NASA's first astronauts to fly to the Moon in more than 50 years will pay tribute to the lunar and space exploration missions that preceded them, as well as aviation and American history, by taking with them artifacts and mementos representing those past accomplishments.
NASA, on Wednesday, January 21, revealed the contents of the Artemis II mission's Official Flight Kit (OFK), continuing a tradition dating back to the Apollo program of packing a duffel bag-sized pouch of symbolic and celebratory items to commemorate the flight and recognize the people behind it. The kit includes more than 2,300 items, including a handful of relics.
"This mission will bring together pieces of our earliest achievements in aviation, defining moments from human spaceflight and symbols of where we're headed next," Jared Isaacman, NASA's administrator, said in a statement. "Historical artifacts flying aboard Artemis II reflect the long arc of American exploration and the generations of innovators who made this moment possible."
The Defense Logistics Agency — an organization responsible for supplying everything from spare parts to food and fuel — is turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning to fix a long-standing problem of predicting what the military needs on its shelves.
While demand planning accuracy currently hovers around 60%, DLA officials aim to push that baseline figure to 85% with the help of AI and ML tools. Improved forecasting will ensure the services have access to the right items exactly when they need them.
“We are about 60% accurate on what the services ask us to buy and what we actually have on the shelf. Part of that, then, is we are either overbuying in some capacity or we are under buying. That doesn’t help the readiness of our systems,” Maj. Gen. David Sanford, DLA director of logistics operations, said during the AFCEA NOVA Army IT Day event on Jan. 15.
Rather than relying mostly on historical purchase data, the models ingest a wide range of data that DLA has not previously used in forecasting. That includes supply consumption and maintenance data, operational data gleaned from wargames and exercises, as well as data that impacts storage locations, such as weather.
The models are tied to each weapon system and DLA evaluates and adjusts the models on a continuing basis as they learn.
“We are using AI and ML to ingest data that we have just never looked at before. That’s now feeding our planning models. We are building individual models, we are letting them learn, and then those will be our forecasting models as we go forward,” Sanford said.
Some early results already show measurable improvements. Forecasting accuracy for the Army’s Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, for example, has improved by about 12% over the last four months, a senior DLA official told Federal News Network.
The agency has made the most progress working with the Army and the Air Force and is addressing “some final data-interoperability issues” with the Navy. Work with the Marine Corps is also underway.
“The Army has done a really nice job of ingesting a lot of their sustainment data into a platform called Army 360. We feed into that platform live data now, and then we are able to receive that live data. We are ingesting data now into our demand planning models not just for the Army. We’re on the path for the Navy, and then the Air Force is next. We got a little more work to do with Marines. We’re not as accurate as where we need to be, and so this is our path with each service to drive to that accuracy,” Sanford said.
Demand forecasting, however, varies widely across the services — the DLA official cautioned against directly comparing forecasting performance.
“When we compare services from a demand planning perspective, it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Each service has different products, policies and complexities that influence planning variables and outcomes. Broadly speaking, DLA is in partnership with each service to make improvements to readiness and forecasting,” the DLA official said.
The agency is also using AI and machine learning to improve how it measures true administrative and production lead times. By analyzing years of historical data, the tools can identify how industry has actually performed — rather than how long deliveries were expected to take — and factor that into DLA stock levels.
“When we put out requests, we need information back to us quickly. And then you got to hold us accountable to get information back to you too quickly. And then on the production lead times, they’re not as accurate as what they are. There’s something that’s advertised, but then there’s the reality of what we’re getting and is not meeting the target that that was initially contracted for,” Sanford said.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s acting director testified that CISA is “getting back on mission,” but he provided few specifics after the agency lost nearly a third of its staff over the past year.
Acting Director Madhu Gottumukkala testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday. Asked by Chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) about reports of plans for a reorganization at CISA, Gottumukkala said there are no plans to reorganize the cyber agency.
“We do have a lot of changes in the last year, but we have not planned any organizational changes,” Gottumukkala said. “But we are continuing to look at how we rescope our existing work that we have so that we can get back on our mission of protecting the critical infrastructure. And if there is any organizational changes, I will assure that we will communicate with you.”
