In a Dec. 19 speech, Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel contended that implementing across-the-board standards for the federal government’s procurement of cloud computing services could improve communications between the government and private sector. ExecutiveGov broke down the hour-long speech, here. Dan Gordon, who has served as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy since 2009, recently told [...]
Speaking at an Oct. 17 ARMA conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Paul Wester, the chief records officer for the National Archive and Records Administration, said a new, separate and firewalled classified electronic records archive could go live within a year. Wester said that the administration has already acquired the necessary hardware and is close to [...]
Coast Guard officials are concerned that a three-year budget appropriation approved Oct. 3 by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee may interfere with an ongoing 15-year capital upgrade program. Coast Guard Commandant Robert Papp told a House subcommittee Oct. 4 that the Government Accountability Office reached conclusions about the branch’s required capital expenditures using year-old data. The GAO said the Coast Guard needs $1.9 [...]
The Defense Department and some politicians are becoming more vocal about their belief that the Budget Control Act will cause substantially larger defense spending cuts than the oft-advertised $350 billion in reductions by 2023. Aerospace Industries Association chief Marion Blakey estimates the real size of the cuts would be between $460 billion and $480 billion. A Pentagon [...]
Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel has the government’s data centers in his sights, aiming to close 472 of the IT hubs by the end of 2012. The number of centers on the chopping block has recently grown as VanRoekel is promoting “bolder steps” in curbing costs. Data center operations and related support currently account for nearly 30 [...]
The future of weapons modernization programs hangs in the balance as the Pentagon prepares to cut up to $450 billion in spending over the next decade, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said in an interview Monday. “Its clear we’re going to have to trim modernization programs to some degree and it’s clear we’re going to [...]
The Congressional Budget Office has found that it would cost the federal government $575 million over five years to implement spending oversight measures included in the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011. The CBO estimates $325 million of the costs would go towards establishing and operating the Federal Accountability and Spending Transparency Board to oversee recovery.gov. [...]
Current budget proposals strike hard at Congress’ investigative agency, the Government Accountability Office, and its defenders are rallying against the widespread layoffs and regional office closures they say such cuts would cause. The agency has identified billions of dollars in savings in recent years, but its operational budget may be cut by up to $50 million [...]
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen is realistic about the future of the U.S defense budget. “There are ways to go about cutting the defense budget and we will have to,” he said at a Sept. 29 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Our force structure under the circumstances is just not sustainable.” The former [...]
Check that one off the list. The federal government will soon initiate the Technology Fellows Program, fulfilling one of former federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra‘s 25 objectives in his December 2010 federal IT reform plan to develop such a fellowship within a year. Current federal CIO Steven VanRoekel announced the program in a White House blog post. [...]