Podcasts about General Services Administration

The General Services Administration rolled out a new governmentwide tool Thursday that gives federal agencies the ability to test major artificial intelligence models, a continuation of Trump administration efforts to ramp up government use of automation. The AI evaluation suite, titled USAi.gov, launched Thursday morning and allow federal agencies to test various AI models, including those from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta to start, two senior GSA officials told FedScoop. The launch of USAi underscores the Trump administration's increasing appetite for AI integration into federal government workspaces. The GSA has described these tools as a way to help federal workers with time-consuming tasks, like document summaries, and give government officials access to some of the country's leading AI firms. The GSA, according to one of the officials, will act as a “curator of sorts” for determining which models will be available for testing on USAi. The official noted that additional models are being considered for the platform, with input from GSA's industry and federal partners, and that American-made models are the primary focus. Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk's xAI firm, is notably not included on the platform for its launch Thursday. Anthropic and OpenAI, two of the country's leading AI companies, recently announced that they're offering their powerful models to federal agencies for $1 for the next year. But the new deals, which are both available through a General Services Administration OneGov contract vehicle, don't on their own clear the way for widespread government adoption of artificial intelligence. Instead, the new financial incentive seems to be daring government officials to move quickly and approve the technology as soon as possible. Currently, no major AI provider is authorized under FedRAMP, a critical security program that allows agencies to use a company's cloud services — including software or models offered on a cloud service — across government. While several companies — including Anthropic, xAI and OpenAI — have released government-focused product suites, they're still somewhat dependent on cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon that have already cleared the FedRAMP process. If AI companies want to sell much of their technology directly to the government, they need their own authorization-to-operate or ATO. What's changed, though, is that federal officials now have a new reason to move through security review processes more quickly, a former GSA employee and another person familiar with the matter both told FedScoop. That strategy could involve going through an authorization-to-operate process through an agency's authorizing official — typically, their chief information officer — as well as the security review process explicated by FedRAMP, both people said. GSA is now looking at strategies to speed up the process. An agency spokesperson confirmed that these companies still need to seek FedRAMP authorization if they want to offer their technology directly. But to make that happen faster, GSA is now consulting with the Chief Information Officers Council and the board that oversees FedRAMP about “prioritization for AI companies” that are added to GSA's multiple award schedule. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Two-time Trump administration vet Lynne Parker has exited as principal deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy following the release of the administration's AI plan. In a LinkedIn post Tuesday, Parker said she was “passing the torch” and had fulfilled her mission of helping the Trump administration “hit the ground running,” citing the launch of AI innovation and education initiatives as well as drone-focused policy, and the administration's “gold standard” science initiative. She said she plans to return to her retirement in Tennessee. Parker joined the administration in January, working alongside OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. In addition to her OSTP title, she was also named executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Science and Technology. Parker had returned to the current Trump administration after serving as deputy CTO and founding director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on her departure. In addition to Parker, OSTP senior policy advisor Dean Ball also recently announced he was leaving the White House following the release of the administration's anticipated AI Action Plan last month. Ball rejoined the Foundation for American Innovation, a technology-focused think tank formerly known as the Lincoln Network, as a fellow focused on AI policy and governance models for emerging technology. The cloud management company Box is the latest agency to strike a deal with the General Services Administration to offer its artificial intelligence services to the federal government at a fraction of the normal price. The GSA said in an announcement Wednesday that federal agencies can buy Box's Enterprise Plus for Government software for up to 75% off and the company's Enterprise for Advanced Government software discounted by up to 65% of the listed price for a year-long term. The announcement follows a series of other deals with major AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic that aim to increase the use of AI across the federal government. Like the other OneGov collaborations, the GSA said Box's AI platform will help boost productivity at agencies, automate workflows and assist with tasks like document generation, e-signatures and forms. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Federal agencies will now have access to Anthropic's Claude model for $1, the General Services Administration announced Tuesday, continuing the agency's push for artificial intelligence products across government. Under the OneGov deal, all three branches of government will be able to use Anthropic's Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government for a nominal $1 fee. Approval for members of Congress and the judiciary is pending, the GSA noted. It is the latest in a series of deals between private AI firms and the federal government to increase the use of automation in agency workflows and boost workers' productivity and efficiency. Anthropic said in a release Tuesday: “We believe the U.S. public sector should have access to the most advanced AI capabilities to tackle complex challenges, from scientific research to constituent services. By combining broad accessibility with uncompromising security standards, we're helping ensure AI serves the public interest.” Anthropic's Claude for Government models have FedRAMP High certification and can be used by federal workers dealing with “sensitive unclassified work,” while Claude for Enterprise models have expanded features for data protection, Anthropic said. Anthropic said it will also offer technical support for agencies to implement its products into workflows. The Federal Risk Management and Authorization Program has already approved more than twice as many government cloud services in fiscal year 2025 as all of fiscal 2024, the General Services Administration announced Monday. FedRAMP reached 114 authorizations in July for fiscal 2025, along with four new cloud services through the FedRAMP 20x revamp program, according to a GSA statement. In fiscal 2024, FedRAMP authorized 49 cloud service providers, according to a GSA spokesperson. The reform program, unveiled in March, is focused on simplifying the authorization process and shaving the approval timeline from months to weeks. Eventually, agency sponsorship will no longer be needed to win authorization, a process that is often expensive and time-consuming. The new numbers come just over a year since the Office of Management and Budget published a memo calling for the modernization of the cloud authorization process. GSA said FedRAMP had a “significant backlog” at the time of the memo, with authorizations taking more than a year. A year later, FedRAMP's increased use of automation and streamlined workflows cut the wait time to about five weeks, the GSA said.

It's Friday, August 8th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus ISIS soldiers behead Christians in Mozambique, burning churches International observers are reporting that ISIS-aligned soldiers are beheading Christians and burning churches and homes in central and southern Africa – with some of the most brutal attacks happening in the nation of Mozambique, reports Fox News. The Middle East Media Research Institute – a counter-terrorism nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. – is sounding the alarm about what it describes as a "silent genocide" taking place by Muslim terrorists against Christians.   Alberto Fernandez, their Vice President, spoke to Fox News. FERNANDEZ: “What we see in Africa today is a kind of silent genocide or silent brutal, savage war that is occurring in the shadows and all too often ignored by the international community. We see rampaging jihadist groups from West Africa and even in the south in Mozambique. “The fact, for example, is that jihadist groups are in a position to take over, not one, not two, but several countries in Africa. It is very dangerous for the national security of the United States, let alone the security of the poor people who are there.” Fernandez spoke bluntly about the goal of these Muslim terrorist groups in Africa. FERNANDEZ: “The goal is eliminating Christian communities completely. These jihadist groups want to eliminate all the Christians in that area, take that area over, and keep pushing.” And he's grateful for President Trump's willingness to become involved. FERNANDEZ:  “The President's initiative in stopping the growing war between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, its neighbor, is very significant, because this could have become a terrible war. We know that jihadists like to take advantage of vacuums, security vacuums, ungoverned spaces.” The migration agency said Monday that attacks by Muslim insurgents in Mozambique's northern Cabo Delgado province displaced more than 46,000 people in the span of eight days just last month. Sixty percent of those forced from their homes were children. The Muslim jihadists of Africa would do well to follow the advice of Gamaliel, the Pharisee from the time of Christ. In Acts 5:38-39, he said, “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” Amazon Web Services gives the Trump admin $1 billion coupon In the United States, Amazon Web Services is giving the Trump administration a $1 billion coupon to use their services for the federal government's digital transformation and artificial intelligence capacity, reports Politico.com. On Thursday, the General Services Administration announced a sweeping “OneGov” agreement with Amazon Web Services that would yield up to $1 billion in cost savings for federal agencies shifting to cloud services. But the Amazon deal is not exclusive. Similar OneGov agreements are in the works with other major cloud providers, including Microsoft and Google. Oracle also recently signed a deal giving government agencies a 75% discount on Oracle technology. Trump cancels half billion dollars of federal funding for UCLA over anti-Semitism The Trump administration has canceled $584 million in grants for the University of California in Los Angeles, claiming they did not take a strong enough stance against on-campus anti-Semitism, reports One America News. UCLA recently reached a $6 million settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who sued the school in a civil rights dispute, claiming pro-Palestinian protesters were permitted to block them from accessing certain areas on campus in 2024. President Donald Trump's office announced that the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division found UCLA in violation of the Equal Rights Act of 1964 “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students.” Catholic priest met homosexual prostitute in church parking lot Clemente Guerrero-Olvera, a Catholic parochial vicar at St. Ann Church in Clayton, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution with a 20-year-old man he allegedly met on the homosexual app named Grindr in the church's parking lot, reports LifeSiteNews.com. During an unrelated search for a missing person around 1:00 a.m. on August 4th, a police deputy spotted the young man, identified as Ja'Quavis Brinson, inside a vehicle in St. Ann's parking lot and another man, later identified as Guerrero-Olvera, who ran away, according to the Johnston County Report. The 47-year-old Catholic priest was promptly arrested and charged with felony solicitation of prostitution after an investigation revealed that he had arranged to meet the 20-year-old via Grindr, allegedly for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. Guerrero-Olvera was booked at the Johnston County Detention Center and later released on a $2,500 secured bond. Brinson of Benson, North Carolina was charged with misdemeanor prostitution.  1 Corinthians 6:9-11 says, “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Two weeks after cancellation, Colbert doubles down on liberal jokes And finally, it's been over two weeks since CBS announced on July 17th that it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as of May 2026. In the first show after the cancellation was announced, the leftist comedian addressed the news. COLBERT: “On Friday, Donald Trump posted, ‘I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.” (audience boos) “Over the weekend, it sunk in that they're killing off our show, but they made one mistake. They left me alive!” (audience laughs) However, Colbert has responded by doubling down on the same liberal jokes and liberal guests that made viewers (and advertising dollars) turn away in the first place, reports Newsbusters.org. According to a new Media Research Center study, Colbert's political jokes targeted conservatives and Republicans 95% of the time, and 100% of his political guests, in the two weeks since his cancellation, were liberals. In the eight episodes from July 21 through July 31, Colbert told 129 jokes about right-leaning individuals or groups compared to only seven about left-leaning people or groups. That 95% disparity is considerably higher than his 2023 number of 86% or 2024 number of 82%. The Late Show has been losing a whopping $40-50 million a year because Colbert has used his network platform to belittle half the country, reports the New York Post. COLBERT: “They pulled the plug on our show because of losses pegged between $40 million and $50 million a year. $40 million is a big number. I could see us losing $24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other 16 million? Oh, yeah.” (audience laughs) That was a dig, referencing the $16 million settlement CBS' parent company reached with President Trump just weeks ago regarding the deceptive editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to aid her candidacy. Here's the edited version which aired on 60 Minutes in a segment with CBS reporter Bill Whitaker. WHITAKER: “But it seems that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is not listening.” HARRIS: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” And here is the unedited version, featuring Kamala's signature “word salad” which did not air on 60 Minutes. WHITAKER: “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. The Wall Street Journal said that he, that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu. And in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration's entreaties.” HARRIS: “Well, Bill, [long pause] the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of, many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we're not going to stop doing that. We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.” Exodus 20:16 records the ninth commandment that God gave Moses on Mt. Sinai.  “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, August 8th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