CISA has gone from roughly 3,400 staff at the start of last year to 2,400 employees at the end of December. Most of those who left departed under the Trump administration’s workforce reduction programs, with many leaving government service earlier than planned due to uncertainty at CISA under the Trump administration.
Gottumukkala is leading CISA as the Senate has yet to approve Sean Plankey to serve as director. During Wednesday’s hearing, Gottumukkala declined to provide details on recent reports that he failed a polygraph exam needed to access a sensitive cyber program and that he had worked to oust CISA’s chief information officer.
Gottumukkala also said multiple times that CISA was “getting back on mission.” But he said little about what the agency was doing differently with markedly less staff.
“The way we are supporting back on mission is to make sure that we are protecting our critical infrastructure from physical and cyber threats, and our divisions are properly equipped, and we are making sure that we are aligning our existing resources,” he said.
Asked by Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) about potential vacancies at CISA after the mass wave of departures, Gottumukkala said, “we have the required staff that is supporting the mission we do.”
Thompson said that was contrary to a November memo CISA shared with the committee. Lawmakers are advancing a homeland security spending bill that would provide CISA with funding to fill some “critical” positions. It would also stipulate that CISA “not reduce staffing in such a way that it lacks sufficient staff to effectively carry out its statutory missions.”
Gottumukkala was also asked by Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) how many cyber intrusions CISA expects from foreign adversaries as part of the 2026 midterm elections.
“We look at it as incident by incident, and we look at what the risks are. I don’t have a specific number in mind,” Gottumukkala said.
“Well, we should have that number,” Gonzales shot back. “It should first start by how many intrusions that we had last midterm and the midterm before that. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want us waiting until after the fact to be able to go, ‘Yeah, we got it wrong, and it turns out our adversaries influenced our election to that point.’”
CISA’s budget request for fiscal 2026 would eliminate its election security program. But the appropriations agreement released this week would continue funding CISA’s election security work.
Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) pressed Gottumukkala on whether CISA had analyzed if it could meet its mission with current staffing levels.
“The work that we do is mission focused, which means capability is measured by outcomes, not headcount,” Gottumukkala said.
Walkinshaw also asked about threats to state and local governments after CISA pulled funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center in September. But Gottumukkala didn’t address the question head on, frustrating the Virginia lawmaker.
“You’ve managed to answer none of my questions. You haven’t answered a single question. But thank you for coming,” Walkinshaw said.
An artist’s conception shows an Otter spacecraft in proximity to another satellite. (Starfish Space Illustration)
Starfish Space has secured a $52.5 million contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency to dispose of military satellites at the end of their operational lives.
The Tukwila, Wash.-based startup says it’s the first commercial deal ever struck to provide “deorbit-as-a-service,” or DaaS, for a satellite constellation in low Earth orbit. In this case, the constellation is the Pentagon’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which provides global communications access and encrypted connectivity for military missions.
The contract calls for Starfish Space to launch the satellite disposal service in 2027.
“This is not research and development. This is an actual service, in a structure that allows that service to scale for this constellation, for an entire industry,” Starfish Space co-founder Trevor Bennett told GeekWire. He said the arrangement validates the Space Development Agency’s approach to building and maintaining its constellation, and also validates “the path that we can take with the industry at large.”
Starfish is developing a spacecraft called Otter that would be able to capture other satellites, maneuver them into different orbits, release them and then move on. In a deorbiting scenario, Otter would send the target satellite into a trajectory for atmospheric re-entry that wouldn’t pose a risk to other orbital assets. Starfish’s system doesn’t require the target satellite to be pre-outfitted with specialized hardware — which is a significant selling point.
The system provides an alternative to what typically happens to satellites toward the end of their lives. Today, most satellite operators either have to execute a deorbiting maneuver while they’re sure that the propulsion system still works, or risk having their spacecraft turn into unmanageable space junk.
Bennett compared Otter to a tow truck that can be brought in to carry away an old vehicle when it really needs to be scrapped.
“With the tow truck kind of capability, we can provide that service as needed, but we are not trying to replace normal operation,” he said. “We are augmenting it and extending it so the satellites that are being flown in that constellation can go fly longer. … Once it’s done operating and it’s time to dispose, we can provide that transit to the right disposable altitude.”
