The Department of Homeland Security may close two Centers of Excellence and delay the planned launch of three other centers if Congress approves President Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal, FedScoop reported Thursday. 

William Bryan, senior official performing the duties of the undersecretary of DHS Science and Technology Directorate, announced the plan at a recent meeting with the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Innovation. Trump proposed $582.1 million for S&T for the next fiscal year, a figure far from the agency’s $813.1 million budget in FY18. 

“All the Centers of Excellence provide value,” Bryan said. “Tough decisions have to be made when you have to reduce your budget.”

He said that the Coastal Resilience COE led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill would be one of the two centers at risk of closure if DHS fails to secure the budget. The center has managed government projects focused on maritime domain awareness. The House is expected to reject the majority of Trump’s proposed budget cuts, while Senate lawmakers expressed their support for the president’s proposal.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology released its draft of “Privacy Framework” that provides information on how agencies and partners could identify and manage privacy risks more efficiently amid the growing use of the internet and new information technology platforms. 

 “The Privacy Framework provides a common language for understanding, managing and communicating privacy risk with internal and external stakeholders,” NIST said in the document issued Tuesday. “Different types of entities—including sector-specific organizations—can use the Privacy Framework for different purposes, including the creation of common profiles.”

Agencies and organizations using or providing data processing systems, products or services in any sector can use the framework to identify and prioritize actions to address threats and align policy, business and technological approaches. 

The NIST Privacy Framework provides guidelines to understand how the online and IT platforms and services affect users and how to integrate privacy practices into organizational processes to protect data and prevent damage. NIST said stakeholders can submit comments on the Privacy Framework to improve guidelines. 

The General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget launched a competition on Wednesday to address federal government-related challenges through a Government Effectiveness Advanced Research Center. The challenge aims to enable industry, academia and the public to form cross-sector teams to assess the feasibility of the GEAR Center model in tackling government challenges cited in the President’s Management Agenda, GSA said Thursday.

“The uniquely American research and development system that brings together universities, federal labs, private companies, and non-profits has made us a global leader in most fields.” said GSA Administrator and a 2019 Wash100 winner Emily Murphy. “The GEAR Center provides a common ground to bring those same partnerships together to help solve the biggest challenges facing our government and improve how we serve citizens.” 

GSA and OMB will hold a webinar May 13 to respond to questions about the competition and will accept initial concept papers through May 24. The agencies will select up to 20 proposers from the initial phase and narrow it down to 10 finalists who will present their detailed plans to a panel of federal officials in the third phase of the competition. Winners will be announced Aug. 1.

Ellen Lord, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the government should avoid any interruption or funding cuts in its ongoing nuclear capability modernization to stay ahead of Russia and China, which have been upgrading their nuclear power. She cited that some U.S. weapons are already approaching ages where technologies are required to end operations, the Department of Defense said Thursday. 

“We are living now with Cold War technology. We have put off modernizing the triad for multiple decades,” Lord said. “We need to move forward. So, any cut in funding would essentially have us unilaterally stand down in terms of our capability to have a credible nuclear deterrent.”

DoD and its military branches are working on upgrading or replacing weapons from the U.S. nuclear triad, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles. Pentagon launched the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program to replace aging weapons, including the Minuteman III ICBMs first deployed in 1970. The other systems the military plans to replace are the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and the B-52H Stratofortress and B-2A Spirit legacy bombers.

The U.S. Air Force will establish a 10-man science and technology team to accommodate robotics and related technologies from Carnegie Mellon University’s Center of Excellence. The planned team will work with CMU’s faculty and utilize the university’s research and education components to meet its objectives, the Air Force said Wednesday. 

Heather Wilson, secretary at the U.S. Air Force and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the team will validate, develop and deploy technologies as well as provide opportunities to the service branch’s employees through academic research efforts. 

“Carnegie Mellon has been a partner with the Air Force for many years and this is the next step to deepen that partnership,” said Wilson.

The university teamed up with the military service in 2018 to create the Center of Excellence to support integration of intelligence platforms into human capacities.

Mark Esper, secretary of the U.S. Army and 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, said the service is still assessing how its multi-domain task force operations will affect procurement procedures during a recent Brookings Institute event, FCW reported Wednesday. Esper noted changes to the task force’s structure are possible but there is no definite schedule for the release of the Army’s updated Multidomain Operations Plan Strategy.

“I need some time for our doctrine to play out and see what it looks like,” he added.

The Army secretary also noted that he is confident about the current status of the Futures Command, which previously saw concerns from Congress regarding bureaucratic obstacles.