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Draft Bill to Grant CMMC Tax Credit to Small Businesses
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Draft Bill to Grant CMMC Tax Credit to Small Businesses

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., has introduced a draft measure that would allow small businesses to get a tax credit to help cover the costs of complying with the Department of Defense’s proposed Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Under the proposed Small Business Cybersecurity Act of 2024, companies with less than 50 employees could apply for a tax credit of up to $50,000 for costs associated with a CMMC assessment and efforts to address cyber gaps identified during those assessments as part of Plans of Actions and Milestones.

According to a person familiar with the draft legislation, the CMMC tax credit could be included in discussions surrounding a tax cut extension that lawmakers are expected to address in 2025.

The source noted that the proposed CMMC credit’s inclusion in the tax bill is still uncertain since DOD has yet to start implementing the cyber certification program.

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US Government Team Formed to Serve as AI Watchdog
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US Government Team Formed to Serve as AI Watchdog

Technocrats from several cabinet departments and federal agencies will join the Testing Risks of AI for National Security , or TRAINS, taskforce that the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute has formed to boost U.S. leadership in AI and support national security efforts. 

The taskforce members will partner in the identification, measurement and management of issues and concerns on national safety emerging from AI’s rapid advancements, the Department of Commerce said Wednesday.

TRAINS will facilitate synchronized research and validation of advanced AI solutions affecting national security and public welfare in such areas as critical infrastructure and military capacities, the department added.

The taskforce’s creation was announced ahead of Wednesday’s opening of the inaugural convention of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes co-hosted by the Departments of Commerce and State in San Francisco.

TRAINS Taskforce Lineup

The TRAINS taskforce, chaired by the U.S. Safety Institute, is initially composed of representatives from the following:

  • Department of Defense, including the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office and the National Security Agency
  • Department of Energy and 10 of its national laboratories
  • Department of Homeland Security, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency 
  • National Institutes of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services

 

TRAINS membership is expected to grow across the federal government as the taskforce’s work proceeds.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stressed that the taskforce is important in uniting federal resources to address AI’s challenges. “The U.S. AI Safety Institute will continue to lead by centralizing the top-notch national security and AI expertise that exists across government in order to harness the benefits of AI for the betterment of the American people and American business,” she said.

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DLA to Address Military Supply Challenges
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DLA to Address Military Supply Challenges

The Defense Logistics Agency has revealed its plans to address military supply challenges during a Demand Forecast and Industry Association Leadership Meeting held at the McNamara Headquarters Complex on Nov. 18.

The agency said Tuesday more collaboration between DLA and industry — with a focus on transparency and data sharing — is key to tackling military supply challenges. They also stressed the need for industry innovations and capabilities.

DLA’s Strategy to Meet Emerging Threats

DLA emphasized the significance of a new strategy to ensure warfighters are equipped with agile, adaptive and resilient logistics support. The agency noted that the military’s contested logistics efforts used in the past are no longer sufficient given the emergence of new and advanced threats that exist across air, sea, space, cyber and ground domains. 

The agency has been using machine learning, robotics and other advanced tools to forecast demands. It now intends to develop technologies based on artificial intelligence that can enhance the process and accuracy of such forecasts. The aim is to produce innovations that can provide accurate, data-backed demand forecasts while reducing lead times.

Industry partners and DLA are also looking at the potential of additive manufacturing in enhancing logistics support. Through 3D-printing, troops can access the parts they need quickly and more efficiently, potentially contributing to warfighters’ readiness.

Mark Simerly, director of DLA, in addressing leaders of 14 industry associations representing about 5,000 businesses, said, “We will always work closely with the services and the combatant commands to craft solutions, but we’ll never be able to do it with sufficient precision without your actions, your capabilities and your innovation.”

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DHS Publishes Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2023-2027
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DHS Publishes Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2023-2027

The Department of Homeland Security identified six priority missions in its strategic plan for fiscal years 2023 to 2027.

The plan, published Tuesday, also outlined objectives under each mission area to guide DHS components in achieving agency goals and enhance their coordination to ensure their activities are aligned toward desired outcomes.

Mission 1: Counter Terrorism and Prevent Threats

According to DHS, the United States must remain vigilant against all forms of domestic and international terrorism despite significant progress and a diminished terrorist threat to the country, noting that homegrown violent extremists — individuals inspired by the ideologies of foreign terrorist organizations — will remain the most prominent form of international terrorism facing the homeland.

To combat terrorism, the department aims to enhance the collection, analysis and sharing of actionable intelligence and information with local and international partners and adopt emerging technologies and understand how terrorists can use them to threaten national security in preparation for potential attacks.

Mission 2: Secure and Manage Our Borders

DHS has raised concern over a significant increase in irregular migration brought about by violence, food insecurity, severe poverty, corruption, climate change, the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and dire economic conditions. The strategy indicates that transnational criminal organizations are taking advantage of the migratory flows to exploit migrants as part of a billion-dollar criminal enterprise. It highlights the importance of collaboration with law enforcement partners to disrupt the operations of such organizations and arrest the individuals involved.

