The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

Following weeks of return-to-office announcements, yet another agency has made its plans clear to currently teleworking employees.

But this time, the National Science Foundation has drawn negative attention from its union. NSF leaders made a return-to-office announcement to staff members Friday, prior to negotiating or reaching an agreement on telework with the American Federation of Government Employees, the federal union said.

Starting in October, all telework-eligible NSF employees and Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) employees stationed at agency headquarters will have to work in the office at least four days per two-week pay period, NSF leaders said in an all-staff email, obtained by Federal News Network. The changes do not apply to employees eligible for remote work or those with an approved remote work agreement.

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.

With the calendar year half over, it's a good time to review your financial life. For people in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHB), open season isn't far off. For a few housekeeping tips to keep in mind at this mid-year point, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with financial adviser Abe Grungold.

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 most talked-about Government Accountability Office (GAO) report confirmed what a lot of people suspected: Federal offices are largely unoccupied, a continuation of the situation during the pandemic. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke to the man behind the report: GAO's Acting Director of Physical Infrastructure, David Marroni.

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.

An old saying goes like this: "If it moves, tax it. If it moves too fast, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it." Well, Artificial Intelligence is in that fast-moving stage, but no one seems to quite have any sense of how or even why to regulate it. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin's guest has a few clues: Dr. Charles Clancy, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of MITRE Labs.

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 Drive with Tom Temin:

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.

Provisions in a pair of must-pass pieces of legislation making their way through the House of Representatives could go some way toward addressing what advocates say is a lingering crisis in access to health care for DoD employees in Japan — particularly for the more than 6,000 members of the department’s civilian workforce who serve there.

One of the provisions, part of the 2024 defense authorization bill the House approved on Friday, would order U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the geographic combatant command responsible for military forces in the region, to conduct a study on whether the personnel who support its missions are getting the health care they need to keep doing everything they do.

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 federal government is setting a new record for overall small business contract spending — with more than a quarter of federal contracting dollars going to small businesses last year.

The Small Business Administration, in its fiscal 2022 Small Business Federal Procurement Scorecard released Tuesday, found agencies spent a record $162.9 billion dollars on small business contracts last year — an $8.7 billion increase from fiscal 2021. 

About 26.5% of all federal contracting dollars in fiscal 2022 went to small business prime contracts awards — which exceeds a government-wide goal for 23% of that spending to go to small business prime contracts.

SBA Administrator Isabel Guzman said small business owners in the federal marketplace support over a million jobs across several sectors — including manufacturing, construction, and research and development.

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.

Thanks to that extensive survey by the Government Accountability Office, we know just how empty federal offices really are. None of them is more than half full. That fact has depressed the market for certain commodities a lot of vendors counted on each year as a kind of annuity. To take a fuller look at the empty offices, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

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.

Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution. PPBE has been the way of the Pentagon since the 1960s. Nobody is thrilled with it, but it persists. The latest set of recommendations for reforming Pentagon acquisition comes in a letter signed by a dozen contractors and venture capital outfits. For the details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Ahmed Humayun from Applied Intuition and one of the signatories to the letter.

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.

It's one thing to want new infrastructure, but it's another thing to get a project through a nearly impenetrable thicket of federal, state and local environmental rules, not to mention the almost inevitable lawsuits. That's where the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council comes in. For details, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Eric Beightel, the Council's newly-appointed executive director.

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.