The U.S. Navy is awarding a contract for the construction of a large surface combat ship as part of a plan to complete a 355-ship fleet, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday.

Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson has proposed the contract be awarded in fiscal year 2023. At the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference, Boxall revealed he’s unsure about the probability of reaching Richardson’s goal, but the service branch has also been “aggressively” on schedule.

The future large ship would possess a commonality-oriented, integrated combat system as part of a new generation of combatant vessels. The plan comes as the Department of Defense addresses competitor adversaries including China and Russia, the report noted.

The U.S. Air Force invites airmen to take part in a competition seeking innovative concepts addressing the military’s multi-domain challenges. The Vice Chief’s Challenge, announced at an Air Force Association convention, will provide specific topic areas for which participants develop new applications allowing users to clearly visualize the operational environment, USAF said Tuesday.

“We want to harness the human-machine teaming technology found in the myriad of apps on portable devices and deliver a similar situational awareness capability for the Joint Force,” said Gen. Stephen Wilson, Air Force vice chief of staff.

The competition will task participants to design an app, an algorithm or a different approach to integrate and display data for use in multi-domain operations.

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Aspiring participants must submit applications by Feb. 28. The competition will run through September with a culmination ceremony at AFA’s next Air, Space and Cyber Conference.

The House of Representatives voted to pass a bill to reauthorize the role of the federal chief information officer and appoint a complementary support executive. The Federal CIO Authorization Act of 2018 aims to further secure the nation’s digital infrastructure and streamline information technology reporting, the office of Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said Tuesday. 

Reps. Hurd and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., are the sponsors of the legislation that passed the House following the bill’s reintroduction earlier this month. The bill directs the federal CIO to serve as a presidential appointee who would report to the Office of Management and Budget’s director. The legislation would also appoint a federal chief information security officer who would report directly under the federal CIO. 

“This bill helps keep the vast information stored by the federal government secure from hackers by making clear that the federal CIO is in charge of the security of our data across the government,” Hurd said.

The Government Accountability Office released a new report detailing the growing challenges in electronically sharing and matching patient records. In interviews with healthcare experts, providers and other stakeholders, accurately matching patient health records represents “a barrier to health information exchange,” GAO said in the report published Tuesday.

“Records don’t always contain correct information and that health information technology systems and providers use different formats for key information such as names that contain hyphens,” the report stated. 

The respondents suggested the government improve how it manages data and the methods used to match health information. For consistency on electronic health records, they said healthcare providers should also implement common standards for recording demographic data, share best practices, other resources and launch a public-private collaboration to improve matching. 

GAO interviewed representatives from physician practices, hospitals, health systems, health information exchange organizations as well as health IT vendors and researchers for the report. The agency also reviewed reports from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and other sources about patient record matching. ONC leads the coordination of nationwide efforts of the government to implement and use health IT.

President Trump has signed into law the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act containing a provision that mandates the federal government to enable public access to all of its non-sensitive data, the Data Coalition said Monday.

The FEBP Act’s Open, Public, Electronic and  requires the data to be machine-readable and open-license in support of efforts to promote efficiency in government operations and services. The OPEN Government Data Act will additionally create a Chief Data Officer Council and assign CDOs to federal agencies; require regular oversight from the Government Accountability Office; and establish standards for providing public access to federal government information.

 Sarah Joy Hays, acting executive director of the Data Coalition, said the governmentwide law will “transform the way the government collects, publishes and uses non-sensitive public information.”

The data access effort was led by former Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Congress passed the package on Dec. 31, 2018.

The Office of Management and Budget confirmed that federal agencies won’t be required to consider targeted layoffs when the ongoing government shutdown extends to more than 30 days, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

OMB said that shutdown furloughs, also known as emergency furloughs, are not covered by reductions-in-force regulations. These regulations require agencies to terminate targeted groups of employees who have been placed on furlough status for 30 days or more. The partial government shutdown has been ongoing for more than 25 days.

The Office of Personnel Management clarified that RIFs only occur in situations controlled by agencies, such as administrative furloughs aimed at downsizing due to reduced funding, lack of work or any budget situation. OPM noted that RIFs are not applicable during government shutdowns as such situation have an indefinite duration and relies entirely on congressional action not on an agency.

House lawmakers are expected to vote on several bills to end the current shutdown and temporarily fund closed federal agencies this week.

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin D-Md., author of the S. 24 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, issued the following statement in response to President Trump signing the bill into law.

A Defense Intelligence Agency report says Chinese leaders implement a strategy to build up regional and global power and influence, the Pentagon reported Tuesday.

“As we look at China, we see a country whose leaders describe it as moving closer to center stage in the world, while they strive to achieve what they call the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,’” said Dan Taylor, a senior defense intelligence analyst at DIA.

“This ambition permeates China’s national security strategy and guides the development of the People’s Liberation Army.”

According to the 125-page report, the East Asian country’s evolving strategic threat perceptions have shaped PLA’s military doctrine and direction and PLA saw its budget rise by an average of 10 percent annually between 2000 and 2016.

The document cited how Chinese military leaders influence foreign and defense policy and how the country uses the “active defense” concept to characterize its military strategy.

DLA said China’s military objective is to establish a combat-effective force that could use integrated command-and-control networks and win regional conflicts.

The “China Military Power — Modernizing a Force to Fight and Win” report also assesses the country’s core military capabilities across various areas such as power projection and expeditionary operations; nuclear weapons and forces; biological and chemical warfare; space and counterspace; cyber space; and denial and deception.
 

An advisory group created by Congress has released a report that calls for the Department of Defense to adopt a “war footing approach” when it comes to the acquisition and delivery of technological capabilities to warfighters to keep ahead of near-peer competitors’ tech advances, National Defense reported Tuesday.

The Section 809 Panel said in the report its 58 recommendations are divided into 12 sections including the Dynamic Marketplace Framework, portfolio management, information technology procurement, budget and acquisition workforce.

For the portfolio management aspect, the panel urged DoD to move from a program-centric execution model to a portfolio execution model and adopt a “defensewide capability portfolio framework” to ensure the deployment of integrated platforms.

The consulting group said the Pentagon should update acquisition regulations to facilitate the procurement of consumption-based platforms and establish a pilot program to streamline contracting work with IT consultants via an online talent marketplace, according to the volume 3 report.

The report also recommends the revision of the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act to focus on efforts that seek to improve professional qualifications; creation of a policy to mitigate supply chain and performance risks through requirements documents; and elimination of redundant requirements for documentation.

The third and final report came seven months after the Section 809 Panel released the volume 3 document.