Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus means business when it comes to getting building contractors to think green. Starting this year, contractors who want to bid on Navy or Marine construction projects have to include an option to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Gold Standard, Federal News Radio reports. And beginning in fiscal [...]

The Army’s cloud transition — moving 1.6 million email accounts to a Defense Information Systems Agency enterprise cloud — is now in question, after a House subcommittee voted to withhold 98 percent  of the program’s budget. The House Armed Services Committee’s Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee voted to withhold funding for for next year until [...]

DoD Comptroller Robert Hale, Photo: defense.gov Defense News takes a hard look at why efforts to audit the Defense Department are so difficult. As reported last week, the Pentagon has a deadline of 2017 to be fully auditable, a goal many think may be entirely unrealistic. Defense News reports efforts to get DoD’s books in [...]

The General Services Administration will begin next year consolidating eight different databases containing information about contractors — everything from solicitation data and contract award amounts to rosters of suspended contractors — into a single database powered by open-source software. Federal Times reports that GSA will begin making progress next year on the System for Award [...]

In efforts to wring an additional $400 billion in cost-savings over 12 years out of the Defense Department, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said budget cutters should avoid the “managerial cowardice” of across-the-board cuts. In a question-and-answer session at the U.S. Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, Gates, who will retire this [...]

The Intelligence and National Security Alliance is partnering with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to showcase innovative ideas in intelligence. INSA has issued a call for abstracts on a number of different intelligence-related research areas: from energy storage and robotics to WMD detection and cybersecurity. The entries, which are due by tomorrow, [...]

Soon-to-retire Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told reporters yesterday efforts to wring even more cost-savings from the Defense Department must avoid “hollowing out” the armed forces and involve a tough, public discussion about the tradeoff between spending cuts and military preparedness. In a speech last month on the deficit, President Barack Obama announced a new [...]

The House overwhelmingly approved late last week a 2011 authorization for intelligence spending, The New York Times reported. Overall, the 16 member agencies of the intelligence community, which includes the CIA and the National Security Agency, saw spending increases, but at lower levels than the administration requested. The actual amount of the increase remains classified, [...]

President Barack Obama will visit CIA headquarters Friday to thank members of the intelligence community for their role in the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden earlier this month. Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One today of the impending visit, a last-minute schedule change. Obama will thank the intelligence workforce “for the [...]

President Barack Obama’s rumored draft of an executive order that would require government-contracting companies to disclose political donations is continuing to draw fire from both industry circles and from the Capitol chamber. The Hill now reports that more than 40 members of the Republican Study Group — a conservative caucus of House Republicans — have [...]