Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, commander at the North American Aerospace Defense and Nothern Commands, said the U.S. government must maintain vigilance with increased activities in the Arctic region. O’Shaughnessy noted that Northcom and NORAD should prioritize the development of a framework to utilize an array of sensor systems to reinforce domain awareness, the Department of Defense said Tuesday.

He noted the Northern Command has partnered with the service branches to validate methods of operation in the Arctic area. In addition, O’Shaughnessy said the government should build a defeat mechanism to mature from single point defense to a wider area of coverage.

“We have to advance from these stovepipe systems to this broad-level architecture … that’s clearly joint,” said O’Shaughnessy. “It has to be able to ingest all of the various sensors we have out there and be able to bring it to a command and control capability,” he added.

A task force of the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Bipartisan Policy Center is looking into organizations overseeing executive branch agencies and assessing how those agencies implement oversight recommendations, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

The task force found that those agencies do not spend enough time to implement improvements to their performance and are focusing more on responding to oversight recommendations and compliance-based activities. Such agencies and oversight bodies have not established a culture that assumes risks at the beginning.

“If overseers are aware of risks that agencies are taking prior to any incident, and if overseers were satisfied that mitigation of these risks was taken seriously, we avoid the type of ‘gotcha’ oversight that often stymies innovation and breakthroughs,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Government Operations Subcommittee.

The task force called on the Government Accountability Office and inspectors general to focus their recommendations on performance measures and specific agency outcomes. Internal oversight groups should also work with GAO, IGs and other outside oversight organizations in terms of monitoring the progress of agencies and offering recommendations, according to the task force. The task force includes former officials from GAO, Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, among other agencies.

Michael Griffin, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the Space Development Agency’s acquisition strategy seeks to accelerate the development of capabilities that are cost effective and responsive to any threat, the DoD website reported Tuesday.

The strategy supports SDA’s efforts to mass produce satellites that ensure redundancy and make it more challenging for adversaries to attack them, Griffin said Tuesday during SDA’s industry day. He also cited SDA’s role in advancing communication between service branches and government agencies to identify capability gaps and avoid duplication.

Derek Tournear, acting director of SDA, also spoke at the event to provide an overview of the agency and discuss its role in helping military branches advance their space initiatives. The report said SDA plans to deploy several platforms such as defensive anti-jamming, anti-spoofing and cyber capabilities and artificial intelligence-based ground systems and cross-networked satellites.

Senior government officials discussed a range of national concerns on chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense during the National Defense Industrial Association’s CBRN Conference and Exhibition in Delaware, National Defense magazine reported Tuesday. Andrew Kilianski, chief intelligence officer at the joint program executive office for CBRN, said that focus must be shifted to emerging threats and potential attacks from near-peer adversaries.

James Madsen, lead clinical consultant and clinical laboratory director at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense’s chemical casualty care division, noted that while Russsia is the country’s biggest chemical threat, China “knows more about marine toxins in particular than any other country in the world.”

Previously, President Trump released his budget request for fiscal 2020 which earmarks $1.4 billion for CBRN defense efforts.

Gary Washington, chief information officer of the Department of Agriculture, said at an ACT-IAC event that the department plans to issue a task order for systems modernization support in the coming days, FCW reported Tuesday. The task order will fall under the General Services Administration’s Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract for telecommunications services valued at $50 billion. 

“We’re very excited about some of the things — such as modernization, improved performance and delivery of services — that we’re going to be able to provide,” Washington noted. He added that USDA aims to complete the EIS modernization effort throughout its 17 networks by 2023.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District is nearing completion of the Secure Administrative/Operations Facility in Virginia which will house operations under the Army Intelligence and Security Command, DVIDShub.net reported Monday.

The 381,000-square foot facility is located at Fort Belvoir and will be used for INSCOM’s various intelligence-related activities including training, acquisition, logistics and communications to support operations under the joint and coalition commands, Army and intelligence community. USACE contracted the Manhattan Construction Company to help build the complex in 2016.

The Army component expects SAOF’s construction to conclude by fall of this year. “We’ve created a facility that consolidates INSCOM’s operations, which were previously dispersed throughout the national capital region,” said Col. John Litz, the Baltimore District’s commander.

Austal USA released the U.S. Navy’s 12th Independence-variant littoral combat ship into the sea in preparation for delivery in 2020. The service branch said Monday that its future USS Oakland or LCS 24 touched water for the first time on Sunday at the shipbuilder’s facility in Mobile, Ala.

Kate Brandt, sustainability officer at Google, christened LCS 24 last month and had her initials welded at a keel laying ceremony last year as the ship’s sponsor. Austal’s Alabama-based shipyard houses work for four ongoing LCS construction efforts including the future USS Mobile and Savannah.

The future USS Kansas City, meanwhile, is undergoing preparations for sea testing.

Ajit Pai, chairman at the Federal Communications Commission, has proposed two approaches to update and simplify the agency’s procedures. Pai proposed that the agency should utilize written testimonies to speed up hearing processes, FCC said Monday.

In addition, Pai recommends the FCC migrate its licensing tool to an electronic system to augment correspondence and filing capacities.

“By transitioning more records and communications from paper to electronic format, we can save money and increase our efficiency,” said Pai. Pai added that streaming hearing protocols will assist FCC in concluding disputes and provide potential benefits to the private sector.