The House Appropriations Committee released the draft funding bill for NASA and the departments of Commerce and Justice for fiscal year 2020, which would support the initiatives to combat crimes, create jobs, improve U.S. infrastructure and to fight climate change. The Commerce, Justice and Science funding bill issued Thursday would provide $73.9 billion to the agencies, nearly $10 billion higher than the FY19 budget.  

“This year’s CJS funding bill rejects the inadequate and damaging proposals in the Trump Administration’s budget requests, and instead provides needed increases to the key programs in this bill,” said José Serrano, chairman of the subcommittee on commerce, justice, science and related agencies. “This bill will create jobs, drive innovation and address pressing public safety issues.”

The bill includes $32 billion for DOJ, which would go to FBI, Bureau of Prisons and Drug Enforcement Administration to prevent violent crimes and drug and human trafficking, among other law enforcement efforts. The Department of Commerce would receive $16.43 billion to support operations of the Census Bureau, the Economic Development Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Meanwhile, NASA is expected to increase its science programs, STEM engagement and missions in space with a $22.32 billion budget from the bill. Serrano’s subcommittee is scheduled to discuss the proposed CJS funding bill on Friday. 

Brian Griffith, a program manager for the FBI, said at an AFCEA forum in Washington, D.C. that the bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services division is revising its information technology recruitment strategy, Fedscoop reported Wednesday. Griffith told the attendees at the 2019 Law Enforcement and Public Safety Technology Forum that the FBI is looking for individuals with aptitude and a “sense of mission.”

“You need great generals who are able to fill in as a developer, as a base person, as a tester, maybe occasionally becoming scrum master and leading those teams.” he said.

The Trump administration is working to expand the government IT workforce through legislation such as direct-hire authority for agencies. The FBI also partnered with institutions like the Carnegie Mellon University to improve its recruitment of IT personnel.

“Not only in the federal government but also in industry, we don’t have as much of a pipeline as we would like for cybersecurity analysts and for data scientists,” added Margie Graves, the federal deputy chief information officer.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said that it’s on track to meet the new deadline to implement the Forever GI Bill to expand education benefits for veterans, service members and their families, Federal News Network reported Wednesday. Initially, VA intended to begin processing education as well as housing benefits under the law in August. However, the agency adjusted the schedule to Dec. 1, 2019 to secure contracting support and resources.

To speed up the process, VA appointed Paul Lawrence, undersecretary for benefits, to manage all decision-making and activities associated with Forever GI’s implementation. The agency also established a program integration office to coordinate all officials working on the project. 

In addition, VA is working with industry to help in the implementation. The agency awarded Mitre a $5.2 million contract to support and implement a program integration strategy, while Accenture coordinates planning, developing and testing for systems under a separate $14 million deal. 

“From our perspective what we’ve seen in the last few months is that issues that previously could take weeks or months are now being adjudicated effectively in days or sometimes hours,” said Jay Schnitzer, vice president and chief technology officer for Mitre Corp.

Bernard del Rosario, a chief engineer for the Defense Information Systems Agency, said at an AFCEA symposium in Maryland that the Secure Cloud Computing Architecture helps accelerate the “authority to operate” process, DISA said Wednesday. The agency’s SCCA platform enables the Department of Defense’s partner entities to optimize security and management features to meet requirements for migrating workloads to the cloud. 

SCCA is comprised of cloud access points, virtual data center managed services and a virtual data center security stack. CAPs manage Impact Level 4 and 5 data and connect the Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network to the cloud. VDSS secures data and applications hosted in a commercial architecture, while VDMS handles privileged user access, security and critical management operations.

“We encourage mission partners to consider who will secure and manage their workloads hosted in the cloud early on in the assessment phase. This way, security does not become a roadblock toward the end of an otherwise successful migration,” said Del Rosario.

The Government Accountability Office found that some agencies have “inappropriately” awarded more than 1,800 contracts to companies with unreported tax debts. GAO said Wednesday that the Army, Navy and the departments of Energy, Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs made potential violations of federal regulations between 2015 and 2016 when they worked with contractors with delinquent debts and penalties for noncompliance with tax laws. 

The Federal Acquisition Regulation requires all agencies to consider tax debts of each company before awarding a contract. GAO said the five agencies had ineffective control of the contracting process. Federal suspension and debarment officials said they did not get any notification of contractors reporting tax debt from the agencies prior to awarding of contracts. 

“Officials from the selected agencies were unable to explain why their control activities were potentially ineffective without reviewing each contract to determine whether FAR requirements were applicable and whether control activities were applied,” GAO said. 

The government watchdog recommends that the Internal Revenue Service seek ways to obtain comprehensive contract-payment information, while agencies enhance controls for considering contactors’ qualifying federal tax debt.

The Department of Defense said the department hasn’t assessed the proposed separation of the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, which shares leadership, infrastructure and talent, Fifth Domain reported Wednesday. 

“No decision has been made on whether to terminate the dual-hat leadership arrangement,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Elissa Smith. “The department will address whether to terminate this dual-hat leadership arrangement at a later date.”

The announcement comes amid the call from defense officials to run CYBERCOM and NSA as independent agencies to avoid conflicts in decision-making. Andrew Schoka, an active duty Army cyber operations officer assigned to CYBERCOM, said the command is heavily relying on NSA tradecraft, infrastructure, staff and space.

“For [CYBERCOM] to more effectively accomplish its mission, it should be separated from NSA sooner than planned,” he said. “This will allow the command to better pursue the nation’s military objectives in cyberspace.”

Meanwhile, top CYBERCOM officials said that the partnership with NSA helps gather more intelligence and provide national security. Gen. Paul Nakasone, a 2019 Wash100 Award winner currently leads both NSA and CYBERCOM. 

“NSA has world class expertise, technical capabilities and access that are crucial to the United States Cyber Command’s success,” said David Luber, executive director of CYBERCOM. 

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee passed a bill to streamline congressional offices’ process in reaching federal agencies on behalf of constituents. The Creating Advanced Streamlined Electronic Services for Constituents act would allow constituents to electronically authorize their representation in congressional offices for engagements with federal agencies, the office of Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. 

The bipartisan bill would update a provision under the existing Privacy Act to grant constituents this option and reduce the need for written authorization.

“When the American taxpayers we represent need assistance with social security, medicare, veteran affairs or any other federal agency, they should be able to get the help and information they need quickly and in a straightforward manner,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., who co-introduced the bill with Portman.