Starfish’s deal with the Space Development Agency builds on a previously awarded mission study contract that supported work on the concept in 2024 and 2025. The $52.5 million won’t be paid out all at once. An initial payment will cover costs leading up to the first deorbiting operation, and from then on, the agency will pay Starfish for services rendered. Bennett declined to provide further financial details, citing confidentiality.
Otter’s capabilities aren’t limited to deorbiting satellites. The oven-sized spacecraft could also be used to change a satellite’s orbital path, or bring it in for servicing. “With Otter, we’ve dramatically reduced the cost and complexity of satellite servicing across orbits,” Austin Link, Starfish Space’s other co-founder, said in a news release. “This contract reflects both the value of affordable servicing missions and the technical readiness of the Otter.”
Starfish conducted a partial test of its first Otter prototype, known as Otter Pup, in 2024. A second prototype, Otter Pup 2, launched in mid-2025 and is currently undergoing tests that could include a satellite docking attempt. “That vehicle remains healthy and operational, and is actually progressing through some additional mission milestones,” Bennett said.
Three other projects are in the works:
Starfish is due to send an Otter spacecraft to hook up with a retired SES satellite in geostationary Earth orbit, or GEO, and maneuver it into a graveyard orbit. The Otter would then dock with a different SES satellite and use its onboard propulsion system to keep that satellite in an operational orbit for additional years of life. (The deal was originally struck with Intelsat, but that company was acquired by SES last year.)
The Space Force’s Space Systems Command awarded Starfish Space a $37.5 million contract that calls for a different Otter spacecraft to dock with and maneuver national security assets in GEO.
“Those Otters are all under construction and in testing,” Bennett said. “Actually, we’ll see a couple of those launched this year. And so this is an exciting time, where Otters are about to go to space and start operating as commercial vehicles.”
Lawmakers are moving to extend key cybersecurity information authorities and grant programs, while also providing funds for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to fill “critical” positions.
The “minibus” appropriations agreement released by House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday includes fiscal 2026 funding for the Department of Homeland Security. DHS funding could be a sticking point in moving the bill forward, as some Democrats want more restrictions around the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
The bill also extends the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) and the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program through the end of fiscal 2026. Both laws are set to expire at the end of this month.
Ross Nodurft, executive director of the Alliance for Digital Innovation, also applauded the extension of the Technology Modernization Fund included in the minibus.
“Reauthorizing the Technology Modernization Fund and the State and Local Cyber Grant Program for the rest of the fiscal year allows the government to invest money in new technology modernization and cyber security projects at the federal and state level while we work on more permanent, longer term reauthorizations and funding,” Nodurft said. “I am encouraged to see Congress put forward these stop gap measures and will continue to work with members to reauthorize these critical programs beyond 2026.”
CISA funding
The bill would include a cut for the agency CISA, with fiscal 2026 funding level set at $2.6 billion, about $300 million less than its current annual budget.
The appropriations agreement would specifically provide $20 million for CISA to hire additional staff to “critical positions,” according to the joint explanatory statement on the DHS appropriations measure.
That funding would be evenly split across five CISA programs: Threat Hunting; Vulnerability Management; Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation; Security Programs; and Security Advisors.
The bill would also require CISA to “not reduce staffing in such a way that it lacks sufficient staff to effectively carry out its statutory missions.” Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed concerns about CISA losing roughly one-third of its staff over the past year.
Secret Service burnout
Appropriators are also taking aim at burnout within the Secret Service’s ranks. The funding measure provides $3.3 billion for the Secret Service as it embarks on a major recruiting initiative over the next two years.
That total would allow the Secret Service to “maintain ‘zero-fail’ mission by funding aggressive recruitment and retention to eliminate officer burnout, while modernizing high-tech training facilities and armored fleets to stay ahead of evolving threats
to our nation’s leaders,” according to a DHS spending bill summary provided by Senate appropriators.
The bill includes an increase of $46 million for Secret Service hiring in fiscal 2026. It also provides the agency with advance funding to prepare for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles.
But appropriators also want updates on the Secret Service’s recruitment and retention efforts. The explanatory statement directs the agency to provide briefings on its employee resiliency program and hiring projections, respectively.