While the agency tightens security at its air, land, and maritime borders to prevent unlawful entry to the country, it works to expedite legal trade and travel through various agency programs.

Mission 3: Administer the Nation’s Immigration System

Under the mission area, DHS aims to enforce U.S. immigration laws in an effective and humane manner and provide immigration benefits to eligible applicants.

The agency said it is updating the U.S. legal immigration system, which is broken and outdated and brings challenges to immigration law enforcement.

Mission 4: Secure Cyberspace and Critical Infrastructure

Amid increasing cyberthreats, DHS will continue collaborating with government and private sector partners to strengthen the security and resilience of critical infrastructure and federal civilian IT systems.

Objectives under the mission area also include assessing and countering evolving cyber and emerging technology risks and combating cybercrime. The strategy highlights the need to identify and mitigate key emerging technology risks, particularly quantum computing risks in preparation for future threats to existing encryption methods.

Mission 5: Build a Resilient Nation and Respond to Incidents

“Disruptions caused by the global forces of pandemic disease and climate change have given new impetus to building resilience to all hazards and developing new approaches to prepare for, prevent, protect against, mitigate, and if necessary, respond and recover to natural and man-made events,” the strategic plan stated.

DHS’s goals within the mission area include developing a robust response capability that matches the nature of incidents, preparing its entire workforce to execute incident response capabilities and providing communities with access to resources to support recovery after a disaster.

Mission 6: Combat Crimes of Exploitation and Protect Victims

The desired outcome of the mission area is the capability to identify crimes of exploitation and protect victims through expanded education, digital forensic technology, support services and partnerships with federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, international and private sector partners.

According to DHS, the increasing crimes of exploitation, including online child sexual exploitation and abuse, human trafficking and labor exploitation, threaten the U.S. physical and virtual borders, immigration and customs systems, and national security.

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Gillian Bussey Joins Space Force as Deputy Chief Science Officer
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Gillian Bussey Joins Space Force as Deputy Chief Science Officer

The U.S. Space Force has appointed Gillian Bussey, a federal science and technology leader, as deputy chief science officer.

In a LinkedIn post published Tuesday, Bussey said she will serve as deputy to USSF Chief Science Officer Stacie Williams.

According to her profile on the professional networking platform, Bussey most recently worked as an analyst at the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, or CAPE. In this capacity, she was the lead analyst for science and technology issues.

She also served as a special assistant to the U.S. Air Force’s chief scientist and provided advice on hypersonics, nuclear modernization, directed energy and other technical matters. 

The former CIA weapons analyst spent nearly four years within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where she served as director of the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.

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Defense Health Agency Issues RFI for MHS GENESIS
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Defense Health Agency Issues RFI for MHS GENESIS

The Defense Health Agency is gathering information for the Program Executive Office for Defense Healthcare Management, or PEO DHMS, on possible approaches to creating and maintaining documentation for environments with multiple vendors.

According to the request for information posted on SAM.gov Tuesday, DHA is seeking industry input on technologies that can be utilized for technical documentation supporting MHS GENESIS.

The potential project is intended to address the lack of sustainment processes and internal interface configurations of the MHS GENESIS system documentation. Architecture artifacts, system/sub-system design documents and other technical documentation will also have to be revised for parties outside the government and prime contractor to understand them.

What Is MHS GENESIS?

MHS GENESIS is an electronic health record, or EHR, system being implemented by the Department of Defense, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard, Reserve Components, United States Military Entrance Processing Command and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and the National Security Agency.

The all-in-one recording system is designed to enhance the quality of healthcare by modernizing clinical and business processes. The standardized system is intended for the creation of a single record of care for each patient, which should help the military health system provide quality and efficient healthcare.

Potomac Officers Club presents the 2024 Healthcare Summit on Dec. 11. Register now to explore the transformative trends and innovations shaping the future of the healthcare sector.

Defense Health Agency Issues RFI for MHS GENESIS
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OIRA Takes Steps to Modernize Regulatory Comment Process
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OIRA Takes Steps to Modernize Regulatory Comment Process

The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has initiated steps to address mass, computer-generated and falsely attributed comments that were submitted in response to requests for public input on proposed regulations.

In a blog post published Tuesday, OIRA Administrator Richard Revesz wrote that his office has worked with the General Services Administration to better handle mass comments.

“These include, for example, a deduplication tool that one agency used to distill from 300,000 comments on a proposed rule a much more manageable set of 30,000 distinct comments,” Revesz noted.

How OIRA Is Solving the Problem

To manage computer-generated comments, OIRA has collaborated with GSA to implement additional checks at the comment submission system’s front end to protect the system from potential abuse.

When it comes to falsely attributed comments, the OIRA chief stated that the agency has established an interagency technical working group to share tips and best practices on how to manage comments in an effective manner.

