Friday Morning Federal Newscast – March 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. The Newscast is designed to give FederalNewsRadio.com users more information about the stories you hear on the air.

• Big changes are being considered for your wallet and workplace. Congress is set to examine federal pay, and a pay-for-performance system may be up for consideration. Congressman Dennis Ross chairs the House committee that oversees the federal workforce, and says a hearing next week is the “first step” toward implementing performance-based incentives. Ross wants to cut federal staffing levels by at least 10 percent, or about 200,000 federal jobs, and said a pay-for-performance system will be necessary to properly manage a leaner federal work force. Federal Times reports Ross expects that federal collective bargaining will be discussed. March 9th hearing will also examine the differences in federal and private-sector pay.
• DC-area federal employees will soon receive additional information in the event of a government early release. OPM is amending their announcements to explicitly state when employees may leave, and that they have the option to use unscheduled leave or telework. This is not a change in policy, but meant to remind employees of their options. OPM says the change in language was due to “recent experiences.”
• Vice President Joe Biden is offering more than $6 billion in spending cuts as part of his opening salvo in budget negotiations with Republicans. The White House and Congressional Democrats did not detail what those cuts will be. Economic Council Director Gene Sperling says those cuts would be on top of nearly $45 billion in reductions that Congress is already thinking about.
• House Speaker John Boehner says Republicans will propose a budget in the spring that curbs the growth in Social Security and Medicare. He tells the Wall Street Journal, he hopes to persuade the American public that entitlement programs must be curbed if there’s any hope of bring federal deficits under control. At this point, most Americans don’t have a clue to how big the fiscal problem is, Boehner says. Entitlement programs comprise more than 60 percent of the budget, and they are growing fast.
• House Republicans and Democrats have started negotiations to consolidate or eliminate redundant federal programs. But members of Congress want more participation from the administration. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform met yesterday. Topic A was the recent GAO report detailing billions of dollars worth of overlapping programs and agencies. The White House is working on its own plan to consolidate the government.
• Allegations of fraud and personal misconduct being investigated at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An FBI agent says that ICE deputy director of intelligence James Woosley was suspended from the agency after a raid found that he had filed bogus travel reports for analysts in exchange for a cut of the refunded money. ICE says that it is cooperating with an investigation by Homeland Security’s inspector general.
• The Homeland Security Department invested millions of dollars to develop scanners that could covertly track pedestrians. In 2005 and 2006, DHS paid two separate contractors to study technology similar to airport scanners that would have been placed at train stations or major events. USA Today reports, the contracts were part of the government’s effort to acquire technology to find suicide bombers in a crowd of moving people. Documents about the contracts were turned over to a privacy-rights groups currently suing the Department.
• Senate Republicans are set to block the President’s nominee for Medicare administrator. Forty-two Republicans Senators signed a letter to President asking him to withdraw his nominee, Dr. Donald Berwick. Berwick would have major responsibilities under the health care overhaul, and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch says he has limited experience in insurance regulation and is a proponent of big government. Republicans would need forty votes to block Berwick if the President does not withdraw the nomination.

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