Dan Brouillette, secretary of energy, has unveiled a strategy to bolster the country’s performance in areas related to nuclear energy.

The Strategy to Restore American Nuclear Energy Leadership lists efforts to bring back industrial uranium capabilities, further nuclear power technologies, support exports and maintain compliance with national security and non-proliferation, DOE said Thursday.

Brouillette said the strategy aims to address the country’s industrial decline in the nuclear fuel area and resulting threats to national security and interest.

“As a matter of national security, it is critical that we take bold steps to preserve and grow the entire U.S. nuclear energy enterprise,” he said.

The strategy highlights the importance of the government working as a whole towards the U.S. nuclear industry’s progress in the global competition.

The Nuclear Fuel Working Group, presidentially stood up in July 2019, produced the strategy.

Rachael Martin, mission chief at the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), said the center is working to keep at pace with industry when it comes to implementing and scaling robotic process automation, Nextgov reported Thursday.

Martin told attendees at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology webinar that while some agencies have deployed a robust RPA framework, JAIC also needs to develop a shared services model to match strategies used in the private sector.

She added that the early use of RPA has been “driven by necessity” to perform administrative tasks such as financial management and contracting procedures. Integrating RPA into agencies’ varying cloud infrastructures remains a challenge for the Department of Defense component, according to Martin.

“We’re finding that people are defaulting to desktop applications because it’s easier than having to go through the whole process of standing up cloud infrastructure to host the software,” she said. “I think in the long-term that is going to be what prevents us from scaling.”

Gen. David Goldfein, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, said the service branch is moving forward to develop the Advanced Battle Management System, a new integrated situational awareness platform, addressing a certain report by the Government Accountability Office, C4ISRnet reported Thursday.

Goldfein’s statement addresses a GAO report that USAF does not have a detailed plan to develop and implement ABMS. GAO does not have key information to conclude USAF’s lack of a plan to develop ABMS that is designed to facilitate integrated situational awareness across multiple domains, Goldfein told reporters.

The government watchdog found in its report that USAF still needs to identify technology, cost and assessment requirements for the system’s development. Goldfein said GAO did not see the technology perform during the service branch’s ABMS demonstration in December.

Marie Mak, director of GAO, responded by saying the agency has acknowledged the exercise and multiple pieces of classified content, but still is firm with the finding that USAF has not fully planned for ABMS activities.

Goldfein noted that he does not intend to criticize GAO and believes the agency needs more support to understand the project’s actual pace.

“We’ve got to help others realize that we are moving out and we are developing capability faster than we’ve ever developed capability before,” he said.

About The Wash100

This year represents our sixth annual Wash100 Award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, achievement, and vision.

Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2020 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2020.