President Donald Trump has said he may pursue a national emergency to fund the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border should negotiations over spending fail, Federal Times reported Wednesday.

“I think we might work a deal and if we don’t, I may go that route. I have the absolute right to do national emergency if I want,” he told reporters Wednesday at the White House.

The report said the administration might redirect funds of the Department of Defense towards the border wall.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he warned Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that the president’s emergency declaration plan would result in “a major breach of relations between DoD and the oversight committees.”

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) cited the move’s potential impact on the Future Years Defense Program, according to the report.

“Every dollar you take out of the FYDP is a dollar you take away from readiness, sustainment — and we’re talking about medical facilities for service members, overseas [military construction], hangars for our F-22s,” said Schatz, a ranking member of the Senate Appropriation Committee’s military construction and veterans affairs subcommittee.
 

Rep. Mac Thornberry believes that setting up a Space Force as a new branch of the U.S. military will continue receiving support from both sides of the aisle even though the House of Representatives is now under the control of the Democratic Party, Space News reported Tuesday.

\n\n

“There has been consistent bipartisan support for greater emphasis on space, including organizational reform,” the outgoing House Armed Services Committee chairman told reporters recently, even as he noted that any proposal to setup a Space Force would likely be heavily scrutinized.

\n\n

Recent reports indicate that the Department of Defense will recommend, in its upcoming legislative proposal, the establishment of a Space Force as a sixth military branch, albeit under the U.S. Air Force, an arrangement akin to that between the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy.

\n\n

Such a proposal may be more palatable to Rep. Adam Smith, the incoming HASC chairman, who had supported earlier legislation to create a Space Force within the USAF.

\n\n

On the other hand, Smith has opposed the establishment of an independent Space Force, which he considers fiscally wasteful and a poor response to space-based national security issues.

The Bureau of Fiscal Service under the Treasury Department is slated to implement two-factor authentication for its citizen services over the next few years, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

Marshall Henry, a program manager for the bureau’s Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation, said the implementation schedule for the more than 10 fiscal services isn’t set in stone.

“Our next big driver is to set up a federation bridge, which will be the hub for all programs to connect to,” he said. Henry noted that the bureau also plans to apply the authentication approach as a shared service on a long-term basis.

The Fiscal Service’s citizen-focused interfaces include the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System which enables users to pay taxes online, and another payment platform for debt owed to the government.

NASA‘s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement contract, the agency’s governmentwide procurement vehicle, has remained operational despite the government’s shutdown, FCW reported Tuesday.

Joanne Woytek, SEWP’s program manager, told FCW that the vehicle’s main federal customers continue buying services via SEWP amid the shutdown. SEWP operations are performing near a normal standard. Woytek added that the vehicle’s main contract is 95 percent staffed. The program manager said she cannot visualize impacts to SEWP in the short-term, but notes that effects may surface if the shutdown lasts for months.

“So clearly at some point if the shutdown continues, we will see fewer orders and, unless purchasing increases from the open agencies, overall dollar amounts will decrease,” she said.

SEWP’s major customers include the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

The U.S. Navy test-fired 20 hyper velocity projectiles from guided missile destroyer USS Dewey into the Pacific Ocean last summer, USNI News reported Tuesday.

The ship fired the missiles from its Mk 45 naval gun as part of the effort to expand the weapon’s utility against unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles, the report noted. The test was also part of the Rim of the Pacific 2018 international exercise that united the naval forces of more than 20 nations. The HVP’s purpose is to launch from electromagnetic railguns.

The Department of Defense sees the possibility of a new near-hypersonic missile defense weapon that would launch the HVP, the report noted.

The Department of Energy‘s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is investing $25M in 12 research and development efforts on marine energy technologies. These technologies would generate electricity from different forms of marine energy including waves, tides and currents, DOE said Tuesday.

“Advancing next-generation marine energy will help the U.S. ensure a secure, reliable, and enduring supply of American energy,” said Mark Menezes, undersecretary of energy.

The department intends to support economic development, boost the energy grid’s resiliency and refine the country’s port and coastal infrastructure. The effort is divided into three categories: early stage device design, controls and power take off design integration and testing and dissemination of environmental data and analyses to facilitate the marine energy regulatory process.

Recipients of funds under the effort include:

\n\n

• AWS Ocean Energy
• Atargis Energy
• CalWave Power Technologies
• Columbia Power Technologies
• Florida Atlantic University
• Kearns and West
• Littoral Power Systems
• North Carolina State University
• Oscilla Power
• Portland State University
• Texas A&M University
• University of Hawaii

The Department of Defense’s office of inspector general has released a new report to help non-auditors understand the findings of the first departmentwide financial audit in fiscal year 2018.

A team of over 1K auditors visited more than 600 DoD sites and evaluated over 90K sample items and found that 13 of the 21 DoD reporting entities received disclaimers of opinion, which means that an auditor fails to obtain sufficient audit evidence on which to base an opinion, according to the report released Tuesday.

Five of the reporting entities secured “clean” or unmodified opinions, while one organization received a qualified opinion and the other two failed to complete the audits.

DoD IG said it expects audit opinions on the Defense Information Systems Agency’s General Fund and Working Capital Fund to be issued in January.

The five DoD components that received unmodified opinions are the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Civil Works, Defense Health Agency-Contract Resource Management, Military Retirement Fund, Army Sub-Allotted and the Defense Logistics Agency Sub-Allotted.

As of Nov. 30, the inspector general and auditors from independent public accounting firms issued approximately 2.4K notifications of findings and recommendations to DoD components.

Auditors classified the NFRs and identified 129 material weaknesses. Most of the weaknesses are related to information technology, such as security management, system changes and inadequate controls over access, the report noted.

Other material weaknesses identified include universe of transactions; inventory and related property; Fund Balance with Treasury; and financial statement compilation.
The report also noted that reporting entities recorded 37 episodes of non-compliance with laws and regulations.