FY23 Bid Protests Show 22% Increase From Previous Year, GAO Report Finds
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FY23 Bid Protests Show 22% Increase From Previous Year, GAO Report Finds

Bid protests are up 22 percent from fiscal year 2022, according to a Government Accountability Office congressional report.

Released on Thursday, the report noted that the office received 2,025 total cases in FY 2023, which included 1,957 protests, 38 cost claims and 30 reconsideration requests.

The GAO sustained 31 percent of all protests, with the most common reasons for these decisions being unreasonable technical evaluation, flawed selection decision and unreasonable cost or price evaluation.

A considerable portion of the protests challenged a single procurement under the Department of Health and Human Services’ Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 4 government-wide acquisition contract for information technology offerings.

Last year, only 1,658 protests were filed with the GAO, a 12 percent decrease from the previous year, in which the office received 1,897. This year’s increase is a step away from a years-long downward trend in the number of protests filed.

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DOJ Office Presents New Search Tool for FOIA Website
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DOJ Office Presents New Search Tool for FOIA Website

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy has updated the Freedom of Information Act website with a new search tool as part of efforts to improve user experience and meet one of DOJ’s commitments in the U.S. Fifth Open Government National Action Plan.

OIP conducted research and collected information from agencies and public users to develop the FOIA.gov search tool, which is designed to help users connect to the right agency to make FOIA requests and quickly find federal government documents using logic-based pathways and machine learning, DOJ said Tuesday.

According to DOJ, the updated FOIA.gov homepage now features three buttons to enable users to access the search tool, make a request with a particular agency and learn about the FOIA process.

OIP said it will use data analytics to understand how users interact with the search tool to improve the quality of the FOIA results.

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4 National Laboratories Upgrade to 400G Connectivity
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4 National Laboratories Upgrade to 400G Connectivity

The Energy Sciences Network has expanded the bandwidth at Argonne National Laboratory, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to 400 gigabits per second.

According to ESnet Executive Director Inder Monga, 400G would enable collaboration between scientific researchers regardless of their location or the location of their equipment or data, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said Wednesday.

ESnet is an unclassified network connecting 50 Department of Energy sites with the aim of supporting scientific research. The network is funded by the DOE’s Office of Science and overseen by Berkeley Lab.

400G is made possible by the installation of relevant circuitry following the launch of ESnet6 in 2022. The sixth iteration of the network was designed to enable collaboration between DOE researchers and international partners, facilitating high data traffic generated by a variety of sources, including artificial intelligence and imagery systems.

Many other national laboratories will be upgraded to 400G in the coming months. Meanwhile, upgrades at Berkeley Lab and CERN are almost complete.

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Former LANL Official Gina Fisk Named FAA Chief Information Security Officer
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Former LANL Official Gina Fisk Named FAA Chief Information Security Officer

Gina Fisk, formerly senior program manager at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been appointed chief information security officer at the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a recently published LinkedIn post.

Fisk previously held the CISO role at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, where she established and maintained an enterprise cybersecurity strategy to protect information and scientific assets against advanced cyberthreats.

She held various roles of increasing responsibility at LANL, including global security program manager for cyber sciences responsible for implementing strategic cybersecurity initiatives for national security customers.

Before that, Fisk was LANL program manager for cyber research and development, senior cybersecurity leader and senior information technology project manager.

She was also assigned as senior adviser to the DOE Chief Information Officer and focused on integrating cybersecurity across the department.

DARPA Unveils Program to Increase Transparency in Critical Materials Sector
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DARPA Unveils Program to Increase Transparency in Critical Materials Sector

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, has unveiled a new program to enhance supply chain resilience and national security by increasing transparency in the global critical materials market.

The Open Price Exploration for National Security program aims to develop technology that will serve as a transparent information source for critical materials producers and buyers, DARPA said Wednesday.

OPEN will analyze publicly available information on fundamental and observable input costs to formulate structural price predictions and create supply and demand forecasts using advances in machine learning, time series forecasting and economic modeling.

USGS will provide subject matter expertise in critical mineral extraction and refining to support the OPEN technology development effort.

The program will focus on two technical areas: TA-1 for estimating actual critical material input costs and TA-2 for forecasting supply and demand functions for essential materials.

DARPA will host a proposers day on Nov. 13 to provide details on OPEN’s objectives.

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New CISA-HHS Online Toolkit Aims to Address Gaps in Healthcare Cybersecurity
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New CISA-HHS Online Toolkit Aims to Address Gaps in Healthcare Cybersecurity

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to create a toolkit aimed at addressing online security gaps in public health and the healthcare sector in general.

CISA revealed Wednesday that the toolkit is available on its website and features its cyber hygiene services, HHS’ health industry cyber defense practices and the Cybersecurity Framework implementation guide, which HHS developed with the Health Sector Coordinating Council.

The online resource was released ahead of a roundtable discussion co-hosted by CISA and HHS to brainstorm on government-industry collaboration to overcome It security challenges in the industry. The two agencies had been in partnership with HSCC’s Cybersecurity Working Group in the past year to gather and share information, tools, resources and training to the sector.