“The briefing shall also include ongoing efforts to decrease the time to hire and increase yield rates from applicants to hires, as well as the impact that these hiring efforts will have on overtime costs,” lawmakers wrote.
FEMA staffing
The spending agreement also includes a “rejection” of staffing cuts made at the Federal Emergency Management Agency in fiscal 2025, according to the joint explanatory statement. The bill would provide $32 billion for FEMA, including $26.4 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund.
FEMA lost more than 2,000 employees to workforce reduction programs last year. And the agency has undertaken further staff reductions by not renewing Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) in recent weeks. FEMA headquarters officials have also contemplated cuts totaling up to 50% of its workforce as part of a planning exercise shared with agency leaders in December.
Now, appropriators want FEMA to provide monthly briefings on the agency’s staffing levels and workload requirements.
“Such briefings shall also include projected staffing levels for the remainder of the fiscal year in light of the agreement’s rejection of the position reductions implemented in fiscal year 2025,” the joint explanatory statement reads.
The bill also requires FEMA to maintain staff “necessary to fulfill the missions” required of the agency by six separate laws and various other authorities. That staffing requirement, lawmakers emphasize, also applies to FEMA reservists and CORE staff.
The Trump administration has moved to shift more emergency management responsibilities to state and local governments. FEMA staffing reductions and policy changes over the last year have sparked concerns that the administration is implementing that plan despite there being no changes in the agency’s lawful responsibilities.
FEMA team members in Martin County, Florida, canvas with local residents to help register them for assistance and help disaster survivors after Hurricane Milton. (Photo source: FEMA/Patrick Moore)
Terry Gerton There’s been a lot of controversy around polygraphs in government over the past few months. So let’s start with some of the basics. Why do agencies like CISA and DoD continue to rely on polygraphs for certain positions?
Dan Meyer So that’s a great starting point. The first thing we have to recognize is that polygraph technology is so questionable that it’s generally not admissible in courts. So as evidence, it’s pretty thin, and that’s been a generational trend. It used to be accepted far more back in the 1930s and 40s than it is now. So we use polygraphs in the United States for counterintelligence. That’s what it’s for, reliability of the workforce. We want to be able to test and employ statements, various questions against some empirical basis of truth. The challenge with the polygraph is that it measures not truth, but physiology. It measures the way the body reacts. And science, over the years, has started to show that women and men, for instance, don’t react the same. They don’t have the same physiology. That’s why we have to do different types of medical research now, because women were traditionally ignored, because we always thought that men were the baseline, and everybody would be the same as men. Well, that turned out not to be true. The same situation exists with polygraphs, and there can be differences across the board which polygraphers can never accept, and they can’t accept because that starts to undermine their position within the professional community. So that’s the challenge, is that it measures physiology and not actual truth or veracity of the individual. At some point we’ll be out of this problem because we’ll have a tool that’s better than the polygraph and I do think that artificial intelligence will create it, but we in the United States use the polygraph to catch spies, other countries don’t. And that’s our only tool we really have. We’re not good at actually doing assessment of human potential from other types of analysis. So we’re stuck with it. It’s the only tool that we’ve got and it’s the one we use. And if you’re in the intelligence community or if you are in law enforcement, the chances are you’re going to be under a polygraph at some point in your career, if not your entire career.
Terry Gerton There was a recent controversy around the acting CISA director’s failure of a polygraph test. Can you fill us in a little bit on what went on there?
