The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

It is not every day the Veterans Affairs Department comes up with a new insurance program. In fact, last year was the first time in 50 years. For a progress report and what it took to launch it, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Dan Keenaghan, the executive director of the insurance service at the Veterans Benefits Administration.

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A recent cockroach infestation at a Camp Lejeune barracks in North Carolina is forcing the Marine Corps to move some of its troops out of the building. Meanwhile, enlisted Marines have been putting up with cold or lukewarm showers for the last couple of months at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California.

“Infrastructure across the department and the services continues to age, and the deteriorating conditions at military facilities obviously have broader effects,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) said at the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) panel hearing Wednesday. “I don’t think anybody on this committee or any of you are expecting our service members to live in the Taj Mahal. I don’t think that’s their expectation, but this is disgusting. This is unsatisfactory.”

Despite high agreement that deteriorating conditions of military facilities affect recruitment, retention and overall national security, Defense Department officials acknowledge there is a lot of work ahead to address the underlying problems.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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Relative to other recent presidents, White House staff turnover during the Biden administration has been low. Turnover reached 35% 2022 and dropped to 23% last year. With some thoughts and perspective, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with the observer who came up with those numbers: Katie Tenpas, senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings.

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In developing policies and programs, federal officials need to integrate their constitutional and statutory underpinnings. And they need research and evidence on how the eventual program will perform, as well as what work might already have occurred at another agency. For how agencies can best do this, Federal News Network's Eric White spoke with Beth Martin, a Digital Services Expert with the Office of Personnel Management and with Basil White, Senior Informaticist with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

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Thirteen academic and corporate thinkers have received awards from NASA in order to develop ideas for transforming future missions. It is part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program. For details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with the program's Deputy Executive John Nelson and the program's Acting Executive Mike LaPointe.

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On this episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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Incoming federal employees will soon get access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program slightly quicker.

To try to avoid potential gaps in health care benefits for new hires, the Office of Personnel Management proposed a tweak to the FEHB program that deals with enrollment processing.

The wait for new feds to start getting coverage through FEHB can sometimes take several weeks. But after OPM finalizes its proposal, newly eligible enrollees will see “first day” FEHB coverage, once they are on their agency’s payroll.

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No one is immune from cybersecurity attacks, it seems. Just days ago, several senior Microsoft executives fell victim to a "password spray attack" coming from Russia. Did the company downplay how serious this was? And did it fail to use some basic best practices? For analysis, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with an exert at Stanford University, cyber analyst and former White House Senior Director for Cyber Policy, AJ Grotto.

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