The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

After a year of development and testing, the Defense Information Systems Agency is ready to roll out an artificial intelligence concierge for its workforce. The platform will help DISA’s employees to quickly find answers to everyday questions instead of pestering colleagues. Federal News Network's Anastasia Obis has more. 

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Last winter a team from the General Services Administration and the Defense Department asked the power industry for something new. A completely carbon-free source of electricity for federal facilities in several states. With another winter coming on, we check in on progress. My next guest is a contracting officer in the retail utility procurement branch of the GSA's Public Buildings Service, Bonnie Bueter.

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The General Services Administration both creates procurement trends and tries to keep up with them. Balancing the legitimate interests of the government, and taxpayers and industry has been the mantra of administrator Robin Carnahan, who spoke last week at the annual ACTIAC executive leadership conference. Afterwards, I caught up with Carnahan to discuss several issues, starting with GSA's artificial intelligence buying guide, which sound a lot like recent White House AI memos.

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We're getting a lot more details on the Defense Department's plans to shore up its industrial base. Yesterday, DoD released a detailed implementation plan for how it will implement its first ever national defense industrial strategy. It includes nearly $38 billion in planned spending this year alone, with more to come in the future years. As the Pentagon rolls out six separate industrial base initiatives, we get more details now from Federal News Network's Jared Serbu.

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The General Services Administration is gathering feedback on how to make the federal government more open to the public. It's getting some of its recommendations from the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee. A mix of federal officials and good government groups serve on the committee, which recently held its first meeting. For a closer look at its work, Federal News Network's Jory Heckman spoke with the committee's chairman and executive director of the American governance Institute, Daniel Schuman.

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A new strategic plan from the Postal Service Office of Inspector General is out. The five year plan comes during a turbulent time for the agency with tight budgets and a dire need for efficiency. The IG's office hopes to help with that by making a few updates to it's mission. To learn more, we welcome Postal Service IG Tammy Hull.

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Minority owned small businesses were dealt another blow when a Kentucky federal judge on September 23rd, partially blocked a U.S. Transportation Department program that issues contracts to them. There are some that worry this trend of decision against programs to diversify federal contract spending will hamper progress. One of them is Kendra Perkins Norwood, a partner with the law firm Reed Smith, who I had the chance to speak with earlier about this.

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Today on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin

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The first Columbia class submarine is due for delivery to the Navy in 2027. It plans to spend more than a hundred billion dollars for a dozen of them. Delays in this scale of program are inevitable. In fact, sub number one is already late. Yet the Navy … auditors say … lacks a statistical schedule risk analysis to go along with the program. And that means it may not have enough insight into the whole program. More now from the director of contracting and national security acquisitions at the Government Accountability Office, Shelby Oakley.

Read the report here: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-107732

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Agencies have their results in hand for the 2024 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. Overall, the responses on employee engagement and employee experience are looking pretty positive, but digging a little deeper into the results could help agencies understand where improvements might still be needed. Federal News Network's Drew Friedman joins me with more to discuss the results.

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