Federal Drive Show Blog – June 10, 2013

On the Federal Drive show blog, you can listen to our interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day, as well as links to other stories...

This is the Federal Drive show blog. Here you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources.

Today’s guests:

Mathy Stanislaus
assistant administrator
Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, EPA

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The federal government is trying to go green in a hurry, per a 2009 presidential order. Enter he Federal Green Challenge. The year-old contest pits federal agencies against each other to see who can improve the most. They compete in six target areas, from waste to purchasing, energy to transportation. The EPA runs the program. Mathy Stanislaus, the assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, says the first year proves energy efficiency doesn’t mean a big price tag.

Michael Jones
environmental project manager
NASA

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Nearly 300 federal programs competed in the first year of the Federal Green Challenge. The overall national achievement winner was NASA’s White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, N.M. Its team pledged to recycle at least 5 percent more waste that would otherwise go to a landfill. But environmental project manager Michael Jones says it wasn’t the typical garbage.

From Our Reporters

The pressure on agencies to improve their cybersecurity is already paying off. The White House says the government saw significant improvements across all three cross-agency cybersecurity goals in the six months since they were established. The goals are to implement continuous monitoring, to strengthen Internet gateways and to use two-factor authentication to log onto federal networks. In an exclusive interview, Andy Ozment, the senior director for cybersecurity in the Executive Office of the President, tells executive editor Jason Miller about how agencies are making federal networks and computers more secure.

Federal News Radio’s Tom Temin attended the Government Performance Summit in Crystal City, Va. He interviewed speakers from both the government and private sector participating in the conference. Listen to those interviews here.

MORE FROM THE FEDERAL DRIVE

NSA contract worker is surveillance source (Federal News Radio)

Edward Snowden comes forward as source of NSA leaks (The Washington Post)

IRS manager: White House not involved in reviews (Federal News Radio)

OSHA whistleblower wins $820,000 settlement (PEER)

GSA Announces New Lease for National Science Foundation Headquarters (GSA)

Why the Feds Agreed to Spend TARP Money on Demolishing Michigan’s Empty Buildings (Atlantic Cities)

Major legislation to help veterans who are victims of sexual assault is approved (Rep. Chellie Pingree)

Pentagon Five-Year Cybersecurity Plan Seeks $23 Billion (Bloomberg)

Army Suspends Commander in Japan (DoD)

Marines, sailor arrested in San Diego sweep (Federal News Radio)

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