The General Services Administration has been on a roll lately, negotiating what it calls OneGov agreements with some of the federal government's biggest IT vendors. On Thursday, GSA announced it has negotiated a governmentwide purchasing agreement with Amazon Web Services that could save agencies up to $1 billion through credits for AWS services. The deal is the latest in a flurry of OneGov agreements GSA has initiated under the Trump administration to consolidate and centralize IT purchasing at scale and unlock greater, consistent savings for civilian agencies, rather than agencies negotiating one-off contracts with vendors themselves. As part of the governmentwide package, AWS has come to the table offering direct incentive credits that could total up to $1 billion in value for cloud services, modernization support and training. The deal will run through Dec. 31, 2028. In addition to streamlining federal IT procurement by working as a single, unified federal entity, GSA's OneGov initiative also aims to work directly with technology developers themselves, rather than intermediaries such as value-added resellers. As such, GSA touts the potential for additional savings by contracting directly with the cloud giant for its services. That deal comes just a day after GSA announced a similar one with OpenAI that will offer its ChatGPT tool to federal agencies for just $1. It marks the artificial intelligence firm's latest effort to expand use of its generative AI chatbot across the federal government. Like the AWS deal, GSA said the agreement with OpenAI supports the White House's AI Action Plan, which encourages widespread adoption of AI in the federal government. Through the partnership, OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise product can be purchased by federal agencies for $1 per agency for one year. GSA called this a “deeply discounted rate.” Commenting on the deal, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement: “One of the best ways to make sure AI works for everyone is to put it in the hands of the people serving the country.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The U.S. General Services Administration has added OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to its list of approved AI vendors, Perplexity is again under scrutiny for improperly scraping content, and X is working to restore the video archive for Vine. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE for free or get DTNS Live ad-free. A special thanks to all ourContinue reading "Elon Musk Is Bringing Vine Back… Sort Of – DTH"

The initial results are in for the pilot effort to improve the cloud security program known as FedRAMP, four vendors have crossed the finish line to receive low authorizations under FedRAMP, proving the faster process is working for more on how the General Services Administration plans to continue to improve FedRAMP, federal news networks executive editor Jason Miller joins me nowSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Organizations and leaders representing the interests of statistical professionals and public data access strongly criticized President Donald Trump's order to fire the leader of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after lower than expected jobs numbers Friday, saying his comments undermine public trust in that information. Their responses came after Trump posted on his social media site Friday afternoon with allegations that Commissioner Erika McEntarfer “faked” BLS statistics in an effort to help Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, pointing to instances of revisions — which are a standard part of the agency's process. Trump's comments and order to fire McEntarfer appeared to primarily be in response to a BLS jobs report that showed lower figures than anticipated, which sent shockwaves through the statistical community. Multiple leaders, including his own former BLS commissioner, spoke out against the action in no uncertain terms, saying the president's comments politicize the data. President Donald Trump has nominated Edward Forst, a longtime financial services executive, to serve as the next administrator of the General Services Administration. The nomination was received in the Senate and referred to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, congressional records show. According to his LinkedIn profile, Forst was most recently the chairman of Lion Capital, a private equity firm, and previously served as president and CEO of Cushman and Wakefield, a real estate services firm. Earlier in his career, Forst spent nearly 17 years at Goldman Sachs, and in 2008, he served as an adviser to the Treasury secretary for a year, per his LinkedIn. The nomination follows various staff shakeups at GSA and comes just weeks after Trump tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas to serve as GSA's acting administrator. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

In this unforgettable episode, I sit down with a remarkable woman, J.P. Morgan, who is 91 years young, and living proof that purpose, passion, and bold transitions don't have an age limit.She's not just living, she's thriving, inspiring others, and yes, she's even written a book!Her wisdom is rich, her joy contagious, and her stories a powerful reminder that it's never too late to write your next chapter.As a child, Joan (J. P.) Miller traveled throughout the country while her father was in the military before the family settled in southern New Jersey. Before retiring, Miller had an extensive government career, working for both the General Services Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration. She later became a real estate broker and formed her own real estate company, which she still operates to this day.She has authored the book The Pony, a story that teaches life lessons to children in a simple but powerful way. In this episode, we explore:What it means to age with joy, courage, and intentionHow she's navigated seasons of transition with grace and gritHer reflections on the season of convergence, where experience, calling, and legacy meetWhy she believes it's never too late to live a life of significanceThe gift of finishing well, and what that looks like in the later chapters of lifeThis conversation will inspire you to think differently about aging, purpose, and what it really means to live a life that matters, no matter your age or season.J.P. Morgan, you inspire me!!Let's support J.P. and purchase her book!“The Pony” by Joan (JP) Miller can be purchased on AmazonCONNECT WITH DEBIDo you feel stuck?  Do you sense it's time for a change, but are unsure where to start or how to move forward? Schedule a clarity call!Free Clarity Call: https://calendly.com/debironca/free-clarity-callWebsite – https://www.debironca.comInstagram - @debironcaEmail – info@debironca.com Check out my online course!Your Story's Changing, Finding Purpose in Life's Transitionshttps://course.sequoiatransitioncoaching.com/8-week-programThe Family Letter by Debi Ronca – International Best Sellerhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SSJFXBD

The General Services Administration continues to shake up its leadership ranks. The top federal buildings official at GSA is out before implementing a reorganization plan for his part of the agency under his leadership, GSA set a goal of cutting the federal real estate portfolio in half. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has nominated a new permanent head to lead GSA Federal News Network story Heckman is here with more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The General Services Administration is looking into how it can implement its internal artificial intelligence chatbot across the federal government, the agency's top AI and data official said Thursday, the latest indication that the Trump administration is planning on streamlining government access to AI. The new initiative marks the “next iteration” of the GSAi platform, Zach Whitman, the agency's chief AI officer and data officer, said during a speech at the Digital Government Institute's annual convention in Washington, D.C. The GSA rolled out GSAi internally in March after a lengthy research and development process, which involved an AI safety team that evaluated a number of major AI vendors. Like other AI chatbots available to the public, the tool was initially designed to respond to user prompts and assist in basic tasks. GSAi gives users access to a number of models, including ones from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and aims to increase workflow efficiency at the agency. This next chapter, Whitman said, is “one where other agencies could use what we have, use it in an isolated environment, use it for their specific purposes and own it in a tenant-based model.” The Trump administration on Wednesday announced an initiative to improve the digital health ecosystem for patients and providers, leaning on the voluntary support of dozens of health and tech companies. More than 60 companies — including data networks, health systems and providers, and developers of AI and other applications — have committed to improving the flow of electronic health information, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That group of adopters includes tech leaders such as Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google, and OpenAI. The announcement comes after a May request for information that generated nearly 1,400 comments, which “were instrumental” in forming the initiative, according to CMS. It also appears to primarily be a collaborative effort between CMS and the Department of Government Efficiency. In addition to CMS's announcement, the White House held an event Wednesday with remarks from CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, DOGE acting director Amy Gleason, President Donald Trump, and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In her remarks, Gleason spoke about her daughter's experience navigating the health system as someone with a rare disease and the difficulty posed by transferring physical copies of her medical history from place to place. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

