Mark Esper, formerly Raytheon vice president for government relations, has officially been sworn in as the 23rd secretary of the U.S. Army.

He said in a letter addressed to the Army community that his top priorities as the service branch’s top civilian official are readiness, modernization and reform, the Association of the United States Army said Tuesday.

“To be successful, we must work together and empower people at all levels to lead, innovate and make smart decisions,” he said in the letter.

The Senate voted 89-6 to approve Esper for the position on Nov. 15, four months after his nomination by President Donald Trump.

Esper’s previous federal experience includes work in the Defense Department as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy.

He also served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, the Army Reserve and the Virginia and District of Columbia National Guard.

Ajit Pai, chairman of Federal Communications Commission, has issued a draft order that seeks to repeal internet regulations the previous Obama administration introduced in 2015.

Pai shared his draft Restoring Internet Freedom Order with fellow commissioners who plan to take up the matter at FCC’s Open Meeting scheduled for Dec. 14, FCC said Tuesday.

The proposal would prevent the federal government from “micromanaging the internet” and direct internet service providers to be transparent about their operations.

ISPs’ transparency will let consumers buy their desired service plan and help entrepreneurs gain the technical information they need to improve their businesses, the FCC chairman noted.

Pai also seeks to authorize the Federal Trade Commission to regulate ISPs, protect consumers and encourage competition.

FCC will publicly release the draft proposal Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended the Office of Management and Budget to increase its oversight and continue issuing reports on high-priority programs and U.S. Digital Service projects.

According to a report published Tuesday OMB’s Office of E-Government and Information Technology used a structured approach to determine the top 10 high priority IT programs from a list of agency projects that required additional oversight.

E-Gov staff members noted the programs were given greater oversight through quarterly meetings with OMB members and frequent discussions with the agency chief information officer.

GAO however noted the Federal CIO was not involved with the progress of any of the top 10 programs due to the volume of programs currently underway.

The watchdog agency pointed out that Federal CIO involvement previously impacted the development of programs including troubled projects through TechStat reviews.

The Government Accountability Office report also covered the incomplete nature of USDS reports issued to Congress regarding key projects and added such reports were not released on a quarterly basis as directed.

GAO noted the continued reports on the top 10 high priority programs will help boost congressional oversight and efforts of IT governance entities to provide stakeholders with information.

The Office of Personnel Management has issued a memorandum to authorize agencies to use “excepted service appointments” as stated in the 5 Code of Federal Regulations 213.3102 to meet technical personnel requirements in support of information technology modernization efforts.

Kathleen McGettigan, acting OPM director, wrote in a memo released Friday agencies can use the authority to temporarily hire technical staff for up to a year in order to carry out Smarter IT Delivery and IT modernization programs funded under budgets for fiscal 2017 and fiscal 2018.

The recruitment of employees for technical roles covers grade levels 11 through 15 under the General Schedule and can be implemented through the end of fiscal 2018.

OPM restricts the use of the authority to technical roles whose basic functions include solutions architecture, cloud migration and cloud architecture.

“OPM expects the use of this authority to inform our development of future qualifications standards and assessments for use in competitive examining,” McGettigan noted.

Agencies seeking to meet their technical requirements can use other hiring options such as the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, government-wide direct hire authority for IT management and consultant appointments, the memo added.

R&D Magazine has recognized researchers from the Energy Department for their efforts to develop new technology products or processes.

DOE said Monday its national laboratories received 33 of the 100 awards given out during the R&D 100 Awards on Friday in Orlando, Florida.

The winners were selected from technology projects that were developed and introduced to the market in 2016 by industry, government and academia.

An independent panel of judges picked the awardees based on the technical significance, uniqueness and usefulness of the technologies.

DOE’s laboratories have obtained more than 800 R&D 100 awards since the competition began in 1962.

The winning DOE projects include a new family of aluminum alloys; a sponge that provides a new method to clean up oil spills in water; an urban planning software; an algorithm that helps estimate electricity output from solar panels; and an indoor active-shooter detection system, among others.