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DHS Allocates $375M for FY 2023 Cybersecurity Grant Program; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted
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DHS Allocates $375M for FY 2023 Cybersecurity Grant Program; Alejandro Mayorkas Quoted

The Department of Homeland Security has announced an additional $375 million in grant funding to help state, local and territorial governments improve the security of critical infrastructure and enhance the resilience of information systems against cyber threats.

The funding allotment for the fiscal year 2023 State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, an increase from the $185 million allotted in the previous year, will be used to support STL governments in implementing their cybersecurity risk management plans, DHS said Monday.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a previous Wash100 awardee, said the department aims to ensure that communities have the resources to meet cyber threats to protect the public and safeguard their critical infrastructure.

“These cybersecurity grants will help state, local, and territorial governments do just that, and I strongly urge communities across the country to submit an application,” Mayorkas said.

SLCGP is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and allocates $1 billion over four years.

Eligible state and local governments have until Oct. 6 to apply for FY23 funding.

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DCSA Director William Lietzau Underscores Importance of Industrial Security
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DCSA Director William Lietzau Underscores Importance of Industrial Security

Supply chain security has been top of mind for the government and for government contractors in recent years as new threats emerge. In a new video interview with Executive Mosaic, William Lietzau, director of the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, spoke about the urgency behind securing the supply chain and shared what his agency is doing to help.

“For two decades now, we’ve been focused on the counterterrorism fight — and terrorists are not out there trying to get on the board of directors of one of our major defense corporations. Our near-peer adversaries are,” Lietzau told Executive Mosaic’s Summer Myatt, “and we need to up our game in that regard.”

Lietzau, a 2023 Wash100 Award winner, explained that DCSA has two main pillars: personnel security and industrial security. On the industrial security side of the agency, Lietzau said, “We vet companies just like we vet people.”

“We vet most specifically the companies in the NISP, the National Industrial Security Program, those companies that are doing classified work for the United States government. Like personnel clearances, we do about 90 to 95 percent of the US government’s contractor workforce,” said Lietzau.

According to Lietzau, the DCSA works on industrial security missions related to arms and ammunition controls, cyber controls and foreign ownership, control and influence, or FOCI, among others. The agency also sometimes provides counterintelligence information to its trusted contractor workforce to help them defeat intrusion attempts.

But DCSA is also moving more into the unclassified side of the defense contractor base due to a shift in supply chains.

“More recently, we’ve started expanding into the unclassified defense supply chain, recognizing that, unlike a couple of decades ago, where the supply chain meant food, fuel and water, today’s supply chain includes software, minerals from that are not naturally part of our supply chain and things that are much more vulnerable to intervening forces of foreign intelligence entities or adversaries,” he said.

“And in that case, we’re starting to look at the progeny of companies as they take on big defense contracts, even if it’s not for classified work, so that we can identify which companies are safer bets from a foreign ownership, control and influence perspective,” Lietzau added.

Find out more about DCSA’s role in industrial security reform and in the whole-of-government effort to modernize personnel vetting processes — watch the full video interview with DCSA Director William Lietzau here.

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Awardees for Minority Business Development Agency’s Capital Readiness Program Announced
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Awardees for Minority Business Development Agency’s Capital Readiness Program Announced

Vice President Kamala Harris has revealed the recommended awardees for a Minority Business Development Agency-led program that seeks to help underserved entrepreneurs expand their businesses.

Funded by the State Small Business Credit Initiative, the Capital Readiness Program is a $125 million technical assistance initiative of the Department of Commerce’s MBDA that was reauthorized through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, MBDA said Thursday.

SSBCI is a $10 billion fund managed by the Department of the Treasury meant to drive investments in small enterprises in various states, territories and tribal governments.

“The Capital Readiness Program will provide the resources and tools to prepare businesses to access capital and funding, and ensure prosperity is within reach for all American entrepreneurs,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The 43 awardees under the program will join MBDA’s National Network of 88 business centers and initiatives that offer technical and business support services to minority business enterprises.

Winning organizations include the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Bridgeway Capital, CIC Innovation Services, Eastern Shore Entrepreneurship Center, Impact Hub Houston and numerous others.

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House Panel Requests Briefing on Proposed Climate Disclosure Rule for Contractors
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House Panel Requests Briefing on Proposed Climate Disclosure Rule for Contractors

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has begun its oversight of a proposed rule that would require government contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and financial risks from climate change.

In doing so, the House panel has requested relevant documents and a staff-level briefing from the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to understand how the proposed rule could affect U.S. military readiness, according to a Thursday letter addressed to FAR Council Chair Mathew Blum.

These efforts will help the committee assess how the rule may impact the fossil-fuel reliant federal fleet and identify how the Science-Based Targets Initiative would interact with the FAR Council if the rule was implemented.

The committee requested that the FAR Council submit documents and communications with the Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration related to SBTi, operations of the federal fleet, military readiness and cost under the proposed rule no later than Aug. 17. It also said that the staff-level briefing should be conducted no later than Aug. 10.

The rule was introduced in November as part of efforts to address climate risks while strengthening federal supply chains.

According to the proposed policy, third-party international organization SBTi would be in charge of validating contractors’ GHG emissions and setting emissions reduction targets for such companies.

Marine Corps Names Wargaming Center After Former Commandant Robert Neller
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Marine Corps Names Wargaming Center After Former Commandant Robert Neller

The U.S. Marine Corps has named its new wargaming and analysis center after retired Gen. Robert Neller, who served as the 37th commandant of the service branch from September 2015 until his retirement in July 2019.

