Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has presented a bill that aims to reform, reauthorize the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy with boosted budget.

The ARPA-E Reauthorization and Reform Act of 2019 would authorize ARPA-E for five more years and increase the agency’s annual funds by $27M, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee said Wednesday.

The bill would support the agency’s mission to pursue scientific projects tackling energy, environmental, economic and national security issues.

“The gradual funding increase in this legislation reflects the fact that ARPA-E’s high-risk, high-reward approach to technology development has the potential to dramatically improve American energy and represents a tremendous return on investment,” Lucas said.

ARPA-E operates within the Department of Energy with a focus on research-driven economic and energy security.

The Supreme Court has greenlit the Trump administration’s proposal to allocate $2.5 billion in Department of Defense funds for the construction of a more than 100-mile wall along the southern border, Military.com reported Saturday.

The effort requires $789 million for the 46-mile portion in New Mexico, $646 million for a 63-mile part in Arizona and other funds for smaller replacement work in California and Arizona.

Five conservative judges approved of the allocation, reversing the prior decisions of a trial court and an appeals court to freeze funding for the wall replacement projects.

Trump initially identified $2.5 billion from DoD funds, $3.6 billion from military construction funds and $600 million in Treasury Department asset forfeiture funds for the wall’s construction.

The Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology directorate met with New York City’s 5 Research and Development Council to review research, development, test and evaluation initiatives in public safety and security.  5RD Council members also visited DHS S&T’s National Urban Security Technology Laboratory and were lectured on the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, the agency said Thursday. 

Additionally, DHS S&T and 5RD held meetings with the National Football League, Amazon Web Services and Madison Square Garden during the three-day affair. Representatives from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the U.K. also took part in the meeting. 5RD Council aims to facilitate security and public safety efforts among partner countries to reinforce transparency and security capabilities.

“We work multilaterally with our Five Eyes partners to advance RDT&E activities that keep our countries safe and help to fight borderless threats,” said Bob Burns, executive director at DHS S&T’s Office of Innovation and Collaboration.

The Government Accountability Office has listed 58 recommendations to help agencies implement key practices in their respective risk management and cybersecurity initiatives. The recommendations include coordination with the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, development of a risk management process document, facilitation of organization-wide security assessments and modernization of risk evaluation policies, GAO said in a report published Thursday. 

GAO found that while 22 agencies have assigned cybersecurity risk executives, none of them were able to integrate risk management and security processes to their programs. Additionally, GAO noted a number of gaps in creating risk management programs including employee retention, lack of quality risk data and non-consistency in applying security policies.

The agency also reported that DHS and the Office of Management and Budget did not address management gaps amid an issued executive order in 2017. GAO conducted the review to secure federal agencies’ data from potential cyberattacks.

Technical directors from two different Naval Surface Warfare Center divisions have temporarily swapped stations to gain perspectives on each other’s teams, DVIDS Hub reported Thursday. Ed Stewart, technical director at NSWC Panama City Division, and Brett Seidle, who holds the same role with the NSWC Crane Division, have switched to gather input for potential collaboration strategies under the “One Team Warfare Center” approach. 

“I think we can do amazing things together and I am personally looking forward to working with the Crane team,” Stewart said.

The temporary switch runs over one week. The two directors will come together to discuss gathered insights after the one-week swap.

NASA Administrator and 2019 Wash100 Award winner Jim Bridenstine said in a statement that the agency will push through with static-fire tests of the Space Launch System which will support the planned 2024 moon mission, Space News reported Thursday. “The Green Run acceptance test gives NASA the confidence needed to know the new core stage will perform again and again as it is intended,” noted Lisa Bates, SLS deputy stages manager at NASA.

Bridenstine didn’t disclose the schedule for the SLS core stage’s eight-minute test known as “Green Run” at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said Bridenstine’s decision to move forward with SLS testing is “a vote of confidence in Stennis Space Center and its dedicated workforce.”

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration has invested nearly $42M to support 49 health center controlled networks. HHS said Thursday that its contribution will support information technology efforts at 1,100 federally-funded health centers in all U.S. states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

“Investing in more advanced health IT will help put patients at the center and unleash the power of data, helping us get better value from the care delivered by health centers and delivering on President Trump’s vision for healthcare,” said Alex Azar, HHS secretary.

HCCNs consists of health centers that work together to make technologies easier to use, boost patient information security and improve patient care via available data. The number of health centers participating in HCCNs has increased over the past years. Now, 86 percent of HSRA-supported health centers cooperate as part of these networks.