The Department of Energy is requesting information from organizations interested in lease agreements with the government for the agency’s planned utility-scale clean energy project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

In an RFI issued Tuesday, DOE said it is looking for industry partners for the development of carbon pollution-free electricity generation and storage activities at the 13,200-acre site.

The DOE-owned Savannah River Site was originally built as a nuclear materials refinement facility in the 1950s. The agency is now planning to include SRS In its Cleanup to Clean Energy Initiative, along with the Hanford Site in Washington and a portion of land where the Idaho National Laboratory is located.

The agency has yet to decide whether to lease part or all of SRS to a single entity or multiple. Developers of solar, wind and nuclear energy are able to respond to the RFI until Nov. 17.

The Maritime Administration has reached full enrollment for its two security programs that provide U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed sustainment sealift ships and product tankers for the Department of Defense during armed conflict or national emergency.

Under the Maritime Security Program, MARAD has enrolled Liberty Global Logistics’ Liberty Power ship and Fidelio Limited Partnership’s Tulane vessel to provide militarily useful cargo capacity to the DOD, the Department of Transportation said Tuesday.

MARAD also selected U.S. Marine Management’s Pyxis Epsilon for the Tanker Security Program.

The TSP ship will reflag under the U.S. registry by the end of 2023 and will be renamed the Shenandoah Trader.

“In the years ahead, these vessels will deliver vital goods, strengthen both our economy and our national security, and create good jobs for American mariners,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is accepting public comment on proposed new controls in Special Publication 800-53 standards for federal information security and privacy.

The comment period is open from Oct. 17 to 23, in preparation for a patch release of the 5.1.1 version of SP 800-53 in November, NIST said Tuesday.

The special publication is part of NIST’s Risk Management Framework, which includes seven steps to guide organizations in addressing data security and privacy risk and help them comply with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act.

The new revision aims to address gaps in identity and management system controls, particularly for providers and servers of identity authorization and authentication technologies.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has begun soliciting proposals for a two-phase program to develop autonomy transfer methods for refining low-fidelity models and simulations to be used for transfer.

The Transfer from Imprecise and Abstract Models to Autonomous Technologies, or TIAMAT, program aims to create sim-to-sim and sim-to-real autonomy transfer techniques that will enable same-day transfer of autonomous technologies from simulation to reality, DARPA said Tuesday.

DARPA expects that the proposed TIAMAT method could result in autonomous systems that are adaptable to different military missions.

Phases 1 and 2 will each run for 18 months and the results of the first segment will be used to down-select participants from six to three.

Interested parties have until Dec. 20 to submit proposals.

The Government Accountability Office has found that the Department of Defense has limited insights into potential national security risks from mergers and acquisitions in the defense industrial base.

In a report published Tuesday, GAO revealed that DOD’s Industrial Base Policy office assessed an average of 40 defense M&As per year in fiscal years 2018 through 2022, which represents only a small portion of the total company takeovers during the period.

GAO added that most of the Pentagon’s M&A assessments focus on competition rather than other types of risks, such as national security and innovation risks, as there is no clear direction about which M&A should be prioritized for assessment beyond those initiated in response to antitrust reviews.

The agency recommended that DOD provide additional direction on assessing the full range of risks and benefits identified in its M&A policy; ensure that the Industrial Base Policy’s M&A office is adequately resourced; provide clear direction on which M&A needs to be prioritized for assessment; and require monitoring of identified risks.

The National Contract Management Association has teamed with World Commerce and Contracting for a joint venture that aims to strengthen the understanding of contract management globally.

Built on the pillars of consensus-based updates and resource distribution, the partnership will incorporate both organizations’ experience in the field to pursue the goal of transforming the contract management profession worldwide, the two companies announced in a joint statement on Tuesday.

“This collaboration is bringing a wave of commercial and global best practices to our Contract Management Standard that is already adopted by the federal government, part of industry and academia,” said NCMA Chair Elect Heather Dallara.

“For our members and workforce, this partnership represents a pivotal moment in elevating the contract management profession globally. This joint venture between NCMA and WorldCC is undeniably a momentous step forward for the future of contract management,” she added.

Dallara, who also currently serves as senior vice president of business operations at Integral Federal, was recently appointed chair of Executive Mosaic’s 4×24 Contracts Group.

The joint venture’s focus on consensus-based updates is intended to drive the continuous improvement and growth of the Contract Management Standard, an NCMA-developed and American National Standards Institute-approved outline of contract management. The standard looks at contract management as it is related to processes that come from the integration and interaction of job responsibilities and skills as well as their related purposes.

Through their partnership, NCMA and WorldCC plan to mold the CMS to properly represent the constantly transforming contract management field and progress the standard’s use for academic recognition of contract management.

Resources offered by the joint venture will center artificial intelligence use in contract management to help users leverage the potential benefits of AI, such as increased efficiency and precision and modern practices.

“This joint venture marks a new era for contract management professionals. Together, we’ll elevate CMS globally, setting a new standard for excellence and creating a common contracting language,” said Kraig Conrad, CEO of NCMA.

WorldCC CEO Sally Guyer highlighted the organizations’ shared vision to uplift the contract management profession while making sure it “remains at the forefront of industry practices.”

“By unifying our efforts, we can deliver cutting-edge guidance and resources that will empower professionals worldwide,” she said.