“This working group regularly brings together dozens of regulatory professionals across many different agencies to ensure that issues like falsely-attributed comments can be addressed as new challenges develop,” Revesz added.

In December 2023, OIRA issued new guidance to facilitate greater public engagement in its regulatory review process.

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Air Force Acquiring Additional CCAs for Operational Tests
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Air Force Acquiring Additional CCAs for Operational Tests

The U.S. Air Force is acquiring additional collaborative combat aircraft, or CCAs, to test how the drones will operate in battle.

Andrew Hunter, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, said that he recently authorized the purchase of more CCAs for the service branch’s experimental operations unit, DefenseNews reported Friday. With this additional purchase, Hunter looks forward to further testing and development of CCAs. 

“You learn a lot when you get into flight test,” Hunter said. “But … it’s [also] the approach to production, the people demonstrating they can scale to the rates that we envision for this platform, and that are necessary for it to be affordable mass.”

How Do CCAs Operate?

CCAs are uncrewed drones designed to travel next to F-35 joint strike fighters and the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter. The drone also features mission capabilities, including striking adversarial targets, observing threats and jamming enemy signals. 

Hunter emphasized that the Air Force aims to move swiftly through the CCA program and has already begun considering how to develop the drones and keep future maintenance costs down. He also noted that the airworthiness of CCAs will be tested differently than that of previous autonomous aircraft. 

“We think about airworthiness differently,” Hunter stated. “With prior uncrewed aircraft that we’ve procured, we’ve kind of done airworthiness largely the old way, and we really need to do it in a fundamentally new way.”

Frank Kendall, Air Force secretary and 2024 Wash100 awardee, reportedly wants CCAs to cost a “fraction” of an F-35, which can be between $80 million to $100 million.

General Atomics & Anduril CCAs 

In April, the Air Force tapped General Atomics and Anduril to develop CCAs under two option awards. Hunter said the service branch plans to acquire both Anduril’s Fury and General Atomics’ Gambit CCAs for the experimental operations unit. 

“I think both vendors have an opportunity to succeed, and it’s entirely conceivable that we could move forward with both,” Hunter stated.

Air Force Acquiring Additional CCAs for Operational Tests

You can learn more about the Air Force’s emerging autonomous capabilities at the 2025 Defense R&D Summit on Jan. 23. Claim your tickets to the 2025 Defense R&D Summit now!

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Sairah Ijaz Named HUD CIO
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Sairah Ijaz Named HUD CIO

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has appointed Sairah Ijaz, a more than 20-year federal IT veteran, as chief information officer.

In a LinkedIn post announcing her appointment, Ijaz said she looks forward to enhancing HUD’s security posture, collaborating on innovative platforms and implementing forward-thinking strategies.

Ijaz’s Career History

She previously served as deputy CIO at HUD, where she was responsible for IT platforms and service delivery, data governance, strategic planning and stakeholder collaboration to advance digital transformation.

The certified Project Management Professional held IT roles at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Government Accountability Office and the Social Security Administration.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Ijaz spent three years at Grant Thornton as a manager.

The CIO holds a bachelor’s degree in information systems from the University of Maryland’s R.H. Smith School of Business and is pursuing a master’s degree in business analytics at Georgetown University.

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LLNL’s El Capitan Deemed World’s Fastest Computing System
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LLNL’s El Capitan Deemed World’s Fastest Computing System

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced Monday that the El Capitan exascale supercomputer has been benchmarked as the fastest computing system in the world. The system was evaluated based on the High Performance Linpack standard, which is used by the TOP500 organization to evaluate supercomputing performance.

Performance Rating

El Capitan earned an HPL score of 1.742 exaFLOPs with a total peak performance of 2.79 exaFLOPs. In comparison, Sierra, LLNL’s previous most powerful system, had a peak performance of 125 petaFLOPs. El Capitan’s peak performance exceeds that of Sierra’s more than 20-fold.

Commenting on the accomplishment, LLNL Lab Director Kim Budil said it “is a testament to the Laboratory’s leadership in driving scientific discovery. It continues a legacy of supercomputing excellence that spans more than 70 years.”

“El Capitan’s extraordinary computing capabilities will allow us to tackle complex challenges that were previously out of reach. We are proud to lead this achievement in partnership with industry, and advance science in ways that will benefit society and the nation as a whole,” Budil added.

System Specs

LLNL’s new supercomputer is built on the Cray Supercomputing EX system by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The system is also powered by AMD’s Instinct MI300A accelerated processing units, which work to deliver computational performance required by artificial intelligence workloads.

Functions of El Capitan

El Capitan will be used by the National Nuclear Security Administration Tri-Labs — LLNL, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory — to support the Stockpile Stewardship Program and other nuclear security missions. The supercomputer will help with the various tasks to be carried out by Tri-Labs scientists, including weapon performance and safety modeling, high-energy-density physics experiment modeling and AI-based workflows like those involving material discovery, advanced manufacturing and digital twinning.

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