The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Defense Logistics Agency met on Oct. 31 to explore collaborative approaches to support military customers.

Leaders from both organizations discussed military construction, research and development, restoration, engineering and modernization efforts during their Partnership Day, DLA said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commander of USACE, said the organization saw its portfolio grow from $26B to $58B  over a one-year period.

“We want to use this massive growth to figure out how we can somehow change the way we’re delivering, how to streamline,” Semonite added.

Lt. Gen. Darrell Williams, director of DLA, said the agency supports more than 40 “whole-of-government” customers.

The Federal Aviation Administration is advising interested vendors that contracting opportunities with the agency and other related announcements will be posted on the new FAA Contract Opportunities website. FAA said Thursday it will stop issuing announcements via FedBizOpps as it waits to resolve system compatibility issues with the SAM.gov platform.

The move comes as part of the General Services Administration’s efforts to transition 10 legacy contracting sites, including FBO, into a consolidated System for Award Management platform. FAA noted that it does not plan to transfer its contracting opportunities to the beta system.

The FBO migration is slated for Nov. 8 to 11.

The Partnership for Public Service and Seattle-based firm Slalom Consulting released a report stating that 76 percent of private-sector workers feel  motivated to innovate compared to 60 percent of government employees, Nextgov reported Friday. The two entities conducted surveys on 16 federal agencies and identified characteristics that help promote innovation as part of the study.

According to results of the 2018 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, efforts to promote creativity, remove barriers and provide leadership support are the top factors for fostering innovation in federal organizations.

“There are agencies rising to the challenge—creating environments where new ideas are encouraged and are flourishing in areas dealing with national security, global development, health care, federal procurement and space exploration, among others,” the report stated.

Successful initiatives cited in the study include the Department of Homeland Security’s procurement innovation lab, the State Department’s virtual internship program, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ solicitation of healthcare best practices and the Department of Defense’s digital service efforts.

Andrew Hallman, a more than three-decade intelligence community veteran, has been appointed principal executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ODNI said Wednesday that Hallman will assume the duties of the principal deputy director of national intelligence until the Senate confirms a presidential nominee for the position.

Hallman most recently served as deputy director for digital innovation at the CIA, where he oversaw digital and cyber integration efforts across the agency’s mission areas. He also held a deputy director role at ODNI and served as an intelligence briefer to the president earlier in his career.

According to acting DNI Joseph Maguire, Hallman’s IC experience is “ tremendously valuable as our nation faces a dynamic range of current and future global threats.”

Hallman holds a master’s degree in international affairs from the American University and a bachelor’s degree in public affairs management from Michigan State University.

U.S. senators voted 84-9 Thursday to pass a minibus spending package that allocates a fiscal year 2020 budget of $22.75B for NASA, SpaceNews reported Friday.

The four-bill appropriations measure would also fund several other agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

NASA would get $784M to finance aeronautics research efforts such as work at the Glenn Research Center and another $1.4B to support the Orion project, according to a press release posted by the office of Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

“While I am pleased the Senate has finally passed a package of appropriations bills, we face a pressing deadline of Nov. 21 and are still far behind in completing an orderly appropriations process,” said House Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

SpaceNews reports that a lack of consensus on spending allocations across 12 bills could hinder reconciliation of the upper chamber’s legislation containing the NASA budget with that of the House’s version of the bill, which proposes a $22.31B budget for the space agency.

The report added extending a continuing resolution would affect the procurement of lunar lander platforms under the Artemis program.

The Defense Health Agency has begun taking over the responsibility for the management and administration of military treatment facilities previously ran by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Army.

USAF said Friday the transition efforts were mandated by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and part of the Military Health System consolidation initiative.

The service branch intends to provide direct support to DHA in managing day-to-day operations of military clinics and clinics during the transition process. DHA will receive the support until the agency demonstrates its capacity to solely oversee the facilities.

According to USAF, it expects the move to have a “minimal” impact on patients and health care providers.