A senior Pentagon official said the U.S. Air Force’s new B-21 Bomber aircraft is ready to make its first flight after completing all developmental checkpoints, Military.com reported Wednesday. Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, Air Force military deputy to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition at the Pentagon, announced the progress during a meeting with a Senate Armed Services subcommittee. 

“Our next major milestone is first flight,” he said. “We got past critical design review.” 

The Air Force also completed the developmental milestone of the first B-21 in December. Service officials expect the aircraft to reach initial operating capability in the mid-2020s.

Northrop Grumman is building the B-21 bombers under a potential $55 billion contract with the Air Force. The service intends to acquire 100 of the aircraft to be based at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

Government officials discussed the challenges to federal health care innovation during an event hosted by the American Council for Technology – Industry Advisory Council, Nextgov reported Wednesday. Terry Adirim, deputy assistant secretary for health services policy and oversight at the Department of Defense, cited poor change management and slow procurement process as obstacles to innovative projects.

“It’s really tough because when you’re implementing a new electronic health record, you’re telling practitioners and physicians to practice differently, and that I think for us has been a really tough thing,” Adirim said Wednesday ACT-IAC’s Health Innovation Day.

Drew Myklegard, portfolio lead for project transition and integration at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Innovation Center, said organizational change management could hamper technology implementation efforts.

“When it comes to implementation [the barrier] is organizational change management. We can’t get enough talent in fast enough that can deliver these solutions, we are always looking for talent. And we are looking for the culture to change even faster,” Myklegard said.

Senators Mark Warner and Cory Gardner and Representatives Derek Kilmer and Michael McCaul unveiled a bicameral and bipartisan bill pushing local, state and tribal governments to boost cybersecurity and threat defenses. The State Cyber Resiliency Act allows the Department of Homeland Security to create a grant program to modify, apply and develop measures against cyber threats, the office of Sen. Mark Warner said Monday.

The law will also encourage participating states to optimize retention and recruitment initiatives to respond to cybersecurity employment concerns. The office noted that there are 313,000 U.S. cybersecurity job openings with 10,200 in Colorado, 6,300 in Washington, 24,800 in Texas and 33,500 in Virginia. 

“As cyberattacks increase in frequency and gravity, we must ensure that our nation—from our local governments on up—is adequately prepared to protect public safety and combat cyber threats,” said Warner, the 2019 Wash100 Award recipient. 

The Trump Administration’s 2020 budget request will potentially cut around $300M in research and development funds for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Fedscoop reported Tuesday.

Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., said during the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology hearing on Tuesday that the proposed budget cuts would terminate 17 percent or around 400 of the institute’s science and engineering personnel. The potential cuts will also affect the manufacturing extension partnership program, which includes efforts to improve U.S. tech performance and manufacturing capabilities.

“NIST is committed to doing the very best it can with a budget that we are ultimately allocated through this process,” said Walter Copan,  NIST director, during the hearing.

Trump’s budget will allocate $686.8M for the institute and increase funding for quantum information science, artificial intelligence and microelectronics research initiatives. The proposal will also fully fund the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, which handles research into 5G connectivity.

Lawmakers said the White House’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal for the Coast Guard is “dead on arrival” in Congress because of a lack of funding for critical missions, Military.com reported Tuesday. Officials made the remarks during a House meeting with Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Karl Schultz. 

The White House proposed a $11.3 billion budget for the branch for 2020 with a discretionary funding $1 billion lower than the budget for 2019. It would reduce the Coast Guard’s operational capabilities, personnel and funding for a planned new heavy icebreaker. 

“The administration proposes underfunding the Coast Guard at a time when national disasters, cyber attacks and drug trafficking are making its efforts more difficult every day,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. 

Rep. Lou Correa, D-Calif., chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security, said the budget proposal “is dead on arrival since Congress will not entertain these cuts.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has not fully implemented steps to modernize its grants management operations, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

While FEMA made steps to assess business and performance goals, track the delivery of information technology requirements and incorporate stakeholder input, the agency is still facing challenges on implementing leading business practices and tracing requirements under the Grants Management Modernization program, according to the report.

FEMA has not improved its security controls assessment procedures or established corrective action plans for medium and low-risk system vulnerabilities. The grant program schedule was “inconsistent with leading practices,” and its final delivery date of September 2020 was not based on a realistic assessment of activities under the program.

“Developing sound cost and schedule estimates is necessary to ensure that FEMA has a clear understanding of program risks,” the report stated.

GAO recommends FEMA to take action based on leading practices involving requirements management, reengineering procedures, scheduling and cybersecurity implementation.