Federal Drive Show Blog – July 9, 2013

The federal government is starting to realize the realities of the 1,000-page bill known as the Affordable Care Act. With 10,000 pages and counting of regulations already written, lots of infrastructure is supposed to be up and running by Oct. 1. Now the administration, by fiat, is delaying big portions of implementation, no matter what dates are written into the law. Matt Barry, director of health care analysis at Bloomberg Government, has been watching what’s going on.

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Two big agencies, Energy and the EPA, are at odds with Capitol Hill these days, but for different reasons. EPA is drawing ire by proxy because of new carbon dioxide rules the Obama administration is proposing. It couldn’t get Congress to pass them during the president’s first term. And the Energy Department has budget and contract management problems. So how might lawmakers deal with these agencies?

The Small Business Administration recently made a few changes to the guidelines that direct how about 348,000 small companies work with federal agencies. The regulations follow the requirements set in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. The act ensures that contractors who claim to be small businesses are actually small. The new regulations go into effect Aug. 27.

Part of the government’s hiring reform is aimed at hiring the best qualified applicants to work in the federal workforce. Due to sequestration many agencies have suffered from hiring freezes. The Chief Human Capital Officers Council meets this week to discuss the progress in the hiring reform. Recently, Federal News Radio conducted a survey with CHCO’s and deputy CHCO’s from different agencies to see how they’re affected when it comes to hiring.