The General Services Administration has released an iBook version of the Federal Acquisition Regulation to offer contracting officers, contractors and business owners information on the federal government’s purchasing process.

Jeff Koses, senior procurement executive at GSA’s Office of Government-wide Policy, wrote in a blogpost published Tuesday the agency sought to support people on the go and the iBook version of the FAR will also give volunteer first responders continuous access to the material.

“We’ve had multiple requests for a downloadable version of the FAR because contracting exists regardless of whether there’s a strong wifi signal where you are,” said Dan Briest, program manager of Acquisition.gov for GSA.

The downloadable FAR is designed to perform the same functionality incorporated on all iBooks such as searches, notes and highlighting or section saving and owners will receive notifications on updates that will be added to the document.

GSA is also looking to release an iBook copy of the Federal Management Regulation and Federal Travel Regulation as well as a downloadable FAR document on the Kindle and Google Play stores.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has scheduled the launch of its first out of four next-generation geostationary weather satellites into space for Nov. 4 from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard an Atlas V rocket.

NOAA said Tuesday the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R is designed to scan the Earth five times faster, provide four times greater image resolution and use triple the number of spectral channels compared to current GOES satellites.

The GOES-R series’ goal is to extend satellite weather coverage through 2036.

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the design, creation and tests of GOES-R satellites as Harris Corp. built the main instrument payload, Advanced Baseline Imager, data receipt antenna system and ground segment.

Lockheed moved GOES-R to the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Florida aboard a U.S. Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy cargo transport plane in August as part of launch preparations.

GOES-R will work to aid NOAA’s hurricane tracking, sun monitoring, intensity forecasts, space weather forecasts, radiation hazard detection, and predictions of other severe weather events such as tornadoes, thunderstorms and floods.

GOES-R includes six instruments such as a lightning mapper designed to help forecasters track strikes across the entire hemisphere as intensification can indicate increasing severity of storms.

The satellite will undergo testing and validation for one year, perform 10 years of on-orbit operation and carry out up to five years of on-orbit storage, according to NOAA.

NOAA works with NASA to manage the development and launch of GOES-R through the integrated NOAA-NASA office.

The Agriculture Department has been chosen to replace the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ current financial management platform as VA’s federal shared service provider.

VA said Tuesday the partnership with USDA reflects cross-agency efforts to increase financial transparency, mitigate duplication and redundancy and increase the quality and agility of administrative services in the government.

Edward Murray, VA interim assistant secretary for management and interim chief financial officer, said VA picked USDA after week-long workshops wherein subject matter experts across VA provided feedback on the selection process.

VA noted the decision was also influenced by best practices and lessons from the Office of Management and Budget, Government Accountability Office, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Housing and Urban Development and others.

The White House has unveiled new initiatives of the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Veteran Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development that aim to support climate resilience and water and energy efficiency.

Christine Harada of the Council on Environmental Quality and Ali Zaidi from the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a blog post published Wednesday that USDA, VA and HUD have begun to urge consumers to use WaterSense-labeled products.

The Environmental Protection Agency‘s WaterSense program has helped save 1.5 trillion gallons of water, $33 billion in water bills and 78 metric tons of carbon pollution through a 10-year period, the post stated.

DOE will release an analysis in an effort to show how strong energy codes can help homeowners, building owners and tenants to save approximately $100 billion on energy bills and reduce carbon emissions by more than 800 million metric tons through the next 50 years, Harada and Zaidi said.

HUD will collect data on the energy and water performance of 2.2 million homes assisted or insured by HUD to obtain energy and water efficiency data that could help benchmark property performance, address utility costs and streamline HUD program delivery.

HUD, USDA and the VA have provided a guidance to lenders, borrowers and stakeholders to demonstrate the impact of higher standards on efforts to strengthen homes and conserve energy and water, Harada and Zaidi noted.

The White House has set a new goal under the federal performance contracting challenge that seeks to gain $2 billion in additional energy performance contracts in the next 3 years and achieve 2 billion gallons of water savings.

Federal agencies have awarded more than $3.5 billion in energy efficiency performance contracts through the challenge and are on track to attain the $4 billion goal by the end of 2016, the post stated.