A new directive from the Office of Management and Budget is pushing federal agencies to consolidate how they buy goods and services, aiming to streamline procurement, reduce duplication, and improve efficiency. But this shift raises important questions about agency autonomy, innovation, and the role of small businesses in federal contracting. Here to unpack the implications is Emily Murphy, former Administrator of the General Services Administration.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the General Services Administration on Friday demanding more information about how the agency is using Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Elon Musk's xAI. The correspondence comes after FedScoop reporting earlier this month revealed that government coders at GSA seemed to be looking at integrating Grok into their artificial intelligence work. Other sources told FedScoop that Grok had recently been approved for integration as an option into the GSAi app, a platform the agency has built to help federal workers access various generative AI models. Four days after the publication of FedScoop's story, xAI officially announced a “Grok for Government” service and confirmed that the company had been working to make its product available through GSA. As a result, Grok said ”every federal government department, agency, or office” could now access the company's tools. xAI also announced a $200 million Defense Department contract. The federal government's interest in using Grok — which recently espoused antisemitic and pro-Hitler content — has received pushback from Democrats. A group of Jewish Democrats recently wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about their concerns with the tool. Democrats in the House AI Caucus have also raised issues with the use of Grok, as has Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who condemned the Pentagon contract on the chamber's floor. But the latest letter, obtained by FedScoop, demands more information on the GSA's work with Grok. The letter was addressed to Stephen Ehikian, the deputy GSA administrator who led the agency on an acting basis until earlier this week, and signed by Reps. Robert Garcia of California and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, the current and former ranking members of the committee, respectively. An outage last week of Starlink, the satellite internet service run by Elon Musk's company SpaceX, did have an impact on some services in the federal government. While several civilian federal agencies told FedScoop that the service interruption didn't disrupt operations, the U.S. Space Force confirmed that Starshield, the military-focused communications service on the Starlink network, was taken offline during the outage. “The Space Systems Command Commercial SATCOM Communications Office procures Starshield Global Access services over the Starlink Satellites/network,” a spokesperson for Space Systems Command told FedScoop. The spokesperson continued: “As such, the global outage did affect CSCO customers for the entire duration of the outage (~2.5hrs for most users). Services had a partial restoration midway through the outage and a complete restoration by the stated end time.” Defense customers are currently able to access Starshield through the Space Force, among other procurement mechanisms, SpaceX's website states. SpaceX says Starshield is for “national defense use cases” while Starlink “is not intended for any military end-uses or end-users.” Several branches of the U.S. military are currently testing or using Starshield, including the Air Force and the Navy. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard told FedScoop earlier this month that the agency began installing both Starlink and Starshield back in 2023. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Uber is the newest example of a consumer technology company entering into a government-wide arrangement with the General Services Administration, which negotiated the pact on behalf of every federal agency.Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for all GovExec publications including WT, joins for this episode to break down the finer details of that agreement and how contractors are a part of it too. Then there is the bigger picture theme for Frank and Ross to talk about: how GSA views it as fitting into the agency's OneGov strategy for more consolidated buys of common tech goods and services.Which also was the subject of Frank's interview with GSA's deputy administrator Stephen Ehikian at GovExec's Government Efficiency Summit on July 17. Frank and Ross share their takeaways from that conversation with each other.Click here to watch the Summit, which was recorded by C-SPAN.WT 360: All roads lead back to GSA in this ‘Editor's Summit' episodeGSA, Uber partner to cut travel costs for feds, military and select contractorsGSA's vision for procurement is about having 'one wallet'GSA plans to optimize operations following cost-cutting, agency head saysNew OMB memo lays out GSA's plan to consolidate contractsIndustry awaits significant disruption as GSA works on contract takeoversGSA prepping plans to move NASA SEWP and NIH contract vehicles under its managementGSA's procurement chief details administration's acquisition reform plansGSA unveils new unified procurement strategyANALYSIS: GSA's new procurement strategy begins with consumer tech

Anyone who pays attention to cloud computing in the federal community knows the term FedRAMP, but more than a decade after the program's establishment, it's becoming something new and hopefully a lot more streamlined. Part of that is the FedRAMP 20x Phase One pilot. The program management office is moving to a more elective or discretionary style of security verification rather than a prescriptive one. Pete Waterman is director of FedRAMP at the General Services Administration. He talked with Federal News Network's Jason Miller as part of our annual cloud exchange.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This GWIC episode features a “Great Gentleman in Compliance,” Jonathan Aronie, a leading expert in government investigations and organizational integrity at Sheppard Mullin. Jonathan joins GWIC co-host Hemma Lomax to discuss his career journey, the innovative compliance tool known as the compliance pre-mortem, and the importance of proactive measures in compliance and governance. He also emphasizes the significance of active bystander intervention programs, derived from law enforcement, as highly effective tools for preventing misconduct in organizations. Additionally, Jonathan offers insights into the challenges and benefits of compliance programs, highlighting the need for continuous improvement and strategic empathy in these efforts. The Psychology of Preventative Compliance The ROI of Compliance and Integrity The Concept of Pre-Mortem in Compliance Common Risks and Blind Spots in Compliance Active Bystander Programs vs. Compliance Hotlines Lessons in Compliance and Culture from Policing Building Continuous Improvement Frameworks Jonathan Aronie is a partner in and the former leader of the firm's Governmental Practice, resident in Washington, DC. Jonathan is also a founding member and current leader of the firm's Organizational Integrity Group, a cross-disciplinary team of litigators, regulatory specialists, federal monitors, and ex-prosecutors with extensive experience helping organizations prevent and defend against challenges to their organizational integrity.  Areas of Practice Jonathan counsels and represents large and small businesses in some of the country's most prominent classified and unclassified government contracts matters, including bid protests, claims, self-disclosures, internal investigations, Department of Justice investigations, and False Claims Act investigations. As the leader of the firm's Organizational Integrity Group, Jonathan also spends significant time working with clients to identify and mitigate known and unknown risks before those risks become problems. Jonathan's experience includes litigating under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, conducting early risk-based “legal pre-mortems,” developing and implementing corporate compliance programs, conducting internal investigations (proactive and defensive), and providing advice on the FAR Mandatory Disclosure Rule as well as a variety of federal regulatory and statutory matters. He frequently represents clients before the DOJ, the Government Accountability Office, the General Services Administration, and other defense and civilian agencies. Additionally, Jonathan is cleared at the highest levels and counsels and defends clients in classified matters. Jonathan has authored more than 100 articles and co-authored what is regarded by many as the leading treatise on the GSA Multiple Award Schedule Program, published by Thomson Reuters. He is a regular speaker at national and international forums and CLE programs, including Government-sponsored symposia. He is a regular presenter at Coalition for Government Contracting programs and served on the ABA Task Force that drafted guidance regarding the FAR Mandatory Disclosure Rule. Biography https://www.sheppardmullin.com/jaronie Resources Sheppard Mullin's Organizational Integrity Group Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement Everyone Benefits When An Ethics & Compliance Program Is Integrated Throughout An Organization  Jonathan Aronie on LinkedIn

