The Defense Department has called on Congress to reinstate DoD’s oversight over security clearance processing work and cited the availability of information technology systems that can be used to manage new background checks for its own personnel, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.

Garry Reid, director of defense intelligence, told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s government operations subpanel members Wednesday that DoD could resume responsibility over its own security clearances as early as January.

“Our plan is to alleviate the burden on the backlog in the near-term by shifting that work into an alternative process focusing on the secret-level investigations,” Reid said at the congressional hearing.

Reid added that DoD hands over approximately 700,000 investigative cases to the National Background Investigations Bureau on an annual basis in which two-thirds of those cases are at the secret level, preliminary and periodic reinvestigation.

Established in January 2016, NBIB oversees 95 percent of all security clearance work in the federal government.

DoD said it plans to manage new investigative cases through the adoption of IT platforms the Pentagon currently uses to monitor employee performance and behavior and continue to develop and operate IT systems for NBIB.

House lawmakers have proposed a bipartisan bill that would authorize the U.S. president to use military force against the Islamic State militant group, Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations for five years.

The proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force legislation aims to update previous AUMFs that Congress enacted in response to the 9/11 attacks and Iraq War, Rep. Mike Coffman’s (R-Colorado) office said Wednesday.

The new measure would direct the president to regularly submit reports on ongoing conflicts to Congress and prohibit the use of armed forces against countries without congressional approval.

Coffman introduced the bill with Reps. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California).

Panetta said the proposed measure seeks to meet the country’s national security interests through an updated authorization that aims to address threats posed by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

John Rood, a corporate officer and senior vice president of Lockheed Martin‘s international business since March 2016, will be nominated as Defense Department undersecretary for policy.

The White House said Wednesday Rood also has more than 20 years of federal service that included positions at the State Department, CIA, National Security Council and DoD.

He joined Lockheed in 2014 and has led the company’s international expansion strategies, industrial partnerships and customer relations.

Before that, he served as VP of U.S. business development at Raytheon.

He previously worked as the State Department’s acting undersecretary for arms control and international security as well as assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation.

At NSA, Rood held the roles of special assistant to the president; senior director of counterproliferation; and director of proliferation strategy for counterproliferation in homeland defense.

He was also a deputy assistant secretary for forces policy at DoD and an analyst for foreign missile programs at the CIA.

What’s at stake in space for 2017-18? Over the next two years we will be facing some significant challenges and some opportunities–suborbital space tourism will be come a reality; multiple companies will demonstrate the ability to transport astronauts to and from the ISS; private companies will continue to pursue missions in space, including putting up commercial space stations, satellite servicing and maintenance, landing rovers on the moon and even launching spacecraft to Mars–and eventually, the FAA will partner with DoD in creating a civil space traffic management system with the objective of enhancing the safety of space operations and preserving the space environment.

Dr. George Nield, Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) for the Federal Aviation Administration is a name to know, as someone that will surely take space travel to the next level.

Like others in the FAA and commercial space organizations, Nield is caught in the crossfire between aircraft and spacecraft, commenting that the FAA is targeting integration but “the reality will be an evolution.”

“We have established a strategic initiative to integrate the commercial space operations into national airspace,” Nield told CNBC. “The money really is in the vehicles–the commercial industry is nothing like the government industry when it comes to money.”

Nield said he expects that the FAA will help private investments and stakeholders along in the development process, adding that “the government usually costs a little bit more and takes a little bit longer to do these things.”

The FAA has shown their authority over commercial space transportation activities since 1995, when the Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) was established and the Secretary of Transportation was delegated some authority over to the FAA administration. FAA policy for commercial space transportation is primarily guided by the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), the National Space Transportation Policy, and the National Space Policy. The CSLA gives the FAA the power to oversee public safety and to issue regulations, however as they see fit.

Nield stated in his 2016 address before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the Subcommittee on Aviation that the FAA’s track record has proven time and time again to be beneficial (if not imperative) to both the aerospace industry and to the American people.

“The mission [AST] carries out is unique within the FAA in that it also includes the responsibility to encourage, facilitate and promote U.S. commercial space transportation,” Nield said. “This dual mission is an important part of our culture at FAA AST as we continue to provide an oversight framework–our track record should speak for itself.”

In his speech at the 20th Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference Nield said he was pleased when the House and Senate iterations of a FY2017 appropriations bill that approved a $2 million increase for AST to climb to $19.8 million, included in the overall FAA budget request. The increase in budget, as Nield and other advocates in the industry have argued, is paramount to keeping pace with the rising tide.

“What we’re seeing right now is a bunch of new technology and a bunch of new approaches,” he said. “We want to make sure we do it right, and we do it safely.”

Dr. Nield is man of science, an architect of future operations of space flight–we need men like him to take us to new heights, to peer into the blackness of space and feel weightless against the great immensity of the final frontier.

Associate Administrator Nield will be addressing the Potomac Officer’s Club as a keynote speaker at the 2017 Space: Innovations, Programs, and Policies Summit to be held Oct. 18, 2017 at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner in McLean, VA.

Click here to register

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