The Daily Scoop Podcast

Agencies’ reporting required on various website and digital services benchmarks required by the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act is often incomplete and inconsistent, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog found that full compliance with the 2018 law — which mandates annual reports from the 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies on federal website standards and eight modernization requirements — is lacking, resulting in submitted reports with “varying levels of content and detail.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

New federal guidance for acquiring artificial intelligence solutions directs U.S. agencies to take steps to manage risks, promote competition and share information within the executive branch. The White House Office of Management and Budget on Thursday publicly released its anticipated memorandum on responsible AI acquisition in government (M-24-18), charting an initial path forward for agencies to buy products that use the booming technology in a safe and responsible way and placing new criteria on those contracts. T​​he federal government is in a “great place” following an agencywide deadline on zero-trust architecture implementation and now looking ahead to more challenging aspects of the cybersecurity model, according to a White House official. Mike Duffy, the acting federal chief information security officer, said in an interview with FedScoop that the next phase of zero-trust architecture implementation will focus largely on operations, taking near-term technical controls and leveraging those into a “longer-term technology transformation effort” and more defensible architectures. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The General Services Administration is conducting market research through the agency’s eBuy program for the CIO Modernization and Enterprise Transformation II (COMET II), which is anticipated to be worth up to $1 billion. The request for quotes, which was shared in an email with FedScoop, aims to provide industry with the draft COMET II Performance Work Statement (PWS) as well as gain feedback on the initial task orders and the PWS. Also: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is pushing forward on its oversight of federal post-quantum cryptography migration, unveiling a strategy document last week that details how the agency intends to monitor and assess governmentwide progress on the transition. The public release of CISA’s guidance on Friday, required by a 2022 Office of Management and Budget memorandum on migrating to post-quantum cryptography, lays out plans for the deployment of automated cryptography discovery and inventory (ACDI) tools to aid agencies as they work to inventory any IT systems or assets that may contain vulnerable cryptography. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Customs and Border Protection CTO Sunil Madhugiri joins the podcast for a wide-ranging interview. During the discussion, he highlights CBP’s developing AI portfolio, how the emerging technology landscape is evolving, what else is top of mind for the agency heading into 2025, and much more. With ransomware gangs proving capable of quickly reconstituting after government takedown operations, an international alliance wants to ramp up those offensive measures even more. Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, told reporters in a call Monday that the U.S. has observed that there is no one operation that’s going to disrupt ransomware permanently and instead, the nation must increase the frequency and increase the breadth of operations combating ransomware, such as targeting the exchanges that are facilitating money laundering and ransomware activity. A service created by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to spur the sharing of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures is floundering due to a lack of outreach, according to a new watchdog report. The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that the use of CISA’s Automated Indicator Sharing (AIS) system has fallen to its lowest level since 2017, with a 93% decline in the sharing of cyber threat indicators from 2020 to 2022. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Pentagon leadership will accelerate high-volume production of technologies designed to detect, track and destroy enemy drones via “Replicator 2.0,” DefenseScoop has learned. This development marks the first public report of the second capability focus area under the Replicator initiative — a high-profile effort that underpins the Defense Department’s multifaceted plan to deter China. According to a memorandum signed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sept. 27 and viewed by DefenseScoop ahead of publication Monday, the Pentagon “will tackle the warfighter priority of countering the threat posed by small uncrewed aerial systems (C-sUAS) to our most critical installations and force concentrations” under Replicator 2.0. The Department of Veterans Affairs is making tele-emergency care available nationwide following a pilot that the agency credited with helping over 60,000 callers. In a Thursday announcement, the VA announced that tele-EC, which aims to increase “timely access to virtual emergency care options” for veterans enrolled in VA health care, will be available across the nation to assist those who are unsure if what they’re experiencing is a minor emergency or not. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The General Services Administration has tapped the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ chief information officer and chief data officer to serve as its new deputy CIO, the agency confirmed Thursday. Dovarius Peoples will join GSA on Oct. 6, an agency spokesperson told FedScoop. Peoples also has held leadership positions at the Office of Personnel Management and the National Security Agency. Also: The Department of Health and Human Services would be required to implement a pandemic preparedness and response program that leverages artificial intelligence under new bipartisan Senate legislation. That bill, which was introduced Wednesday and announced Thursday, would call on the secretary of HHS to establish a new program called “MedShield” that would protect against future pandemics by aiding collaboration between government and the private sector and use AI in several areas, including detecting pathogens and developing vaccines.

