• The House has passed a $900 billion defense policy bill, which includes a 3.8% pay raise for service members. The must-pass legislation now heads to the Senate. Once it clears the chamber, the bill will go to President Donald Trump for his signature. The bill seeks to streamline the way the Pentagon buys its capabilities. Congressional leaders said the legislation would deliver “the most significant acquisition reforms in a generation.” It also fully supports Trump’s priorities, including banning all diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Defense Department and fully funding the department’s border security efforts.
  (Houses overwhelmingly passes the 2026 NDAA, sending bill to Senate - House Armed Services Committee)
• The Office of Federal Procurement Policy wants to hear from you. As part of its rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, OFPP Administrator Kevin Rhodes is asking acquisition experts in and out of government for help in identifying acquisition practices that agencies should start, stop, continue, adjust or scale. Rhodes said in a new post on the Ideascale platform that the ideas should focus on strengthening stewardship, speeding up buying, reducing costs, increasing competition and supporting better outcomes. He hopes these ideas will better inform regulatory drafting of the streamlined FAR and the operational practices agencies will rely on going forward. OFPP wants suggestions by Jan. 7, 2026.
  (OFPP seeks input on acquisition best practices - Office of Federal Procur)
• The top official at the Office of Personnel Management is pushing back against warnings from the agency's inspector general. A recent OIG report found that staffing reductions at OPM this year have created gaps in the agency’s ability to operate effectively. In response, though, OPM Director Scott Kupor argued that the agency's past workforce size was inflated. He called the current staffing levels “appropriate,” after the agency lost one-third of its employees this year.
  (Agency comments on the OIG “top management challenges” report - Office of Personnel Management)
• More than a dozen federal statistical agencies are falling behind on producing high-quality data sets that shape the U.S. economy and government policy. Most statistical agencies lost 20% to 30% of their staff this year, which has led to some public-facing data sets being delayed, suspended or canceled. That’s according to an annual report from the American Statistical Association. President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics this summer after the agency produced a monthly jobs report that showed hiring had slowed. The Department of Government Efficiency oversaw the elimination of five surveys at the Census Bureau that DOGE deemed "wasteful."
  (‘Bedrock’ federal data sets are disappearing, as statistical agencies face upheaval - Federal News Network)
• The Agriculture Department said it received mostly negative feedback on its reorganization plans. USDA plans to relocate more than half of its D.C.-area employees to five regions across the country. The agency said it received more than 14,000 public comments about its relocation plans. More than 80% of them criticized elements of the plan. About 5% expressed positive sentiment and about 7% were neutral.
  (USDA reorganization - Agriculture Department)
• One agency got a boost of funding for IT modernization before the Technology Modernization Fund expires. The TMF officially expires on Friday, meaning the board can only continue to oversee and fund existing awards. But the TMF Board made one more investment before the impending deadline. The National Nuclear Security Administration earned $28.3 million for three separate, but interrelated, modernization projects. Most of the funding, about $23 million, will go to modernizing the AI infrastructure for NNSA’s classified environment. Additionally, NNSA will use the remaining $5 million to update two other systems, FireGuard and the Turbo Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center (FRMAC) radiological assessment tool.
  (NNSA receives funding before TMF authorization sunsets - Federal News Network)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wants to deepen its engagement with industry. Companies can sign up to share information with CISA through the agency’s new Industry Engagement Platform. The goal of the online platform is to allow CISA staff to more easily engage with companies, nonprofits and academia on new innovations and technology developments. CISA is particularly interested in IT and security controls, data analytics, artificial intelligence and post-quantum security. The cyber agency eventually wants to move to just one account for engaging across all of its services and information sharing platforms.
  (CISA looks for ‘deep engagement’ with innovators via new platform - Federal News Network)
• Several key acquisition provisions, including measures on pricing transparency, oversight of major programs and Other Transaction Authorities, were dropped from the final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill. Both the House and Senate sought to close the loophole that allows companies to submit cost and pricing data after a contract price is agreed upon, but the proposal was removed from the final bill. House-led efforts to rein in cost overruns and strengthen oversight of major defense acquisition programs were also blocked during negotiations. Also left out is a House proposal to curb the outsized influence of tech giants over the cloud computing and artificial intelligence defense contracting space.
  (Here are key acquisition provisions dropped from the NDAA - Federal News Network)

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