Warfighter‑ready Solutions
The National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI) secured a $500 million indefinite‑delivery, indefinite‑quantity (IDIQ) contract from U.S. Strategic Command to accelerate delivery of warfighter‑ready solutions over the next decade. The flexible funding pool will support a range of projects spanning nuclear deterrence,...
Report Shows How NIH Funding Ripples Through State, Local Economies Nationwide
United for Medical Research’s 2026 report finds NIH’s $36.5 billion FY ’25 budget produced a 250 % return, generating roughly $94 billion in economic activity and supporting over 390,000 jobs. The analysis maps the ripple effect of research dollars through equipment manufacturers, service...
New Approach to the DoD’s Long-Troubled Audit Effort Takes New Shape
The Department of Defense has failed seven federal audits, never earning a clean opinion, prompting continuous congressional pressure since 2012. Over 28 material weaknesses have obscured the tracking of its roughly $800 billion budget and massive inventory of weapons, aircraft, and...
Will AI Cut the Average 18-Month Acquisition Timeline?
Federal acquisition still averages an 18‑month cycle, a strategic vulnerability as adversaries iterate faster. New AI agent swarms can ingest FAR updates, cross‑reference CPARS, and map vendor capacity in milliseconds, rewriting the data‑centric layer of procurement. AI already compresses market...
DoT, NOAA Develop Paths to Modernize Critical Systems
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration launched Motus, a cloud‑native, one‑stop platform that replaces five legacy registration systems for trucking companies. Motus leverages AI, automated identity verification, and auto‑scaling to streamline compliance and curb a 600%...
Enhancing Security Operations Builds on Zero Trust: Strengthening National Security Through Deception
The Pentagon is moving zero‑trust from policy to full‑scale execution, establishing maturity goals across the department. Recognizing that breaches are inevitable, defense leaders are adding cyber deception to actively engage attackers and gather intelligence. AI‑driven deception platforms now automate decoy...
DHS Funding, Voting Rules and Overseas Troop Support Are All Waiting for Congress’ Return
Congressional negotiations over Department of Homeland Security funding remain at an impasse as the Senate approved a bill that funds most of DHS but excludes ICE and CBP, while the House sent back a full‑year continuing resolution. Both chambers have...
Billions Are Flowing Into Munitions, but There Are Limits to How Quickly the U.S. Can Replenish Its Stockpiles
The U.S. has poured roughly $25 billion into its munitions industrial base, yet high‑cost precision weapons like Patriot missiles and Tomahawks remain expensive and slow to produce. Operations in Iran and Ukraine have driven munitions spending to about $1 billion per day,...
The U.S. and the EU Are Quietly Narrowing Opportunities for Public Comment
The interview highlights a quiet shift in both the United States and the European Union toward fewer public‑comment opportunities in regulatory rulemaking. In the EU, a decade‑old regime that allowed up to four comment rounds is being rolled back to...
Army ‘Rebalancing’ Effort Forces Civilians to Accept Reassignments to Avoid Layoffs
The U.S. Army is implementing a service‑wide "rebalancing" program that forces thousands of civilian employees to accept new assignments or face separation. A March 5 memo directs commands to match "surplus" staff with vacant billets, with intra‑command matching running March 20‑April 7 and...
HUD Challenges Telework Restoration Orders, Calling Them ‘Disruptive’
The Department of Housing and Urban Development filed a Federal Labor Relations Authority appeal to overturn a third‑party arbitrator’s February 2026 order restoring telework for roughly 7,000 HUD employees. HUD argues the arbitrator exceeded its authority, citing its contractual right...
Feds with Benefits: Healthcare Affordability Part 3 — How Medicare Part D Can Reduce Prescription Drug Costs for Federal Annuitants
Medicare Part D is now available as an add‑on to many Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) plans without an extra premium, offering comparable or better drug coverage and lower out‑of‑pocket costs. The plan caps annual drug spending at $2,100 (or $2,000...
After 2025 Collision, Air Controllers at Reagan Get New Tools
Following the 2025 fatal crash at Reagan National Airport, the FAA accelerated deployment of the digital Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) system, co‑developed by Leidos. TFDM replaces paper flight strips with electronic ones, adding a real‑time overhead map, touch‑based interaction...
ACT-IAC Relaunches Partners Program for Senior Leaders Who Want to Deepen Impact
ACT‑IAC has relaunched its 2026 Partners Program, a nine‑month professional‑development track for senior government executives (SES level) and their industry counterparts. The curriculum mirrors the updated Executive Core Qualifications and pairs participants in small, cross‑sector groups. After a one‑year hiatus,...
DoD IT Leaders Push ‘Smarter Not Harder’ Enterprise Cyber Workforce System
Defense Department IT leaders are urging the Pentagon to replace fragmented service‑level cyber workforce tools with a single enterprise system. Senior officials from the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force highlighted that current separate platforms duplicate effort, hinder talent mobility,...
As Marines Head Toward Iran, Boots on Ground Still TBD
The Pentagon has dispatched two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) and accompanying naval forces to the Arabian Gulf as tensions with Iran intensify. Colonel William Dunn explained that the MEUs provide a flexible, self‑sustaining package of infantry, aviation, and logistics that...
New Mission: Turn Regulatory “Big Ideas” Into Real-World Results
The Federation of American Scientists launched the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to modernize climate policy tools that were originally crafted in the 1970s. Dr. Hannah Safford explains that legacy regulations, such as fuel‑economy standards and the Clean Air Act,...
Navy’s Turning Small ‘Bets’ Into Enterprise Services
The Navy’s Program Executive Office for Digital is adopting a lean‑startup mindset, using small OTA‑backed bets to prototype emerging technologies. Early initiatives such as Naval Identity Services and the Enterprise Service Desk have transitioned from pilots to full enterprise services,...
Army to ‘Narrow’ Right-to-Repair Effort in Next NDAA After Industry Pushback
The U.S. Army is pushing a narrowed right‑to‑repair amendment for the next National Defense Authorization Act after Congress removed broader language following industry pushback. Undersecretary Michael Obadal said the effort will focus on limited repetitions, units, and years while preserving...
USPS Seeks Temporary Surcharge on Packages to Help Cover Transportation Costs
The U.S. Postal Service will impose an 8% temporary surcharge on its core package services starting April 26, 2026, lasting until January 17, 2027. The increase targets Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select, and is driven by rising fuel, trucking...