Tuesday federal headlines – January 13, 2015

The Federal Headlines is a daily compilation of the stories you hear discussed on the Federal Drive and In Depth radio shows each day. Our headlines are updated twice per day — once in the morning and once in the afternoon — with the latest news affecting federal employees and contractors.

• Federal employees would receive a 3.8 percent pay raise under a bill from Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.. The Federal Adjustment of Income Act has about two dozen sponsors. The 114th Congress isn’t likely to pass the bill. (Federal News Radio)
• The Homeland Security Department doesn’t have a cyber strategy for building and access control systems at federal facilities. The Government Accountability Office said no one was responsible for addressing cyber risks at nearly 9,000 Federal Protective Service buildings, and the General Services Administration’s plan for a cyber attack on a building control system wassn’t consistent with Federal Information Security Management Act requirements. (GAO)
• Federal employees in D.C. traveling to the Pentagon must use the blue line. Metro is suspending all yellow line service today after smoke filled a train near L’Enfant Plaza station, leaving one dead and many injured. L’Enfant Plaza is open this morning and all lines except yellow will stop at the station. A shuttle bus is available between L’Enfant and the Pentagon, running every 20 minutes. ( WMATA)
• President Barack Obama’s nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury Department withdrew after facing opposition in the Senate. Wall Street banker Antonio Weiss asked the President not to resubmit his nomination. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) said Weiss was too close to Wall Street to hold a high post at Treasury. Instead, Weiss will serve as counselor to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. The Senate doesn’t have to confirm him for that post. Weiss will give advice on financial markets, regulatory reform and economic growth. Lew said opposition to the nomination is “not justified.” The White House now has to search for another nominee. (Federal News Radio)
• The White House said it should have sent a higher-profile official to an anti- terror rally in Paris. Dozens of world leaders linked arms Sunday and marched through the French capital. U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley represented the U.S. in the march. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris but didn’t attend the rally. Press Secretary Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama was not personally involved in deciding who marched in the rally. Earnest said sending Obama or Vice President Joe Biden to Paris would require elaborate security measures. That prevented them from traveling on short notice. (Federal News Radio)
• The Homeland Security Department boosted security after the terrorist attacks in Paris last week. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson asked the Federal Protective Service to increase its presence at government buildings in major cities. He said the department will continue to evaluate locations of enhanced security and shift accordingly. The Transportation Security Administration is conducting more random passenger and bag checks. Johnson directed TSA to review the security measures and see if more or less was necessary. He said all the measures were precautionary and DHS didn’t have any credible intelligence that terrorists were planning an attack on the U.S. (DHS)
• The Office of Personnel Management disabled a Web portal used by federal retirees. A malfunction may have left some retirees’ information accessible to other individuals visiting the portal. The flaw was first reported by News4. OPM said it will notify individuals whose personal information was compromised. (Federal News Radio)
• Officials at U.S. Central Command said no classified data was in danger when hackers got control of its social media accounts. Hackers claiming to work on behalf of Islamic State militants seized control of Centcom’s Twitter and YouTube sites yesterday. They posted slides from a presentation about potential conflict with China. The Pentagon quickly suspended the sites. The hacker group, which calls itself CyberCaliphate, appears to be the same one already under FBI investigation for hijacking the websites or Twitter feeds of media outlets in the last month. Investigators said they aren’t convinced the hackers have a connection to the Islamic State. (Federal News Radio)
• The House unanimously passed a bill aimed at reducing military and veteran suicides. It was the second time in five weeks the bill cleared the House. In the last session, it was blocked in the Senate by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who has since retired. The bill would require independent suicide reviews by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments. They would have to establish websites for information on mental health services. The bill would boost pay for psychiatrists who agreed to work for the VA in helping service members transition out of active duty. The bill is named for Clay Hunt, a veteran who committed suicide in 2011. (Federal News Radio)
• Thursday will mark the final deployment of a Navy frigate. The USS Kauffman will leave from Naval Station Norfolk for a six-month deployment near Central America. The Navy will soon decommission all of its frigates, which are smaller than destroyers. The Navy mostly uses the vessels for escort duty. It plans to use littoral combat ships and joint high-speed vessels to replace the ships. The Navy will sell some frigates to foreign militaries. (Federal News Radio )
• The Merit Systems Protection Board has upheld the appeals of two Justice Department attorneys who were suspended for misconduct in the prosecution of the late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Joseph Bottini and James Goeke withheld evidence that might have cleared Stevens. His conviction was eventually overturned. But the MSPB affirmed an earlier decision by an administrative judge. Board members agreed the Justice Department violated its own procedures in dealing with Bottini and Goeke. They said the chief of the department’s Professional Misconduct Review Unit wrongly inserted himself into proceedings and handed out a tougher punishment than the pair might otherwise have received. (MSPB )

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