Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced on Wednesday his plan to create 12 new unified regions as part of the Interior Department’s efforts to reorganize its structure and simplify operations, Federal News Radio reported.

Currently, the DOI’s bureaus organize the country into multiple administrative regions differently, resulting in a total of 49 regional subdivisions. These regional subdivisions often overlap.

Under Zinke’s reorganization, all of the DOI’s bureaus, except for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians, will have the same 12 regions.

These regions were determined based on “the best science” with a focus on “watersheds and ecosystems,” Zinke said in a message sent to department’s staff.

The secretary stated the unified regions would reduce bureaucratic redundancies, improve communications between field agents and political leaders, and bring about other benefits.

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The DOI chief added that the unified regions will be implemented in the upcoming months, and that the implementation “will be a thoughtful, Department-wide effort driven by leadership and employees in the field.”

Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, has said he wants to rename ARCYBER to reflect the convergence between cyber and electronic warfare, Federal News Radio reported Tuesday.

Fogarty proposed names such as “Army Information Warfare Operations” and “Army Information Dominance Command,” noting that “the overlap is much deeper” between the information and cyber domains and adding that “the next stage of this is actually bringing all of that together.”

The U.S. Army is set to initiate such a merger soon.

In October, soldiers under the electronic warfare and cyber career fields — previously separate disciplines — will begin training together at the Army Cyber Center of Excellence as part of the service’s efforts to integrate the two tracks.

The newly-appointed ARCYBER chief also remarked that the name “Cyber Command” may have been appropriate at the time the command was established in 2010, but in Fogarty’s opinion, “we’re well past that now.”

Matthew Travis, deputy undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security‘s National Protection and Programs Directorate, said the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center will retain its responsibilities even when the National Risk Management Center is formally holding office, FCW reported Tuesday.

Travis said during a conference in Washington D.C. that the NCCIC will continue to drive partnerships between the public and private sector, as well as deliver technical advisories to respond to cybersecurity threats.

He explained that NRMC will comprise of private sector analysts who will focus on addressing complex and longer-term cyber threats that affect various critical infrastructure groups.

The analysts will coordinate with their counterparts in the departments of Homeland Security, Energy or Treasury to understand interdependencies across sectors, Travis added.

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced in early August that the department intends to establish the NRMC to provide government and industry cyber professionals with “crowd-sourced” methods to respond to cyber threats.

The new facility will be built in DHS’ headquarters in Washington D.C.

Federal Chief Information Officer Suzette Kent has said federal agencies should expect the White House to implement new cybersecurity reporting guidelines, as part of the administration’s efforts to have agencies reflect its IT goals, NextGov reported Tuesday.

Kent made at the announcement at the Digitial Government Institute’s 930gov conference held Tuesday, where she divulged that reporting metrics under the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 are set to be updated before the year ends. The move is meant to help federal agencies achieve cybersecurity benchmarks spelled out in the government’s IT Modernization Report and the President’s Management Agenda.

The Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Homeland Security are currently conducting the updates to the FISMA guidelines, whose release are scheduled for this fall.

 

The Education Department will help the General Services Administration publish a playbook in September, detailing the former’s experience as an early adopter of a new IT organization framework, MeriTalk reported Tuesday.

At the Digital Government Institute’s 930gov conference held Tuesday, the GSA revealed it asked the DOE to share its progress implementing the Technology Business Management strategy, developed to help agencies organize their IT costs, resources, applications and services.

Walter McDonald, the DOE’s director of IT program services, said TBM helped the department refine its governing processes, adopt transparency in expenses and consolidate some of its public-facing web services.

According to Steven Corey-Bey, chief enterprise architect at the department, TBM also enabled the DOE to understand and simplify its IT environment and maximize operations, funding and security.

He added that the DOE now intends to reduce its number of cloud service providers from 25 to eight, as well as IT systems from 284 to 140 to strengthen its cybersecurity posture.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has said the Defense Department has initiated steps to establish a space-focused military command as part of a reorganization plan, SpaceNews reported Tuesday.

He said Tuesday at the Pentagon that DoD will use existing resources and personnel to fund and operate the proposed space command, which will be led by a four-star general.

Mattis added that DoD and Congress are “on the way ahead” when it comes to drafting a measure to facilitate the establishment of a new “space force” as the country’s sixth service branch.

Mattis made the remarks during a joint news conference with Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
 

U.S. Army officials have said the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program helped the Army Corps of Engineers respond to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, DVIDSHUB reported Tuesday.

Staff Stg. John Butts, contracting officer for USACE and administrator of LOGCAP in Puerto Rico, explained that the contracting process quickly helped get organizational resources to the area for the service’s disaster response operation.

“Because the mission needs could change at a moment’s notice, the fact that LOGCAP is a cost contract has been vital for the environment that we are working in,” he added.

LOGCAP Forward Planner Gill Ponce also explained that the contract provides various pre-awarded options, which helped streamline the contracting process and allowed emergency responders to act more quickly.

Ponce noted that USACE, Army Sustainment Command and DynCorp are collaborating to understand how LOGCAP was used in Puerto Rico, participating in emergency response exercises and applying lessons learned to future disaster recovery plans.

The LOGCAP contract also helped USACE support three other disaster response and recovery operations in 2017.

The U.S. Navy plans to purchase its first Future Surface Combatant ship in 2023 in support of its Arleigh Burke Flight III warship program, USNI News reported Tuesday.

The combatant ship will integrate design elements from Zumwalt-class (DDG-1000) and Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer vessels, according to the report.

The service’s Future Surface Combatant family of warships will be composed of a large combatant vessel, a small combatant and two unmanned surface vessels that will be available in small and large sizes.

Navy Rear Adm. Ron Boxall, surface warfare director, said the service will initially address the acquisition of the large combatant.

“Not many people make large surface combatants of the size and capability that we need,” Boxall told USNI News.

“So we’ve got to kind of look to our portfolio of blueprints that we have as a starting point, and we’ll edit and modify the hull and design things as we go forward,” he added.

Boxall noted the planned large combatant would require space to accommodate unmanned platforms and helicopters, long-range missiles and command-and-control systems to support offensive surface and aerial defense missions as well as integrate DDG-1000’s power system and signature controls.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has called on the Department of Homeland Security and Mitre to conduct biennial reviews to ensure the stability and effectiveness of a program that aims to facilitate the identification of cybersecurity vulnerabilities and sharing of such data among organizations.

The House panel said Monday DHS should provide a stable funding stream for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures program by transitioning from a contract-based funding framework to a “dedicated program, project or activity line item” in its annual budget requests.

The committee made the recommendations after it assessed issues facing the CVE program based on the evaluation of documents requested from DHS and Mitre, according to letters addressed to Mitre and the department.

Those sets of documents include contracts linked to the CVE program; timelines of measures carried out by DHS and Mitre to oversee the CVE contract from Jan. 1, 2011 to March 31, 2017; and copies of analyses carried out related to the initiative.

The panel has asked Mitre and DHS to conduct a briefing about the recommendations stated in the letters by Sept. 10.