Several agencies under the Trump administration are going through some personnel changes. A top official at the State Department is taking over as the acting head of the General Services Administration, and President Trump is withdrawing his pick for lead of it at the Department of Veterans Affairs amid plans to shrink its tech workforce and budget. Federal News Network's Jory Heckman has more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has made it a top priority to dismantle what it perceives as federal bureaucratic bloat. But it's the belief of some that those cuts to the federal workforce and federal programs have gone too far, damaging the government's capacity to meet its mission and serve the American public. Rob Shriver, former acting OPM director during the Biden administration, is one of those. And in his new role as Managing Director of Democracy Forward's Civil Service Strong initiative, he's helping launch a new Civil Service Defense and Innovation Fellowship Program that aims to rebuild that lost capacity by calling on former government officials to “produce research and analysis documenting the scope and consequences of cuts to federal agencies, and develop and incubate innovative work to inform future policymaking and to rebuild government capacity.” Shriver joins the podcast to discuss the state of the federal workforce, the new fellowship and what he sees ahead. Let's go now to that interview. The Department of Defense's No. 2 IT official for the past two years is leaving the role, the department announced Monday. Leslie Beavers, who also served as acting DOD CIO for a period at the end of the Biden administration and during the early days of the second Trump administration, will step down as DOD principal deputy CIO at the end of September. In a social media post, the DOD Office of the CIO congratulated Beavers who announced Monday that she will be stepping down from her position at the end of September after more than 30 years of uniformed and civilian service. Beavers played a key role in the Office of the CIO's delivery of its Fulcrum IT strategy in 2024 with then-CIO John Sherman. When Sherman stepped down from the CIO role at the end of June 2024, Beavers filled it temporarily until Katie Arrington was appointed to perform the duties of CIO in March. Since then, Beavers retained her deputy role, supporting new efforts under Arrington's leadership like the Software Fast Track initiative and “blowing up” the Risk Management Framework. It's unclear what Beavers' next role will be after her departure or who will take her place when she officially leaves. President Donald Trump has tapped State Department leader Michael Rigas to serve as the General Services Administration's new acting chief, the agency announced Monday. It marks the third GSA appointment for Rigas, who has spent the past few months at the State Department as the deputy secretary for management and resources, according to a statement from Marianne Copenhaver, associate administrator for the GSA. Copenhaver wrote in a statement to FedScoop: “We're thrilled to have his institutional knowledge, leadership, and decades of experience in the private and public sector. Under Mike's leadership, GSA will continue to deliver effective and efficient government services in real estate, acquisition, and technology.” Stephen Ehikian, who has served since January as GSA's acting administrator, will continue his role as deputy administrator, Copenhaver added. Ehikian is a former Salesforce vice president and self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to establish a new classification of federal workers in policy-related roles who aren't career civil servants called “Schedule G.” The schedule appears to create another avenue for political officials in the U.S. government and follows myriad efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the federal workforce, including reductions-in-force, terminations, and programs to incentivize worker departures. In a fact sheet accompanying the order, the White House described Schedule G as an effort to increase “the horsepower for agency implementation of Administration policy” and fill a gap in federal hiring classifications. Per the fact sheet, existing schedules don't “provide for non-career appointments to policy-making or policy-advocating roles.” Federal workers at the General Services Administration are increasingly using the agency's internal AI chatbot GSAi on an everyday basis, the agency's acting head said Thursday. Stephen Ehikian, GSA's acting administrator and deputy administrator, offered a glimpse into how the agency is utilizing AI for its day-to-day activities during an appearance at GovExec's Government Efficiency Summit. “Fifty percent, on average, of GSA employees are using this tool every single day,” Ehikian said of GSAi. It is not clear how this percentage was determined. The agency revealed the tool in March, touting it as a way to boost efficiency and help automate repetitive tasks within the federal government. Like other AI chatbots available to the public, the GSAi tool was designed to respond to user prompts and assist in basic tasks. Nearly four months later, workers are now turning to GSAi for a range of activities, Ehikian said, “from writing descriptions of properties before we send them to markets, to contracting officers using it to review contracts or thinking of outcome-based pricing initiatives, to people learning how to code.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

xAI, the artificial intelligence company led by Elon Musk, announced new efforts Monday to get its generative AI tool, Grok, into the hands of federal government officials. In a post to X, the company announced “Grok for Government,” which it described as a suite of products aimed at U.S. government customers. FedScoop reported on the General Services Administration's interest in Grok last week. xAI disclosed two new government partnerships: a new contract with the Defense Department, which we'll get to in a moment, and that the tool was available to purchase through GSA. “This allows every federal government department, agency, or office, to purchase xAI products,” the post added. “We're hiring mission driven engineers who want to join the cause.” The new products from xAI follow the introduction of government-specific AI intelligence platforms from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI. The announcement was made just days after xAI's formal apology for the chatbot's recent antisemitic outputs. Last Thursday, FedScoop reported that government coders at GSA were discussing, on GitHub, incorporating Grok into a testing sandbox associated with a yet-to-launch tool called AI.gov and GSAi, a GSA-created AI platform. Anthropic, Google and xAI will join OpenAI on the CDAO's nascent effort to partner with industry on pioneering artificial intelligence projects focused on national security applications. Under the individual contracts — each worth up to $200 million — the Pentagon will have access to some of the most advanced AI capabilities developed by the four companies, including large language models, agentic AI workflows, cloud-based infrastructure and more. Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said in a statement: “The adoption of AI is transforming the Department's ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries. Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.” OpenAI received the first contract for the effort June 17 and will create prototypes of agentic workflows for national security missions. According to CDAO, work with all four vendors will expand the Pentagon's experience with emerging AI capabilities, as well as give the companies better insights into how their technology can benefit the department. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Employees at the General Services Administration appear poised to test Grok 3, the artificial intelligence tool built by Elon Musk's company xAI, according to a GitHub page referencing the agency's work. The GitHub page operated by GSA and its digital government group Technology Transformation Services references the Grok AI model as one it is testing and that the team is actively discussing as part of its 10x AI Sandbox. A GSA spokesperson told FedScoop in a response to an inquiry about the agency's work with Grok “GSA is evaluating the use of several top-tier AI solutions to empower agencies and our public servants to best achieve their goals. We welcome all American companies and models who abide by our terms and conditions.”A post from Tuesday shows what appears to be one GSA employee trying to access Grok 3 for testing, but struggling to do so. Several names of the people active on the GitHub page match those of workers affiliated with GSA. The 10x AI Sandbox project is described on GitHub as “a venture studio in collaboration with the General Services Administration (GSA). Its primary goal is to enable federal agencies to experiment with artificial intelligence (AI) in a secure, FedRAMP-compliant environment.” It continues: “By providing access to base models from leading AI companies and offering advanced UI features, the sandbox empowers agencies to test and validate new AI use cases efficiently.” The public version of the 10x AI Sandbox project page on GitHub was taken down after the publication of this story, redirecting now to a 404 error page. Interest in testing Grok comes as GSA continues to work on GSAi, an artificial intelligence tool built by the agency and meant to help employees access multiple AI models. At launch, the GSAi tool included access to several systems, including tools from Anthropic and Meta. Notably, Grok came under fire last week after promoting various antisemitic statements on the Musk-owned social media platform X. A top digital rights group is pushing back on the IRS's data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, writing in a new court filing that the pact violates federal tax code and fails to take into account the real-world consequences of bulk data disclosure. In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the “historical context” of the tax code section that ensures confidentiality of returns and return information “favors a narrow interpretation of disclosure provisions.” EFF also made the case for why the bulk disclosure of taxpayer information — in this case to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is especially harmful due to “record linkage errors” that set the stage for “an increase in mistaken and dangerous ICE enforcement actions against taxpayers.” Nonprofit groups sued the Trump administration in March, shortly after the data-sharing deal between the IRS and ICE was announced. Soon after, the tax agency's then-acting commissioner resigned, reportedly in protest. In May, a Trump-appointed federal judge refused to block the agreement, allowing the IRS to continue delivering taxpayer data to ICE. The ruling, DHS said in a statement, was “a victory for the American people and for common sense.” As the D.C. Circuit Court considers the appeal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to make sure that the “historical context” of tax and privacy law is taken into account. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Alan Sim, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's chief data officer, announced his departure from the agency after nearly five years in the position, per a post he wrote on social media Monday. Sim took on the role of chief data officer in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and over the years has been a leader on initiatives such as the agency's generative AI projects. Reflecting on his time, Sim pointed to several “firsts” the agency achieved, including launching its enterprise data catalog and using data and cloud technologies to improve emergency response. “It is with mixed emotions that I announce my departure from the CDC,” Sim wrote in a post to LinkedIn. His time as CDC's data leader was his second run at the agency. Sim, who has a PhD in epidemiology, had also been a graduate fellow and then a health informatics scientist at CDC early on in his career in the late 90s to the early 2000s. In his post, Sim said that period was “defined by concerns like bioterrorism, Anthrax, and SARS.” “Returning in 2020 as CDC's Chief Data Officer during the worst pandemic in our nation's history was both a significant challenge and a profound opportunity,” Sim said. Sim didn't include details about his next steps but said he would be sharing more soon. It is unclear who the acting CDO is in his absence. The General Services Administration struck a deal with Oracle as part of its OneGov strategy to provide a variety of cheaper services to federal agencies, including a 75% discount for license-based Oracle Technology Programs. Under OneGov, GSA wants to work directly with original equipment manufacturers like Oracle to negotiate better governmentwide terms for commercial technology. On top of the 75% discount for licensed technology such as database, integration, security, and analytics services, Oracle will also offer “substantial base discounts” for its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services, GSA announced Monday. Oracle is now the latest of several technology vendors, including Adobe, Google, Salesforce and others, to negotiate a OneGov deal with GSA. This deal, however, comes with some additional terms beyond discounts that stand to benefit federal agencies as they modernize their IT infrastructures. In particular, Oracle won't charge data egress fees when agencies move their “existing workloads from Oracle Government Clouds to another cloud service provider's FedRAMP Moderate, High or DOD IL 4, 5 Cloud,” GSA said in its release. The company will also promote pricing parity with other competing commercial cloud providers, “with no additional security or government uplifts ever charged in the Oracle cloud.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued its version of guidance on annual artificial intelligence use case reporting within agencies, outlining a similar process to the previous administration, albeit slimmer. That guidance obtained by FedScoop is dated June 27 and has been shared internally in the federal government but hasn't been made public. It's accompanied by a document breaking down the questions in the various fields. The move suggests that despite the Trump White House's markedly different tone on AI, some details may not look so different. Despite President Donald Trump's criticism of President Joe Biden's handling of AI, including the immediate rescission of his AI executive order, the updated process will ask agencies to provide much of the same information, including the stage of development, whether it was developed in-house or purchased, and whether the use case involves personally identifiable information maintained by the agency, among other categories. Ultimately, it sets a compilation deadline of Nov. 4 and a publication deadline of Dec. 2, maintaining a similar schedule to the previous year. The General Services Administration mandated in June that all multiple award schedule contract holders will be required to report transactional data beginning in fiscal 2026, expanding a pilot that the agency launched nearly a decade ago. However, GSA's Office of the Inspector General takes objection to that decision to institutionalize the transactional data reporting (TDR) pilot because it says the agency “has never effectively implemented TDR and has never made it functional,” according to a new report. GSA's Federal Acquisition Service launched the TDR pilot in 2016, asking contractors in select product lines to share data on government purchases with the intent of driving better buying decisions. In fiscal 2024, the agency expanded the TDR pilot program to encompass 67 categories of products — what GSA refers to as special item numbers (SINs). But along the way, the program has struggled with data quality issues, limited usage in pricing decisions and a lack of competitive pricing actions, the IG points out in the new report. “Ultimately, the TDR pilot has been in effect within the MAS program for 9 years and has yet to accomplish its intended purpose,” it states. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

