President Trump intends to nominate Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., as director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

Issa previously served as chair of the House committee on oversight and government reform, the White House said Wednesday.

Once confirmed, he will support USTDA in its mission to help companies export American-made goods and services to partner countries to generate more jobs in the U.S. 

Issa holds various House positions such as head of the subcommittee on courts, intellectual property and the internet, as well as the committee on foreign affairs.

Throughout his career in the government, the U.S. Army veteran has helped enforce stricter rules along the U.S. border, expose the mismanagement at the Mineral Management Services and proposed to investigate the cause of a financial crisis in 2008.

Issa additionally led the House committee on oversight and government reform in investigating the Countrywide Financial VIP Program, as well as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now’s misuse of taxpayer money, among other things.

The Department of Energy is investing $21.6M to fund 10 computational software research and development projects meant to facilitate the design of chemical-based energy production processes.

The projects are based on applications in computer-based chemical process modeling that is replacing traditional trial-and-error methods, the department said Wednesday.

The effort would leverage the DOE national laboratories’ petascale computers, built to make at least one quadrilion calculations in a second, and beginning 2021, the more advanced exascale computers.

The department’s Iowa-based Ames Laboratory, along with nine universities, will lead efforts to develop the open-source software. The software is designed to support processes covering fossil energy production, electrical energy storage and solar cells.

A National Institute of Standards and Technology study estimates the economic impact of an encryption standard launched two decades ago to be worth approximately $250B.

NIST said Wednesday the Advanced Encryption Standard is an algorithm that works to decrypt and encrypt electronic data and was cleared for government use in November 2001.

The agency tapped RM Advisory Services to survey private and government users of encryption systems and found that the AES program’s estimated benefit-to-cost ratio for the entire economy is 1,976-to-1.

“This outstanding return on investment exemplifies the economic value of federal research and development, for the private sector and for the broader American economy,” said Walter Copan, NIST director and undersecretary of commerce for standards and technology at the Commerce Department.

“It also demonstrates how bringing together the private and public sectors effectively to address a challenge can result in positive impacts on U.S. commerce.”

NIST officially proposed AES, also known as Rijndael, in October 2000 three years after it launched an international competition to replace the Data Encryption Standard amid rising vulnerabilities.

The U.S. government uses the royalty-free cryptographic algorithm in its Federal Information Processing Standard.

The Department of Health and Human Services has launched a collaborative program that will explore possible opportunities for the U.S. healthcare industry.

The Deputy Secretary’s Innovation and Investment Summit will be a year-long effort that will involve private sector innovators, investors and HHS personnel developing ways to boost investment and research in health services, the department said Wednesday.

DSIIS is expected to align with one of HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s department-wide priorities, which is to adopt a more value-based health care system in the U.S.

The workgroup will hold meetings on healthcare innovation, emerging opportunities and the implementation of government policies.

HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan said the collaborative program will help modernize healthcare services for Americans.

“As the healthcare community innovates, HHS must also be innovative in how we engage with that community,” Hargan added.

The department will accept applications of interested participants for DSIIS until Oct. 3.

New research published by the IBM Center for the Business of Government has called on the heads of federal agencies to appoint a chief data officer or establish a data management position at their respective departments.

The researcher, Jane Wiseman, a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, made the recommendation in a recently released report, noting the inability of government agencies to leverage data in decision-making due to sheer volume.

“Many government agencies are awash in data but struggle to analyze and make sense of it,” Wiseman said.

Wiseman added that Congress and the Office of Management and Budget need to provide CDOs with the requisite resources, such as funding and support staff, should the appointment of such an official become policy.

Wiseman’s proposal echoes that of House Resolution 4174, the Foundations for Evidence-based Policymaking Act of 2017, which states that “[the] head of each agency shall designate a career appointee… in the agency as the Chief Data Officer of the agency.”

The proposal also aligns with President Trump’s Management Agenda, which says that “[smarter] use of data… is needed to orient decisions and accountability around service and results.”

The Senate voted 93-7 on Tuesday to pass a negotiated package that would allocate over $850B in fiscal 2019 funds for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor and Education, Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday.

The decision came days after congressional negotiators reached a compromise on the appropriations package.

The defense spending bill in the minibus measure would appropriate more than $670B in FY 2019 funds for the procurement of 93 F-35 fighter jets; 13 new ships for the U.S. Navy; 58 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters; 18 C-130J aircraft; and upgrade work on 135 Abrams tanks.

“If enacted, this would be the first time in 10 years that the Defense Department won’t operate under a continuing resolution,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

The report said the House is set to decide on the minibus once it returns from recess next week.

The Defense Department has released a new strategy that lays out its action plans to counter cybersecurity threats posed by Russia, China and other strategic competitors.

A summary of DoD’s cyber strategy issued Tuesday states DoD’s cyber space goals such as the need to build up the joint force’s capability to carry out cyber operations that enhance the country’s military advantage; defend U.S. critical infrastructure from malicious threats; and secure the Pentagon’s information systems from cyber vulnerabilities.

The department outlined the components of its strategic approach and those include efforts to establish a more lethal force; expand partnerships and alliances; reform DoD; cultivate talent; and deter and compete in cyber space.

DoD plans to advance innovation, leverage data analytics, automation and commercial off-the-shelf platforms as well as expedite development of cyber capabilities to build up the lethality of the joint force.

The agency intends to integrate cyber awareness into its institutional culture, boost cyber accountability and expand crowdsourced threat detection as part of reform efforts.

The strategic approach also cites DoD’s plans to set up a cyber talent management initiative; establish a career pathway for software developers, hardware engineers and data analysts; and sustain a cyber workforce.

The Department of Energy will invest $120M to renew a center tasked to conduct research on advanced battery science and technology.

The department based its decision to renew the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research on an assessment of the performance of the innovation hub in its first five years of operations, the DOE said Tuesday.

Since its establishment in 2012, the JCESR introduced a new class of membranes for flow batteries, continued studies in batteries based on doubly-charged magnesium and developed computation systems that analyzed various potential electrolyte and electrode compounds for new battery designs.

Once renewed, the center will work on developing multivalent batteries with higher energy capacity compared to lithium-ion batteries, as well as creating new flow battery designs for the electric grid.

Energy undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said JCESR will play a role in providing the foundation for modern battery technology.

He added that innovations in battery performance will contribute to the future of transportation and the electric grid.