Oklahoma Science and Technology Secretary Kelvin Droegemeier said he will boost potentially “transformative” government research efforts if he is confirmed to lead the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, FCW reported Thursday.

The nominee recently told the Senate Commerce Committee that he will work to ensure that America leads innovations in quantum computing and artificial intelligence, which are two of the White House’s research and development priorities for 2020.

Regarding regulatory hurdles and competition in science and technology efforts, Droegemeier said there is a need for the government to form partnerships to ensure the U.S. remains the leader in technological development.

He added that he will ensure politics will not interfere with scientific operations and integrity.

President Donald Trump announced in early August that he will nominate Droegemeier, also vice president for research and meteorology lecturer at the University of Oklahoma, as OSTP’s director.

The meteorologist previously served on the National Science Board for 12 years.

Matt Goodrich, director of the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, has been appointed head of the General Services Administration’s office of products and programs, MeriTalk reported Thursday.

Goodrich will lead the office that oversees cloud, data services, information technology delivery, innovation portfolio and public experience.

He has been leading FedRAMP since 2009 and works to address barriers to cloud adoption across federal agencies.

Prior to GSA, he previously worked at the Office of Management and Budget and started his government career as a Presidential Management Fellow.

Ashley Mahan, FedRAMP evangelist, will succeed Jay Huie as director of GSA’s secure cloud portfolio.

Mahan oversees FedRAMP’s customer experience, agency engagement and outreach efforts and serves as a liaison between cloud service providers and agencies as a program evangelist.

The leadership moves came after GSA named Kelly Olson as acting director of the Technology Transformation Service.
 

The Defense Department’s Defense Acquisition Regulations System has announced the issuance of a new rule making it easier for major contractors to be reimbursed for costs incurred when conducting independent research and development activities.

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DARS said Friday in a document posted on the Federal Register that it was amending Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement subpart 231, removing a subsection requiring major contractors to first conduct and document a “technical interchange” with government representatives about IR&D efforts in order for their attendant costs to be deemed allowable.

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The pertinent DFARS provision affects IR&D projects carried out from fiscal year 2017 onwards.

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DARS described the regulation to be potentially “significantly burdensome” for contractors seeking to include R&D costs in their billing and said its removal “will result in freeing contractors to pursue IR&D projects without including the Government in those preliminary decisions.”

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DARS pointed out, however, that the new rule “only removes an unneeded requirement” and “does not impose any new requirements on contracts at or below the simplified acquisition threshold and for commercial items, including commercially available off-the-shelf items.”

Margaret Weichert, deputy director of management at the Office of Management and Budget, has said the proposed Government Effectiveness Advanced Research Center will initially focus on data management and workforce modernization efforts, Federal Times reported Friday.

Weichert noted during an Aug. 23 call that the GEAR Center will retrain employees for modern jobs and commercialize federal data to accommodate the public and private sectors and academia.

The OMB proposed the establishment of the public-private partnership center as part of the Trump administration’s government reorganization plan.

The applied research site would house various research entities to develop ways to help the government streamline its service delivery processes.

Weichert added that the OMB is still anticipating industry feedback regarding the potential objectives, authority hierarchy and budget of the GEAR Center.

The U.S. Army has not defined its final plans for a joint training program for cyber mission force personnel, C4ISRNET reported Friday.

Col. Steve Rehn, cyber capability manager within the Army Cyber Center of Excellence, said during the 2018 AFCEA TechNet Augusta event that the service is aware the persistent cyber training environment will be a “constant evolution” concept despite the current lack of final objectives.

The Army previously developed a prototype for the PCTE to lay out initial requirements and determine how to temporarily bring cyber training capability to cyberwarriors before the 2020 roll out.

The service also recently launched a three-week user assessment program to seek feedback from offensive, defensive and support CMF personnel regarding PCTE, according to Col. Richard Haggarty, project manager for instrumentation, targets, threat simulators and soft training systems within Program Executive Office Simulation, Training and Instrumentation.

Haggarty also said the Army is focusing on cyber capabilities instead of on contracts and single vendors.

The Army is jointly operating the PCTE with the U.S. Cyber Command.

Kevin O’Connell, director of the Office of Space Commerce, said his priorities for the space-based regulatory body include modifying space policy regulations and safeguarding national security by encouraging industry participation in the endeavor, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

“Our initial strategy for the Office of Space Commerce involves four basic elements: advocacy, moving regulatory barriers, industry engagement and improving our understanding [of the space industry’s benefits],” O’Connell said Monday during a speech at a space conference at Arizona State University.

O’Connell said the office will focus on instituting international and domestic reforms so that American companies can compete effectively in a free global market.

He also said that, as per Space Policy Directive-2, the office will likely turn into a “one-stop shop” for commercial space regulatory efforts.

The Commerce Department this May proposed to merge its Office of Space Commerce with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration‘s commercial remote sensing regulatory affairs office to streamline both offices’ duties. The new entity would become known as the Space Policy Advancing Commercial Enterprise Administration and report to the Secretary of Commerce.
 

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration intends to partner with the Tennessee Valley Authority to down-blend highly-enriched uranium and support national security.

The effort would allow for the production of tritium, which serves as an important component of the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile, DOE said Thursday.

The partnership follows Secretary of Energy Rick Perry’s objective to allow NNSA’s continued transfers of enriched uranium from the department’s stock.

NNSA’s unobligated HEU would undergo down-blending into low-enriched uranium to address the needs of defense missions, given the lack of enriched uranium availability in the market.

The effort is part of NNSA’s plan to allocate a source of unobligated enriched uranium for the next seven years, while TVA will manage materials and provide logistics for storage through 2040.

Kelly Olson, chief of the General Service Administration’s Technology Transformation Service, has been chosen to serve as the organization’s acting director, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

The more than 20-year government sector veteran will succeed Joanne Collins Smee, who will leave TTS in late August.

Olson started working in the GSA as its director of strategic initiatives from 2010 to 2014, then director of innovation portfolio from 2015 to 2018.

Prior to joining the agency, she also held leadership roles with Atlantic Media, Connelly Works, American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council and Professional and Scientific Associates.

Olson’s appointment comes as the GSA’s technology acquisition arm begins implementing several modernization programs, including the IT Modernization Centers of Excellence which operates within the Department of Agriculture.

The CoE recently sought proposals for cloud adoption, IT infrastructure optimization and data and analytics for the second phase of USDA’s IT modernization initiative.

An official at the Department of Homeland Security recently said that intelligence and law enforcement agencies now approve unclassified versions of cyber threat indicators at a much faster rate, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

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The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 called for the development of procedures that would allow federal agencies to share cyber threat indicators – that is, any information related to any kind of cybersecurity threat – in their possession with other agencies, relevant organizations and even the public.

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This legal mandate gave rise to the DHS’ Automated Indicator Sharing initiative, in which government entities as well as industry partners submit threat indicators to the DHS’ National Cybersecurity and Communications and Integration Center.

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The NCCIC is responsible for preparing and disseminating alerts about the indicators, but when submissions from law enforcement or the intelligence community include classified information, the NCCIC and the source agency must first remove all sensitive components.

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The source agency ultimately has final say when the threat indicator is sufficiently de-classified for public release.

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The entire process takes time, but it has since been shortened due to the maturation of the NCCIC and the increase in cybersecurity threats in recent years, the DHS official noted.