When you talk about operations at the edge, the State Department is up there among federal agencies with largest forward-deployed mission sets. With more than 270 posts that diplomats work out of in foreign territories, the State Department has a massive footprint at the edge. And according to Gharun Lacy, State's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber & Technology Security, each of those posts comes with its own unique challenges in securing their digital operations. Earlier this month, I hosted Lacy for a fireside chat at the GDIT Emerge: Edge Forward event, during which we discussed how State is innovating at the edge to boost security of consulates and embassies, how the department incentivizes innovation, the adoption of emerging technologies at the edge, and much more. U.S. authorities unsealed indictments, seized financial accounts and made an arrest in the latest attempt to crack down on North Korean remote IT workers as part of a coordinated action that the Justice Department announced Monday. The workers obtained employment at more than 100 U.S. companies using stolen and fake identities, costing them millions in damages and losses. The crackdown also included the seizure of websites and searches of 29 known or suspected “laptop farms” across 16 states that hosted victim company-provided laptops used to deceive companies. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts and the DOJ's National Security Division arrested Zhenxing “Danny” Wang of New Jersey on Monday pursuant to a five-count indictment of Wang and eight alleged co-conspirators, all Chinese and Taiwanese nationals. A second five-count indictment from the Northern District of Georgia charged four North Korean nationals. The Department of Homeland Security is canceling a $10 billion IT and software contract, a move that comes amid the Trump administration's push to route all deals through the General Services Administration. In a posting Friday, DHS said the decision to scrap all existing IT value-added reseller deals under its FirstSource III contract aligns with recent executive orders and was made following “a thorough analysis of active contract awards and solicitations to assess mission-criticality and continued needs.” The cancellation also includes solicitations and evaluations of proposals submitted via a second category for software, per the posting, and no additional awards will be made. Also in this episode: Deloitte's Ed Van Buren and Google Public Sector's Amina Al Sherif join SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on why agentic AI is essential for agencies striving to scale operations, lower costs and enhance efficiency. This segment was sponsored by Deloitte. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins attempted to assuage lawmakers' concerns Tuesday over how the agency plans to deliver critical health tech services amid drastic cuts to its workforce. Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Collins said the VA is full steam ahead on planned deployments of its oft-troubled electronic health record at additional facilities, and is also pushing forward on the rollout of its External Provider Scheduling tool. The VA said in February that it had dismissed 1,000 employees, while the Associated Press reported in March that it planned to cut 80,000 staffers. The Oracle EHR system, meanwhile — plagued by technical problems since its launch during the first Trump administration — is scheduled to be deployed at 13 medical facilities by 2026. A suite of Elastic products will be discounted for agencies by up to 60% under a new deal announced Tuesday by the General Services Administration. The agreement, part of the GSA's OneGov strategy to modernize how the government purchases goods and services, will give agencies access to discounts of Elastic's self-managed solution starting at 27.5%, climbing to higher savings based on governmentwide annual spending. Stephen Ehikian, GSA's acting administrator, said in a press release that the pact “represents a significant step in our efforts to drive cost efficiencies and modernize IT infrastructure across the federal government.” Additionally, discounts start at 15% for FedRAMP Moderate cloud deployments via GovCloud, jumping to 32% at the top volume tier. The pricing options are locked in for orders made prior to Sept. 30, 2027. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Volunteering offers a multitude of benefits. And if you end up retiring sooner than you plan to, it can offer a bridge to what you may decide to do next. Yet, it's easy to take on more than you're ready for too soon. You'll want to learn to set boundaries up front to protect your time and flexibility. Lisa Lewis shares her experiences and lessons learned about volunteering with boundaries. Lisa Lewis joins us from Tampa, Florida. _________________________ Bio Dr. Lisa T. Lewis is the Belief System (B.S.) Boss® and Founder of the Belief System (B.S.) Boss® Institute. Through her transformative Belief System training, she empowers individuals to successfully reengineer their belief systems to transform life's obstacles into possibilities. As an ordained clergy member, award-winning author, TEDx speaker, senior manager, and certified John Maxwell Team Coach, Teacher, Speaker, and Trainer, she brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to her practice, inspiring personal and professional growth in her clients. She formerly served as the Chief Budget and Financial Management Officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) for both the Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) in Lakeland, Florida and the Commissioned Personnel Center (CPC) in Silver Spring, Maryland.  The AOC is best known for the ‘Hurricane Hunters,' a group of aircraft used for hurricane reconnaissance. They fly through hurricanes to help forecasters and scientists gather operational and research data. The crews also conduct other research projects, including ocean wind studies, winter storm research, thunderstorm research, coastal erosion, and air chemistry flights. Her thirty-six-year federal career began as a stay-in-school student, Clerk-Typist with General Services Administration. Although she studied Business Administration at Barton College, she found her federal niche when she was introduced to federal budgeting and finance in 1991. Since then, she has become the “Olivia Pope” of federal budgeting and finance.  She has enjoyed working at a few cabinet-level agencies: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services with the U.S. Surgeon General and National Institutes of Health, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security. Aside from her recent retirement from Federal service, a few little-known facts about Lisa are that she holds several professional certifications, has authored/published several books, has completed her first TEDx Talk, has an honorary Doctor of Divinity, and is an ordained Elder in the Christian faith. __________________________ For More on Lisa Lewis  LinkedIn Website Amazon __________________________ Podcast Conversations You May Like Grace in Motion – Susan Hartzler Your Identity Beyond Your Job Title – Laverne McKinnon The Mutual Benefits of Intergenerational Volunteering – Atalaya Sergi __________________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with their own financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You'll get smarter about the investment decisions you'll make about the most important asset you'll have in retirement: your time. About Retirement Wisdom I help people who are retiring, but aren't quite done yet, discover what's next and build their custom version of their next life. A meaningful retirement doesn't just happen by accident. Schedule a call today to discuss how The Designing Your Life process created by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans can help you make your life in retirement a great one – on your own terms. About Your Podcast Host Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year ca...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to hire a company to help it mine through data sources including social media, international trade data, blockchain information, property records, and the dark web — the latest example of the agency looking to beef up the tools and platforms it uses in its enforcement operations. In a government procurement posting published late last month, ICE said it was interested in deploying a service that can continuously monitor a million people or entities of interest — and analyze trends for the purpose of “identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize,” among other goals. In a request for information for “Data Analytics” shared by ICE's investigations and operations support office in suburban Dallas, the government component outlined a range of requirements that it might seek from a contractor, like staff support, data analytics, and access to proprietary data. As the General Services Administration looks to form direct relationships with IT manufacturers to bring better value to agencies through governmentwide deals under its OneGov strategy, it's going to disrupt a staple of the federal IT acquisition ecosystem: value-added resellers. A significant portion of federal IT contracting traditionally goes through resellers that provide software services on behalf of original equipment manufacturers that often don't have the experience navigating or selling to the federal government. Those resellers, like Carahsoft, CDW-G and Iron Bow, however, specialize in that and provide additional services like integration, customization and support for commercial IT products. Lawrence Hale, assistant commissioner of the Information Technology Category in GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by George Mason University's Baroni Center for Government Contracting that what GSA is trying to do by working directly with the manufacturers is flip that relationship. In going straight to OEMs for IT contracts — as GSA has done now with several vendors like Microsoft, Google, Adobe and Salesforce under its OneGov strategy announced in April — resellers won't be eliminated. Instead, they can still serve as authorized partners or subcontractors to those IT manufacturers, Hale explained, whereas the opposite is often true today. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Daily Scoop listeners and readers of FedScoop will recall the shocking news earlier this year when 18F, a decade-old digital services consultancy in the General Services Administration, was shuttered by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. Members of the team have banded together since their termination to keep an active presence online through 18F.org in the wake of their dismantling. But the group isn't going out without a fight. Several senior members of 18F in late May filed a class action appeal to the Merit System Protection Board claiming that GSA lacked a “valid reason” for firing them and targeted them as an act of “retaliation” for their political beliefs. In the appeal, they call for a hearing and to have their removal reversed. Lindsay Young is the former executive director of 18F and one of the name appellants representing the class in the appeal. She joins the podcast for a conversation about how the “deletion” of 18F went down, what she and her team have been doing since, and what they hope to accomplish with the appeal. U.S. officials violated federal privacy law and flouted cybersecurity protocol in sharing Office of Personnel Management records with DOGE affiliates, a federal district court judge in New York ruled Monday, granting a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration. In a 99-page order, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that federal worker and union plaintiffs had shown that the government defendants in the challenge shared OPM records with “individuals who had no legal right of access to those records” in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and cybersecurity standards. “This was a breach of law and of trust,” Cote said in the order. “Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.” The ruling is the latest in a challenge to DOGE's data access at OPM brought by a coalition of federal unions and current and former government employees or contractors. A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to boost drone manufacturing in the United States, an effort the administration hopes will spur productivity and technological development and secure the country's industrial base. Meanwhile, a second executive order aims to combat the risk that, as drone usage proliferates, the technology could also be used to threaten public safety and endanger critical infrastructure. The “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” and “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” executive orders, both signed last Friday, come amid growing concerns about the operation of the National Airspace System, the airspace the Federal Aviation Administration monitors for commercial flights, space launches, and other aerial activity. Drones, sometimes called unmanned aerial systems, are also used to smuggle drugs and assist in criminal activity. Unauthorized UASs have increasingly shown up near some nuclear facilities, military bases, and commercial airports, raising concerns, too. The new executive order on airspace sovereignty aims to combat the problem, broadly charging federal agencies to detect drone activity, which will require the use of tracking and identification technology. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Two new initiatives are driving the General Services Administration closer to its goals, to centralize the buying of common goods and services simplify acquisition processes and save money. First, GSA is digging into the value added reseller model that has become popular over the last 20 plus years. And second, they're taking initial steps to set up a centralized acquisition office for more on why these two efforts are another signal of the significant changes on the horizon for federal contractors. Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller joins me now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI has the potential to transform the way citizens interact with the government and the way agencies deliver services to citizens. In previous episodes in this series we have heard from a number of Executive Branch leaders on the promises and potential risks of AI and how it's starting to transform government -- internal processes, service delivery, cybersecurity, and so on. The General Services Administration (GSA) will be in the forefront of this transformation as both a lighthouse account in the application of AI and also as the lead arm for government to acquire AI technologies. Today we will be joined by Larry Allen, a seasoned veteran in the world of government procurement and contracting, who was recently appointed Associate Administrator for Governmentwide Policy and Chief Acquisition Officer at the General Services Administration.