The General Robert B. Neller Center for Wargaming and Analysis is being constructed on the Marine Corps University campus at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and is set to reach initial operating capability in 2025, the military service said Friday.

Within its 100,446 gross square feet of space, the Neller Center will use artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics and modeling and simulation processes to enable the Marine Corps to conduct wargaming and analysis across multiple domains and levels of classification.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory will maintain the first-of-its-kind wargaming center and work with other services and departments to modernize the facility.

BAE Systems developed the prototype design for the center under a $19 million contract awarded in August 2020.

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DISA Unveils OCONUS Cloud Capability, Advances Joint Operational Edge Initiative
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DISA Unveils OCONUS Cloud Capability, Advances Joint Operational Edge Initiative

The Defense Information Systems Agency has launched a new cloud capability available outside of the contiguous United States.

Now operational at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, OCONUS Region for Stratus marks a step forward in the agency’s work to establish a global infrastructure that links ground-based teams to each other, public and private cloud networks and headquarters, DISA said last week.

The agency’s hosting and compute center has partnered with the office of the Department of Defense’s chief information officer and Special Operations Command to introduce the Joint Operational Edge program, another component of bringing OCONUS to the DOD.

JOE is an interconnected network of large form factor edge computing systems designed to provide Platform as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and other enterprise service offerings across the DOD. Compute offerings under the JOE initiative can be procured through the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract.

DOD CIO John Sherman, a two-time Wash100 awardee, recently released a memo calling for military departments and other DOD entities to leverage the JWCC contract to purchase future enterprise wide cloud service offerings across all classification levels as part of a push to rationalize cloud adoption across the department.

DOD Teams With Selmet to Bolster Turbine Engine Supply Chain; Laura Taylor-Kale Quoted
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DOD Teams With Selmet to Bolster Turbine Engine Supply Chain; Laura Taylor-Kale Quoted

In line with the Department of Defense’s goal to bolster U.S. supply chains, its Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy has entered into a $1.31 million agreement with Selmet, Inc., a Consolidated Precision Products company.

The partnership, which was established through the office’s Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization office, will help Selmet produce specialty titanium castings used for turbine engines on F-15, F-16, F-22 and F-35 aircraft, the DOD announced on Friday.

“Resiliency at all points in our defense industrial base is required to ensure the operational availability of the platforms on which our warfighters depend. Upstream supporting activities are just as important as the manufacturing of final products” said Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy.

Made under the Defense Production Act Title III authorities and funded by the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, the agreement will allow Selmet to procure and install the specific equipment needed to produce its titanium castings.

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US Navy Lengthens Service Life of 4 Arleigh Burke-Class Ships
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US Navy Lengthens Service Life of 4 Arleigh Burke-Class Ships

The U.S. Navy has cleared a service life extension for four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers stationed in Virginia and Japan.

The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Surface Warfare Division, extended the service life of the USS Ramage and USS Benfold by five years, and the USS Mitscher and USS Milius by four years, the service branch announced Wednesday.

“These service life extensions demonstrate the Navy’s commitment to ensuring the surface fleet has the right capability and capacity,” said Rear Adm. Fred Pyle, director of Surface Warfare (N96).

The Ramage and Mitscher are homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. The former will stay in active duty until fiscal year 2035, while the latter will be in service until FY 2034. The Benfold and Milius are stationed in Yokosuka, Japan, and will be reviewed again in 2036 and 2035, respectively.

“These extensions align to Secretary of the Navy Del Toro’s commitment to Congress during the FY-24 posture hearings to analyze service life on a hull-by-hull basis and extend the correct ships in order to be good stewards of resources invested in the U.S. Navy by the American people,” Pyle said.

Each of the guided-missile destroyers underwent Aegis baseline modernization upgrades as part of the DDG modernization initiative.

This approval was announced a day after the Navy awarded multiyear procurement contracts for the construction of nine DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class ships in Flight III configuration. The projects were granted to HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding division and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works business.

MSU Secures $529M DOE Funding to Extend Rare Isotope Research
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MSU Secures $529M DOE Funding to Extend Rare Isotope Research

The Department of Energy‘s Office of Science has awarded $529 million in funding to Michigan State University to continue nuclear science research at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, MSUToday reported Friday.

Under the five-year cooperative agreement, FRIB will serve as a user facility for DOE-SC to study the properties and fundamental interactions of rare isotopes and nuclear astrophysics and their applications in medicine, homeland security and industry.

FRIB has provided over 200 rare isotope beams for experiments and supported over 500 participants worldwide, including scientists from colleges, universities and national laboratories, since user facility operation commenced in May 2022.

The facility also supports chip testing for advanced semiconductor devices, the harvesting of unused isotopes for use in several fields of study and the development of new technologies for other industries and applications.

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National Institutes of Health Names Jeanne Marrazzo NIAID Director
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National Institutes of Health Names Jeanne Marrazzo NIAID Director

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has been chosen to lead the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Her appointment to the NIAID director post will take effect in the fall, and she will succeed NIAID Acting Director Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, who stepped into the role after Dr. Anthony Fauci’s departure in December, the National Institutes of Health said Wednesday.

Marrazzo’s early career experience includes time as a faculty member at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

She was inducted as a fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1996, and became chair of the Subspecialty Board on Infectious Disease by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 2012.

Marrazzo is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America and a specialist in HIV and the human microbiome. The Lesbian/Bisexual Women’s Health Study, which she co-founded, was noticed and funded by NIAID.

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