“Given that healthcare organizations have a combination of personally identifiable information, financial information, health records, and countless medical devices, they are essentially a one-stop shop for an adversary,” said CISA Deputy Director Nitin Natarajan. ”We continue to work diligently with our partners at HHS and in the healthcare sector to secure our health organizations not only in the United States, but across the globe through our collaboration tools.”

On Dec. 6, healthcare industry professionals will gather at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2023 Healthcare Summit in Virginia. Register now to participate in the event.

POC - 2023 Healthcare Summit
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RGS CEO Paul Smith Shares Thoughts on Leadership in an Ever-Changing GovCon Landscape
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RGS CEO Paul Smith Shares Thoughts on Leadership in an Ever-Changing GovCon Landscape

As CEO of Rancher Government Solutions, Paul Smith leads the company’s efforts to deliver secure open source technology to the U.S. government. He was appointed to the role in July, and is currently an advisor at Software AG Government Solutions, Mattermost and Mainsail. Earlier in his career, he spent 17 years at Red Hat.

Smith, a three-time Wash100 Award recipient, recently participated in an interview with the Potomac Officers Club, in which he discussed his core values, offered his insights on adapting to changes within the federal contracting ecosystem and shared his thoughts on the challenges businesses face when innovating.

In this excerpt from the interview, Smith describes the work environment he strives to create:

“I want those in my charge to grow professionally and personally. The only way to do that is to have the right culture in place. Culture is built on mutual respect and trust, transparency and openness, modeling accountability to your teammates and creating an environment where respectful differences of opinion are not only heard, but invited. When people believe that their role has real impact, unbelievable energy and creativity is unleashed and you can do incredible things.”

To learn more about Smith’s leadership approach, read the full Executive Spotlight interview on the Potomac Officers Club website.

Interested in participating in your own Executive Spotlight interview? This opportunity to build your brand is exclusively available to Potomac Officers Club members. To browse our membership options and choose which one is right for you, click here.

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Army Delivers Flight Test Engines to Developers of 2 Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft Competitive Prototypes
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Army Delivers Flight Test Engines to Developers of 2 Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft Competitive Prototypes

The U.S. Army handed over the first two GE Aerospace-built flight test engines to two vendors working on two Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft competitive prototypes on Oct. 20 as part of the Improved Turbine Engine Program, or ITEP.

The two T901 engines will be integrated into the Raider X prototype of Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky business and into the 360 Invictus offering of Textron’s Bell subsidiary in preparation for aircraft ground runs in the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 and initial flights in the fourth quarter of FY 2024, the Army said Monday.

Preliminary flight rating testing under ITEP is currently underway at the General Electric subsidiary’s facilities.

The T901 engine has an onboard Engine Health Management System to provide predictive logistics capability and features increased power to support the Army’s multidomain operations.

Aside from powering FARA, T901 will replace the T700 engine on UH-60M/V Black Hawk and AH-64E Apache helicopters.

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White House Executive Order Pledges to Allot 13% of Federal Contract Spending to SDBs
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White House Executive Order Pledges to Allot 13% of Federal Contract Spending to SDBs

The Biden administration is increasing the threshold of procurement dollars awarded by the government to small, disadvantaged businesses to 13 percent in fiscal year 2024.

The Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday issued a memo on the executive order, stating that the SDB allotment will continue to increase every year moving forward.

In FY2022, the government spent 11.4 percent of its contracting dollars on SDBs, according to the Small Business Administration.

Section 7(a) of the new EO 14091 directs SBA and government agencies to negotiate goals to achieve the 13 percent prime contract spending on SDBs next year. OMB is also targeting a 15 percent allocation to such businesses in fiscal 2025.

The budget office pledged to continue coordinating with other agencies as well as SBA, the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council and the Gender Policy Council to increase procurement opportunities for small businesses by expanding access and reducing transaction costs to improve their competitive advantage.

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Pam Melroy Says NASA Supports Mission Authorization for Commercial Space Activities
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Pam Melroy Says NASA Supports Mission Authorization for Commercial Space Activities

NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy has expressed support for the ongoing development of a mission authorization framework by the National Space Council to oversee regulatory compliance of commercial space activities, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.

Speaking at AIAA’s ASCEND conference in Nevada, Melroy emphasized the importance of having “a clear, timely and consistent path to success and safety” and coordinated oversight of commercial space operations not licensed by other government agencies.

Commercial lunar landers and space stations will benefit from the mission authorization framework, Melroy said. According to the deputy administrator, NASA relies on commercial landers to send cargo and astronauts to the lunar surface and supports the transition from the International Space Station to private space stations.

“Industry must be able to secure the regulatory approvals needed to partner with NASA in order to keep everyone safe. On the other side, it’s important that the in-space authorization policy be very clear and straightforward to understand,” Melroy, a 2023 Wash100 awardee, said.

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