Our apologies for the audio distortion on this week's episode. We'll enlist some newly out-of-work DOGE techies to fix it for next week

The federal Technology Modernization Fund has had a bumpy relationship with congressional appropriators since its creation in 2017, and now the Trump administration wants to sidestep the appropriations process entirely to replenish the fund on an annual basis with unused money transferred from agencies. The White House on Friday quietly issued an in-depth appendix of its budget request for fiscal 2026, and executive agencies followed suit, publishing their annual budget justification documents. The General Services Administration, which houses the TMF program and disburses its funds, revealed in its 2026 justification that the Trump administration did not request any “new discretionary appropriated funding for the TMF” in 2026, instead proposing a new model for how it could pull money from other agencies, up to $100 million, to re-up the fund each fiscal year. “President's FY 2026 budget request includes a governmentwide general provision that will allow GSA, with approval of OMB, to collect unobligated balances of expired discretionary funds from other agencies and bring that funding into the TMF,” the justification explains. “To further strengthen the TMF's ability to help agencies kickstart or accelerate their urgent modernization efforts, GSA and OMB are committed to exploring alternative funding mechanisms.” Historically, the sitting administration has called on Congress to fund the TMF on an annual basis, with varying degrees of success. Pentagon procurement officials who are looking to up their expertise in buying cutting-edge tech for the U.S. military can now apply to join the 2026 Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program fellowship cohort, Defense Innovation Unit officials announced Tuesday. Next year will mark the fourth iteration of the educational ICAP initiative, which DIU runs in partnership with the Defense Acquisition University. This fellowship is designed to provide DOD's leading procurement professionals with hands-on experience and virtual training to help them more effectively buy in-demand commercial technologies from non-traditional military contractors. DIU's Deputy Director for Commercial Operations Liz Young McNally told DefenseScoop during a panel at the Special Competitive Studies Project's AI+ Expo. “We have other acquisition officers from across the department who can apply to the year-long fellowship with DIU — to learn our process, how we work with industry, and then bring that back to wherever they're going. And [the next ICAP application] just opened today.”If tapped for the fellowship, personnel will get a chance to work on a variety of real-world, military service-aligned projects alongside a DIU contracting officer, project team and commercial solution providers. The fellows will also gain in-depth instruction on a flexible contracting mechanism designed for rapid prototyping and acquisition of commercial tech, known as other transaction (OT) authority.

As Trump's White House sees things, the General Services Administration should take on substantially all of the responsibility for managing the federal government's acquisitions of goods and services.Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for GovExec's publications including us, and WT's editor Nick Wakeman broke the story on May 21 of how GSA is planning to absorb major IT contracts run by the National Institutes of Health and NASA.That and GSA's other moves down the consolidation path are the starting and ending points for this episode featuring Frank, Nick and Ross Wilkers that covers the wide spectrum of changes across the entire GovCon ecosystem happening as they recorded.The Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul effort and what today's world of government-industry engagement looks like were also on their discussion agenda, among other items.WT 360: Clear themes to note from the emerging structural changes to acquisitionWT 360: Our EIC Frank Konkel on GSA, Google and the government as a single whole customerIndustry awaits significant disruption as GSA works on contract takeoversGSA prepping plans to move NASA SEWP and NIH contract vehicles under its managementInside GSA's AI strategy: Using the tech while learning how to buy itGSA's procurement chief details administration's acquisition reform plansANALYSIS: GSA's new procurement strategy begins with consumer techGSA, Salesforce agree to major Slack discounts for governmentTrump orders structural changes to rules covering $1T in federal spendingThe acquisition rule (re)writers really want you to have your sayTrump administration releases first wave of acquisition regulation changesRewrite of market research rules aims to give agencies more flexibilityFAR overhaul: The challenges in tackling federal procurement's 5,000-page beast

(The Center Square) – In another blow to Harvard University, the Trump administration has moved to cancel federal contracts with the Ivy League school. The General Services Administration announced that it is working with various federal agencies to “review” government contracts with the university in preparation to “terminate” or “transition” the contracts. The move by the independent federal government agency, funded only about 1% through congressional appropriation, comes at the behest of President Donald Trump.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_3fd7bf25-7786-4020-8b87-d8138de6b470.html

