The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

We all saw the devastation from the wildfires in Maui toward the end of the summer. Obviously several federal agencies sprung into action for rescue and recovery efforts. One particular agency many may not know plays a big role in helping people get their lives back together. The Small Business Administration is currently in the process of giving out millions in Disaster Assistance loans for those impacted by the Maui wildfires. For an update, Federal Drive Executive Producer Eric White talked to Francisco Sánchez Jr., the Associate Administrator in SBA's Office of Disaster Recovery & Resilience.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today's episode of the Federal Newscast:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The National Security Agency is establishing a new “Artificial Intelligence Security Center” to help spur on the secure development and adoption of AI capabilities, and defend AI advancements from foreign adversaries.

NSA Director and Cyber Command chief Gen. Paul Nakasone broke the news during an event at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“The AI Security Center will become NSA’s focal point for leveraging foreign intelligence insights, contributing to the development of best practices guidelines, principles, evaluation methodology, and risk frameworks for AI security, with an end goal of promoting the secure development, integration, and adoption of AI capabilities within our national security systems and our defense industrial base,” Nakasone said.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Congressman Gerry Connolly couldn’t wait any longer for the Republican majority to jump on the FITARA bandwagon.

The Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on cybersecurity, IT and innovation handed out grades under the 16th iteration of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard today with agencies earning 3 “As”, 16 “Bs” and 5 “Cs.”

Connolly is holding a FITARA roundtable this afternoon on Capitol Hill featuring testimony from the Government Accountability Office, the General Services Administration, the Social Security Administration and the departments of State, Veterans Affairs and Commerce.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Every public institution needs an outside, independent look from time to time to make sure it's meeting its mission with integrity. But if you’re they biggest and most trusted government auditing organization in the country, who audits you? It turns out it is teams from other countries. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) just underwent a peer review by a team made up of auditors from Sweden, Norway, Canada and New Zealand. GAO “passed” – which is actually the highest score you can get. Ben Nelson is GAO’s managing director for quality and continuous improvement. He joined Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu to talk about what GAO learned from that latest round of outside scrutiny.

GAO Report link

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The National Archives doesn’t hang on to every document the government generates – only the 5% or so that are deemed to have “continuing value”. But that’s still billions of pages of text, plus all kinds of other media, from maps to electronic records. There’s a new official in charge of figuring out how to preserve and present those records to the public. Dr. Colleen Shogun was confirmed by the Senate this summer as the eleventh National Archivist of the United States, and the first woman ever to serve in that role. She spoke about her vision for NARA with Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To the surprise of just about everybody, the Federal Government is fully functional this Monday, October 2, 2023. Some surprise last-minute votes in both the House and Senate on Saturday happened just in time to get a continuing resolution (CR)to the president’s desk – just hours before much of the government was set to run out of appropriations. That CR will maintain 2023 funding levels for the next 45 days – now 44 days. Loren Duggan is deputy news director and director of legislative analysis at Bloomberg Government. He worked well in to the weekend to have this conversation with Federal News Network Deputy Director Jared Serbu. Duggan and Serbu had a "recap discussion" and took a look ahead to the next 6 weeks or so.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As of Sunday, 1.5 million federal civilian employees and 2 million servicemembers got the news they were hoping for: House and Senate leaders reached a deal to keep the government open.

The last several weeks of anxiety, hopefully, melted away among federal employees and contractors as President Joe Biden signed the 45-day continuing resolution ensuring the missions continue and people get paid.

The emotional toll of preparing for a shutdown, of potentially being furloughed, of your routine being interrupted and the spending all the time and energy to close down the mission you love — or at least like on most days — can be just as taxing.

And this physical and emotional toll of preparing for a shutdown is a huge test for any public or private sector manager and leader.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Senior officials at the National Science Foundation plan to cut the salaries of several hundred employees starting in January.

NSF leaders made the announcement to staff after learning that the agency, in violation of federal law, has been overpaying some of its scientists, engineers and program directors for the last six years.

Approximately 315 NSF employees on levels 4 and 5 of the Administratively Determined (AD) pay scale will see cuts to their salaries take effect on or after Jan. 14, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and Chief Operating Officer Karen Marrongelle said Thursday in an email to agency employees, obtained by Federal News Network.

“We recognize pay is a personal issue and can have a significant impact on people’s day-to-day lives,” Panchanathan and Marrongelle said in the email. “We value all of our staff’s contributions and their dedication to our agency and mission, and dedicated a significant amount of time and resources to try and get the best possible outcome in this difficult situation.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A new contract awarded to Discseel® Technologies by the Veterans Affairs Department, tasks the company with training physicians to perform a new, non-surgical spine procedure - to all Department of Defense and V.A. hospitals in the United States and overseas. For more on what is called the Disceel procedure, Federal Drive Executive Producer spoke to its creator, Dr. Kevin Pauza, who is also Chief Medical Adviser and Director of Discseel® Technologies.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.