Federal agencies across the government have posted their plans to comply with an Office of Management and Budget memo on artificial intelligence governance, providing a window into what risk management and reporting practices will look like in the executive branch. The compliance plans, which were due 180 days following the finalization of OMB’s M-24-10 memo, outline steps each covered agency plans to take when it comes to updating their internal policies, collecting information for their AI use case inventories, removing barriers to responsible use of AI tools, and determining whether a use is rights- or safety-impacting, among other things. Also, delays and errors were among the “troubling” issues identified with the Department of Education’s new system for its Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, the Government Accountability Office said this week. In a report and congressional testimony released Tuesday, the GAO said the education agency’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) pinpointed and addressed defects in the FAFSA Processing System (FPS) before deployment, but continued to find “numerous defects” after its launch.

Government IT contractor Carahsoft had its Reston, Va., headquarters searched by the FBI Tuesday morning, three sources familiar with the matter told FedScoop. In response to an inquiry about the raid, the FBI confirmed via email that it had “conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity” but declined to comment further. Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs is once again facing criticism from its inspector general related to its modernized electronic health record program in a pair of new reports published this week. According to one of those, the VA has neglected to put in place the proper controls for its Oracle Cerner electronic health record system to adequately prevent and respond to major incidents. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Biden administration is coming to a close. As the president’s term nears its end, what better way to take stock of the last four years than to reflect on some of the top goals from the President’s Management Agenda and what’s been accomplished. Loren DeJonge Schulman, associate director for performance and personnel management at the Office of Management and Budget, joins the podcast to talk PMA progress in areas like customer experience, hiring and cybersecurity, and how the White House hopes to sustain that progress as a new administration is set to take over next January. Also: A bipartisan bill would extend the life of a council of the government’s top data officials and require that body to look at improving data management practices for artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. The Modernizing Data Practices to Improve Government Act (S.5109) was introduced last week by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Todd Young, R-Ind., and announced on Monday. That legislation would specifically renew the Chief Data Officers Council — which is set to expire in 2025 — for seven years, and add new requirements for several AI-related actions. And, federal agency direct hire authorities for STEM, cybersecurity and acquisition positions have been extended through the end of 2028, the Office of Personnel Management said in a memo released Monday. OPM had previously signed off on direct hire authorities for those positions on Oct. 11, 2018, and again on Sept. 29, 2023. In the Monday memo, OPM acting Director Rob Shriver said the new DHA window will be open through Dec. 31, 2028 or until the personnel agency “terminates this authority, whichever occurs first.”

A dozen federal agencies received an A on the most recent FITARA Scorecard, with 18 agencies improving their grades since January. In a Friday roundtable hosted by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, officials from USAID, NASA, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy and the Governmental Accountability Office shared the overwhelmingly positive FITARA grades for most of the 24 CFO Act agencies. Meeting procurement requirements laid out in 2019 Office of Management and Budget guidance on cloud strategy has been a mixed bag for federal agencies, a new congressional watchdog report found. As of this July, all 24 Chief Financial Officers Act agencies completed an OMB requirement in its Cloud Smart strategy to ensure that CIOs oversee modernization efforts, according to the Government Accountability Office. And all but one agency — the Small Business Administration — addressed the OMB mandate to “iteratively improve agency policies and guidance.” But there is plenty of work to do on the remaining three OMB callouts, the GAO said in its June 2022-September 2024 performance audit. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.