Billionaire tech titan Elon Musk's time as a “special government employee” is coming to an end, but the DOGE team at the Defense Department will soon have greater influence on Pentagon contracting. Since President Donald Trump began his second term in January, Musk has spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency's push across the federal government to find “waste, fraud and abuse,” slash certain types of spending and cut the workforce. A DOGE team was set up at the Pentagon — as well as other federal agencies — to implement those efforts. Musk wrote Wednesday night in a post on X that his time as a special government employee was coming to an end but: “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.” In a sign that DOGE's influence will continue at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a new directive this week giving those personnel more oversight of contracting efforts. Hegseth wrote in a May 27 memo to senior Pentagon leadership, combatant commanders, and DOD agency and field activity directors that: “The Department of Defense (DoD) Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team will have the opportunity to provide input on all unclassified contracts. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)), or its designee, will coordinate with DOGE to ensure that the opportunity for review of the Performance Work Statement/Statement of Work, accompanying estimates, deliverable descriptions, and requirements approval/validation documents, occurs when the requirements package is provided to a DoD contracting office to initiate a procurement or prior to the package being provided to a non-DoD assisting agency (e.g., General Services Administration).” In a video released Wednesday on X, Hegseth said the Pentagon had already saved more than $10 billion working with DOGE on previous efforts to review spending, including from a “line-by-line audit of over 50 contract vehicles.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced Thursday that the government would build a new supercomputer powered by NVIDIA chips and based at a department user facility at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Officials said the supercomputer will be named Doudna after UC Berkeley scientist Jennifer Doudna, who co-invented CRISPR gene editing technology and won the Nobel Prize back in 2020. The Doudna supercomputer, which is geared toward high-performance computing and training artificial intelligence technology, will be based at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. It is only the latest Energy Department project designed for the AI age: El Capitan, a supercomputer based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and currently the world's fastest, is also designed with machine learning in mind, as is Frontier, a DOE supercomputer housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. A spokesperson would not comment further on how the Doudna supercomputer's speeds might compare to other systems. Government supercomputing projects, including those focused on AI, are now supported by the same national laboratory system that incubated the Manhattan Project, which produced the world's first atomic weapons. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Former employees of the General Services Administration's 18F digital tech consultancy team filed an appeal Wednesday challenging their alleged wrongful termination and the “targeted” shuttering of the program by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. The employees, represented by the law firm Mehri & Skalet, submitted a class-action appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board to request a hearing and have their removal reversed. Former 18F leaders Lindsay Young, Miatta Myers, Christian Crumlish, James Tranovich and Kate Fisher are named as appellants, representing that larger class of about 80 terminated permanent and term employees from the team who served for more than a year. The group claims that GSA — along with the Office of Personnel Management, DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget — lacked a “valid reason … for the [reduction in force] targeting 18F” that took place Feb. 28, and claimed the action was a result of “retaliation.” Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is enlisting data analytics giant Palantir in a new partnership aimed at cracking down on mortgage fraud. Under the agreement, Palantir's technology will be deployed to uncover fraud in mortgage packages before they reach Fannie Mae. Priscilla Almodovar, president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, said the tech will allow the organization “to see patterns quicker.” “We're going to be able to identify fraud more proactively, as opposed to reactively,” Almodovar said during a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C. “We're going to be able to understand the fraud and stop it in its tracks. And I think over time, this really becomes a deterrent for bad actors, because we're creating friction in the system when they do bad things.” FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who also serves as chairman of the Fannie Mae board, said the financial crimes division that monitors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “is only able to root out crime that it gets made aware of.” Palantir's red-flag approach, meanwhile, tips off those investigators to conduct probes they otherwise might not have known to launch.Almodovar recalled an exercise where Palantir's technology was given four actual loan files to assess. The tech, she said, scoured the “reams of paper” and identified instances of fraud in 10 seconds. The same exercise could take human investigators roughly two months. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Supreme Court temporarily stayed two lower court orders Friday that mandated the production of documents and other information from the Department of Government Efficiency. In a brief order from Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court stayed the discovery process in the public records lawsuit against DOGE pending another order by the court. The now-stayed orders from Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had granted an expedited discovery schedule that required DOGE to turn over information about its inner workings and have its administrator, Amy Gleason, give a deposition. The decision, for now, allows the Trump administration to withhold information about the Elon Musk-associated efficiency arm while the justices review the government's appeal. On Wednesday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the high court for emergency relief in the case, arguing that Cooper's decision turned the Freedom of Information Act “on its head.” At the heart of the case, which was brought by the government watchdog nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, is the question of whether DOGE constitutes an “agency” for the purposes of FOIA. While the administration says that DOGE is exempt from public records laws as a presidential advisory body, the nonprofit argues that the efficiency team has wielded “substantial independent authority” and as such is subject to FOIA and the Federal Records Act, which requires preservation of records. Staff at the Department of Homeland Security are no longer allowed to use commercial generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT and Claude, according to a memo sent to employees this month. The move is a reversal of a previous policy — which had conditionally allowed the use of commercial systems — and a pivot toward technology developed in-house. Earlier this month, DHS's chief information officer, Antoine McCord, sent a memo directing component tech offices to begin “restricting” the use of generative AI systems and pointing employees to internal tools. Older guidance, which the CIO described as “outdated” and “too narrowly” focused on commercial generative AI, was also removed from an online list of IT management directives. The decision comes as federal agencies weigh various pathways toward integrating generative AI into their workflows, a priority of both the Biden and Trump administrations. While some government agencies initially blocked generative AI systems, CIOs have slowly started to develop usage policies. Some agencies, like DHS and the General Services Administration, have now built their own platforms based on commercial technologies, while others have opted to use products like ChatGPT Gov through government cloud systems. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

AI has the potential to transform the way citizens interact with the government and the way agencies deliver services to citizens.  In previous episodes we have heard from a number of Executive Branch leaders on the promises and potential risks of AI and how it's starting to transform government -- internal processes, service delivery, cybersecurity, and so on. The General Services Administration (GSA) will be in the forefront of this transformation as both a lighthouse account in the application of AI and also as the lead arm for government to acquire AI technologies.Today we will be joined by Larry Allen, a seasoned veteran in the world of government procurement and contracting, who was recently appointed Associate Administrator for Governmentwide Policy and Chief Acquisition Officer at the General Services Administration. 

As the United States, led by the Trump administration, charts its course as a world power in AI, the nation's adversaries, particularly China, are taking major strides as well. And the decisions made today in this race to AI will define the character of competition and conflict for years to come. Ylli Bajraktari, president and CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project, joins the podcast to characterize this global competition from a defense and national security perspective ahead of his organization's massive AI + Expo June 2-4 at the Washington Convention Center. Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios criticized diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in federally funded research, calling them “close-minded” in a speech Monday. During remarks before the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, Kratsios called for a reduction of “red tape” in scientific research and fostering what the Trump administration is labeling “gold standard science.” Under that standard, there would be a “suspicion of blind consensus,” he said, arguing that there is a “crisis of confidence in scientists” that comes from fears that political biases are impacting research. Kratsios specifically pointed to DEI as antithetical to that mission, echoing a common refrain for the Trump administration, which has sought to rid the federal government of such programs, positions, offices and research. “DEI initiatives, in particular, degrade our scientific enterprise,” Kratsios said. “DEI represents an existential threat to the real diversity of thought that forms the foundation of the scientific community.” The remarks at the National Academy of Sciences — a nongovernmental membership organization aimed at promoting good scientific principles — come as the Trump administration's efforts to reshape the federal government have impacted federally funded research. The General Services Administration has entered a governmentwide buying agreement with Salesforce, the parent company of Slack, to reduce the price of the enterprise version of the workplace productivity and collaboration tool by 90% per user for federal agencies. GSA said in a press release Monday that it renegotiated “lower, fragmented discounts from individual agency deals” for a deal based on “total government purchasing volume” for Slack Enterprise Grid, resulting in a steep discount for agencies that will expire Nov. 30. The two parties also reached an agreement that will lower the price of Slack AI for Enterprise for agencies by “almost 70% off per user.” Salesforce, which acquired Slack in 2021 for $27.7 billion, is the latest commercial software vendor to reach a governmentwide purchasing agreement with GSA this year, resulting in lower costs for agencies. Google and Adobe also entered into agreements with the Trump administration since its inauguration. GSA and Microsoft arranged a similar deal that came just days before the Trump administration entered office. Also in this episode: Salesforce Executive Vice President for Global Public Sector Paul Tatum joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion on how AI agents can help government agencies improve service delivery and internal workflows. This segment was sponsored by Salesforce. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

