Federal Drive

Friday Morning Federal Newscast – February 4th

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. T...

Federal News Network Staff

February 4, 2011 9:16 am

4 min read

The Morning Federal Newscast is a daily compilation of the stories you hear Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Amy Morris discuss throughout the show each day. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

Homeland Security is giving agencies new orders to implement HSPD-12 secure ID cards. Federal News Radio has obtained a draft memo that requires agencies to develop implementation plans by March 31st. Every agency agency will also need to name a senior official in charge of developing the plan, by February 25th. More than four million federal employees and contractors have already received the cards. The goal is 5.8 million.
House Republicans are proposing to cut $32 billion dollars from agency budgets over the next few months. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says the plan would cap total appropriations at just over one trillion dollars — which is $74 billion less than what the president requested for 2011. The measure would bring non-security discretionary spending back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, as House Republicans called for in their Pledge to America. The White House says the GOP effort could cause widespread furloughs of federal employees, force vulnerable people off subsidized housing, reduce services in national parks and mean less aid to schools and police and fire departments. Ryan plans to file the budget resolution next Tuesday.
Federal agencies have to work more closely with contractors when they’re trying to buy new technology. The memo from the Office of Management and Budget tries to bust some myths about how feds are — and are not — allowed to communicate with vendors. OMB’s Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, Dan Gordon, says that feds often believe they’re not allowed to work one-on-one with a potential offeror or that they must disclose all communication and meetings with contractors. Not necessarily true. Government officials can meet one-on-one with potential offerors as long as there’s no preferential treatment. And disclosure of communication is only required in certain circumstances.
Insourcing at the Army has come to a parade rest. Army Secretary John McHugh suspends a program of wholesale replacement of contractors with government workers. Now, all insourcing projects have to be approved by McHugh’s office. In a memo, McHugh says he wants a more analytical approach.
You may remember the California company that tried to get the Air Force to consider a Russian-made refueling tanker. Now U.S. Aerospace is at it again. The Wall Street Journal reports the company is teaming with China Aviation Industry Corporation, or AVIC. It wants to offer the new Chinese-made stealth fighter to the U.S. military. It also would like the White House to consider the Chinese A-313 helicopter to replace the aging presidential fleet. That’s not all. AVIC also makes a training plane. U.S. Aerospace may bid that plane as the Air Force replaces the venerable T-38 trainer.
Federal agencies today will start a new program to help women-owned small businesses get federal contracts. It’s part of a final rule that authorizes agencies to reserve some contracts for women owned small businesses. Most kinds of contracts must be under $3 million. The threshold for manufacturing contracts is $5 million. The Small Business Administration will post instructions on how to participate.
The Federal Communications Commission wants the President to tell Americans about emergencies, directly from the Oval Office. It issued proposed rules for how a hookup from the White House to the Emergency Alert System might work. The system lets the public know about emergencies using television and radio broadcasts and feeds into cable and satellite TV systems. Once procedures are worked out, the FCC will test the White House component in conjunction with Homeland Security and the National Weather Service. The FCC is also looking into how broadband Internet service might be folded into the Emergency Alert System.