Tuesday federal headlines – February 10, 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.

• President Obama asks Germany for the benefit of the doubt on National Security Agency surveillance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is visiting the White House this week to address conflict in Ukraine and other issues. NSA allegedly tapped her phone last year. Merkel says Germany and the U.S. need to work together to fight terrorist threats. (Federal News Radio)
• The second-highest ranking official at the Secret Service is stepping down. Deputy Director A. T. Smith will take another job somewhere in the Homeland Security Department. The move comes just days before he was set to testify before a congressional committee. Smith’s departure is the latest in a string of half dozen top officials to leave following a series of ethical and operational lapses. The first to go was former director Julia Pierson last October. Acting director Joseph Clancy praised Smith for his 29 years of service. (Federal News Radio)
• A Senate committee approves legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. The bipartisan bill gets a unanimous vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill would limit the circumstances when federal agencies can withhold information and documents from the public. It would give additional authority to the Office of Government Information Services, which helps mediate Freedom of Information Act disputes.

  The bill’s authors include Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Leahy says the bill was the product of careful negotiations. He says it reflects input from the Obama administration as well as open government advocates. The bill now goes to the full Senate. (Federal News Radio)

• The Office of Management and Budget will publicly release Enterprise Data Inventories for the first time. The moves comes in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Sunlight Foundation. It submitted the request in December 2013. Sunlight says the inventories are the largest index of government data in the world. The EDI’s goal is to help agencies understand what data assets they have. Agencies must submit their inventories to OMB by the end of the month. OMB says it will release them to Sunlight as soon as three days after they’re submitted. (Sunlight Foundation)
• The Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General Office dings itself for payroll practices. The IG says it doesn’t always comply with its own policies on time and attendance reporting. Some employees don’t submit timesheets, or have them approved. The office says the lack of accurate timesheets can result in improper payments. OIG employees also don’t consistently use the proper forms to approve overtime. The IG says managers don’t have enough oversight on submitting overtime requests in advance. (EPA)
• The National Labor Relations Board is about to have its first run-in with a Republican-controlled Congress. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says GOP members will invoke a seldom-used law. It lets the Senate reject some federal agency regulations by majority vote. Alexander wants to appeal a rule the NLRB adopted on a 3-2 party-line vote. It would allow union elections in companies to occur within 11 days of filing the petition, rather than the traditional 56 days. Opponents say that would let unions ambush companies and their employees. NLRB chairman Mark Pearces says the new rule is fair to both sides. (Federal News Radio)
• The Senate unanimously confirms Michael Botticelli as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. He’s been acting director since March. The Massachusetts native is open about his own alcoholism, over which he has held control for 25 years. Before coming to Washington, Botticelli was head of the Massachusetts Bureau of Substance Abuse Services. There he launched a program of expanded treatment and recovery opportunities for substance abuse. He pledged to continue policies that stress treatment over arrest. (Federal News Radio)
• The Justice Department says it’s reached a settlement with five mortgage companies to compensate nearly 1,000 members of the military. They’ll receive $123 million dollars for having their homes foreclosed. Justice says the foreclosures violated the Service Members Civil Relief Act. The law prohibits mortgage service companies from foreclosing on the homes of active duty service members who obtained their mortgages before entering active duty. The five companies are the nation’s largest — JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo Bank, Citi Residential Lending, GMAC Mortgage and BAC Home Loans Servicing. Service members will each receive $125 thousand dollars, plus any lost equity in the property and interest on the equity. (DoD)
• The Fish and Wildlife Service will spend $3.2 million dollars to help save the monarch butterfly. Part of the money will restore the butterflies’ habitat between California and the Midwest. That includes school yards and pollinator gardens. About $1.2 million will go to a conservation fund. The fund will give grants to farmers to conserve habitat. The monarch’s population has declined 90 percent in recent years and hit a record in 2013 and 2014. The Fish and Wildlife Services is deciding whether to classify the species as threatened. (Federal News Radio)

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.