A second group of consulting contractors is coming under the General Services Administration's microscope. A new set of 10 vendors have until this Friday to submit data analysis and options for potential savings on their existing consulting contracts to GSA and agency customers for review. For more on GSA s continued effort to reshape federal consulting contracts. Federal News Network's Executive Editor Jason Miller joins me now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Department of Government Efficiency has arrived at the Office of Biometric Identity Management, a quiet but powerful component of the Department of Homeland Security that handles a critical database of fingerprint, facial, and iris data used throughout the federal government. Three people, including one person within DHS and two more familiar with the matter, confirmed that DOGE now has a presence at the agency. Two of those sources added that DOGE seems to have restarted conversations about the future of the Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART) program, which DHS has long hoped would replace the agency's current biometrics database — the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), one of the world's largest known systems of that kind. OBIM was created more than a decade ago to manage the biometric information used to make border security decisions. As a relatively small office, OBIM provides assistance to DHS and federal agencies, including the State Department. OBIM also sometimes exchanges biometrics with other countries. OBIM's biometric database stores hundreds of millions of biometric data points. A DHS website notes that a single query of the system “can retrieve data for an individual tied to a Department of State visa application, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection log of an entry into the United States, and an immigration status change logged by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.” The Trump administration has launched an effort to overhaul the Federal Acquisition Regulation with a focus on delivering a quicker, more efficient and less burdensome procurement process for federal agencies. To provide details on the progress of the so-called “Revolutionary FAR Overhaul,” the General Services Administration — one of the federal government's lead procurement agencies and a member of the FAR Council — launched a new website Tuesday for the initiative. Federal acquisition stakeholders can expect to find a streamlined version of the FAR, buying guides — the first of which will be focused on software-as-a-service — and opportunities to share their feedback about acquisition policy on the new website, according to a release from GSA. The Trump administration's overhaul of the FAR was spurred by an executive order in April that called on the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget to lead the effort with FAR Council members GSA, NASA and the Defense Department. Within 180 days of that order, the group is expected to “amend the FAR to ensure that it contains only provisions that are required by statute or that are otherwise necessary to support simplicity and usability, strengthen the efficacy of the procurement system, or protect economic or national security interests.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The FedRAMP program at the General Services Administration has enabled agencies to safely use commercial cloud computing for more than a decade. Last month the GSA launched an update called FedRAMP 20-X. It's designed to make it easier and faster for vendors to get the authorization they need to take on federal customers. For how it looks to industry, we turn to the founder and CEO of RegScale, Travis Howerton.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Trump administration issued its first major budget document Friday, slashing non-defense discretionary spending by $163 billion — a 23% reduction from 2025 levels — and boosting defense spending by 13%. A fact sheet released by OMB references the administration's targeting of “woke” programs and “weaponized” government. One area that would see a significant boost under the budget is the Department of Veterans Affairs' electronic health record modernization program. The EHRM, whose perpetually plagued rollout has been chronicled in congressional testimony and in various watchdog reports, would be provided with a $2.17 billion funding increase in President Donald Trump's budget, per a summary document released Friday. The VA announced in March that it will have implemented the EHR in 13 facilities by 2026, with the possibility of deployment at all VA health systems as early as 2031. That followed a decision in 2023 to pause the system's implementation to renegotiate the contract with its developer Oracle Cerner and account for safety concerns. Friday's budget summary claimed the VA's EHRM rollout “had stalled under the Biden administration” but is a “top priority effort” for Secretary Doug Collins. The Technology Modernization Fund is shifting its funding model to prioritize the full repayment of new “high-impact” investments across the federal government, the General Services Administration said Friday. GSA's press release said the “strategic” change would provide a “streamlined path to modernization” for agencies by “combining upfront capital with specialized advisory services.” The agency said this “enhanced payment model” was pursued with strengthened longevity for projects in mind. Acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian said in a release that “By ensuring full repayment of our investments, the TMF sends a clear message to federal agencies: focus on high-impact, high-return modernization efforts. These investments not only replace outdated systems but also streamline critical operations ultimately improving services for government employees and delivering greater value to taxpayers.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Government Accountability Office auditors are examining the “digital footprint” left by DOGE in Treasury Department, Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management IT systems, the watchdog's leader told Congress on Tuesday. Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro said GAO auditors are looking into what data was accessed by the Elon Musk underlings during their forays into agency IT systems, and determining if any changes were made. “We're looking at the digital footprint within each of these major systems across government,” Dodaro said, naming OPM, SSA and Treasury specifically. “So we'll have a better idea about what impact DOGE's access has had on the data systems, and whether there's been any information input into the system or taken out of the system.” The General Services Administration unveiled a new initiative Tuesday that it says is aimed at helping agencies gain easier access to IT tools and shifting how the federal government approaches procurement. The OneGov Strategy is meant to modernize how the government buys goods and services and calls for more direct engagement with Original Equipment Manufacturers. The GSA said in a press release that OEMs “will benefit from a more direct and predictable engagement model.” Taxpayers, meanwhile, will benefit from a “smarter, more secure federal IT enterprise” under the strategy, the GSA said. While agencies have, in the past, bought software through resellers, the GSA believes this approach prioritizes direct relationships for enhanced outcomes. Stephen Ehikian, the agency's acting administrator, called the OneGov Strategy “a bold step forward” in GSA's “mission to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars. It's about acting as one — aligning to our scale, standards and security to meet the needs of today's government while prepping for the future.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The General Services Administration is not happy with the top-10 consulting firms it asked back in February to self-identify contracts that could be terminated to save the federal government money, going as far as to call their efforts under the initiative “insulting.” Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, wrote in a letter to those 10 firms, viewed by FedScoop, that GSA and its contracting partners are “unanimously unimpressed” with the cost savings those contractors identified in the so-called “scorecards” they submitted after the agency called for the termination of government contracts with those top consultants. As a result, the agency is calling on those firms to submit a second “waste review” by 5 p.m. ET on Friday with their proposals demonstrating how they can “lean into developing taxpayer friendly pricing” with “dramatic price reductions.” “In good faith, and with high expectation, we offered firms the opportunity to join us in reducing wasteful spending and do their part in addressing the twin issues of the federal debt and deficit,” Gruenbaum wrote. “The efforts to propose meaningful cost savings were wholly insufficient, to the point of being insulting.” The Labor Department's new chief information officer is looking to reduce staff in the Office of the CIO by about 30%, according to a source within the agency. Hundreds of people currently work in Labor's CIO office, but leadership is hoping many workers will voluntarily leave the team. Thomas Shedd, who was appointed to Labor's CIO role last month, is optimistic that the goal will be achieved through the federal government's deferred resignation programs and reduction-in-force efforts, the source said. Going forward, Labor's Office of the CIO plans to focus on systems used to disburse benefits, as well as programs required by law that need business systems and software to work, according to documents viewed by FedScoop. There will also be an emphasis on efficiency and consolidating systems while providing value, the documents said. The department told employees that they're not “tracking” staff, despite media reports, and that the agency is only interested in measuring results. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

On Monday, the Trump administration announced that it will freeze $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard University after the school refused to comply with a list of requirements it said were unlawful. In a joint letter dated April 11, the General Services Administration, Department of Education (ED) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) demanded that Harvard adopt its suggested reforms in order to maintain its funding. Among the required changes, the administration ordered Harvard to discontinue DEI programs, regulate specific academic departments, screen international students, and submit to government audits. Harvard rejected the government's terms, calling its demands an invasion of “university freedoms.” Hours later, the Trump administration announced its decision to freeze Harvard's federal funding.Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today's “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Take the survey: What do you think of Harvard's decision? Let us know!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Green and Milo to discuss how Elon Musk's DOGE is dismantling the US Digital Service and the consequences that has on really improving service delivery in government.Kate Green and Milo are former US Digital Service engineers.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.Also mentioned in this episode:Find out more about We The Builders and read perspectives of federal workers.USDS workers have resigned en masse from DOGE, and Musk's agency has fired many of those who haven't left.The General Services Administration has also cut the 18F technology team, and has been doing mass layoffs at the Technology Transformation Service. Support the show

3.12.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Drastic HUD cuts, DOE closings/firings, NOAA mass firings, Trump's economic policies spark chaos The housing crisis will get grimmer with federal cuts to fair housing programs, and to preserve affordable housing. We'll talk to the president of Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America about how the consequences could be devastating. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rejects Hurricane Helene repair efforts in Asheville, North Carolina, because the city's proposed recovery plan features a DEI program. The Department of Education is the latest federal agency facing massive layoffs. The National Parents Union president will explain what will happen with the imminent dismantling of the department. Economic expert Steve Liesman calls the twice-impeached criminally convicted felon-in-chief Donald "The Con" Trump's economic policy "insane." The Alabama Freedom Riders Museum is no longer listed for sale by the U.S. General Services Administration. A Federal jury awards two black Chicago men $120 million for spending decades in prison for a murder they did not commit. ✨Get your "Don't Blame Me ... I Voted for the Black Woman" tee and #FAFO 2025 tee TODAY #RMU Merch

Employees at the General Services Administration are facing massive staff cuts and threats of near-constant monitoring, three top Trump administration officials are in Europe this week talking with European leaders about transatlantic issues, and proponents of going to Mars see an opportunity in Elon Musk's close relationship with President Trump. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Brett Neely, Ryland Barton, Gisele Grayson, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenberg. And our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Welcome to the real world. Politico is reporting today that US government employees in the General Services Administration are experiencing "anxiety" when Trump Administration officials from the Department of Government Efficiency request an interview to assess the employee's skills and work performance. Also today: Trump fires USAID official critical of changes at that agency. Finally...SecDef Hegseth drops a bomb: "No NATO for Ukraine."