Dan Meyer I’m not privvy to the exact details of his particular case, but the alarming part of that is it was CISA. CISA is the heart of our cyber defense, and for much of the Biden administration, it was under very, very close scrutiny from a variety of congressional oversight authorities. Senator Grassley, at one point, was doing an inquiry. So there was concerns that CISA was being used politically. So on top of that concerns, the Trump administration came in with a commitment to reform it. And then you have this problem. And the problem seems to have developed around two questions. One is, did the individual fail a polygraph? You really don’t fail a polygraph, either there’s a detection or a non-detection. It’s really not like a test you can fail. But clearly did not pass, to use the vernacular, according to the reports. And then there’s the open question about whether that individual should have been under a polygraph, and there’s this allegation out there in the press that somehow he was set up. And so those are the two concerns there. The second one is kind of unique in that polygraphs are given based on the position and what’s called the criticality of the position. So it’s really about the classification of one’s job that determines whether you get a polygraph. So there really should be no question as to whether a person should have a polygraph or not have a polygraph, so if there was an open question, that should have been elevated to the appropriate authority to decide that. My understanding is that’s the DNI, is the DNI is in charge of reliability issues, security clearance issues across the board for the president in her capacity as the DNI, but not as the spymaster in the United States. It’s a collateral duty. That should have been resolved and it should not be at the point now where employees are being accused and somebody who’s now being seen as a victim of a wrongful polygraph process, that’s ugly. We should have never gotten to that point. That should have been raised and clarified before the polygraph went forward. The second use goes back to my original comment about physiology. People can fail polygraphs for a variety of reasons. There’s the famous guilt-grabber complex, which is that an individual is very at attention in their thoughts, very self-reflective, very self-aware. People who are that way about events in their lives may start to have feelings of guilt. Feelings of guilt can trigger physiology. And sometimes your feeling of guilt that you didn’t feed the cat on time this morning can bleed over into a question that when you were asked whether you committed an act of terrorism against the United States. Well, let’s put it this way. If you’re a sociopath, the chances are you’re going to pass a polygraph because the way you’re constructed in your behavioral mental health diagnosis is ideally suited to not triggering the physiology cues that exist for the polygraph. But if you’re a deeply religious person or spiritual person, it’s in the community, this is known as the Jewish and Catholic issue. People who are Jewish and Catholic all had a Jewish or a Catholic mother. You were taught to always think you were doing something wrong. I’m laughing because I was raised by a Catholic mother, and so I was always looking at my behavior and always questioning my behavior. That can be a disaster on a polygraph.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Dan Meyer, he’s an equity partner at Tully Rinckey. With all of the challenges with the polygraph that you’ve just articulated for us, if an employee or a contractor is facing one for their position, what are the best practices to prepare and protect themselves?
Dan Meyer Okay, so on the big picture, let’s talk about from the administration perspective. We ought not to have separate rules for separate people about polygraphs, we’ve got to stick with the structure. If the position requires it, it has to be performed. There should not be special exceptions. I know you always want to have special exceptions, but that’s a bad idea. For the individual, the first thing you do is do not watch videos and do not study the polygraph because you are going to be asked questions that ask you if you did that, and then you’re going to be in the awkward situation of trying to explain whether you adopted countermeasures to make it look like you’re telling the truth when you’re not telling the truth. Do not try to game the polygraph because if the polygraph has trouble figuring out truth or falsity, it does not have trouble figuring it out whether you’re gaming it, and that’s a huge reason why people fail polygraphs. It’s good to retain a law firm to get advice on your security profile to help you understand where your liabilities are and how to accurately report them. The whole key to the security paradigm is you’ve got to be comfortable with the way you resolve the issues in your life so that when you talk to security officials and you talk about those issues, you’re open and candid and there’s a complete and transparent flow of information between those people about that situation. Then you won’t fail the polygraph, then you’re going to do fine on your security review. The challenge we have in American culture at this point in time is everybody thinks you have to withhold information to game the process. Game the process in our commercial lives as consumers, game the process in our private lives as family members. This is an evil that has drifted into American culture, and it really is harmful on the polygraph. So you’ve got to think through about whether you’re open and honest about your life, and you’ve got to incorporate that principle into your job application.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is at the center of new calls to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. In a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, 14 House Democrats said Trump should fire Noem over what they say are damaging cuts to FEMA’s workforce. They also said Noem’s policy of signing off on all spending over $100,000 is slowing down FEMA’s disaster response efforts. The letter comes a day after more than 50 House Dems filed articles of impeachment against Noem, citing her handling of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that President Donald Trump’s plan to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War would cost taxpayers between $10 million and $125 million. The total cost of rebranding the Defense Department could vary depending on how broadly and quickly the name change is implemented across the department. Immediately replacing signs and stationary would be more expensive than gradually implementing those changes “as existing stocks are exhausted.” The Defense Department did not provide information to the CBO on the scope of its implementation plan.
The Defense Department is overhauling its big data analytics platform known as Advana. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the evolution of Advana over the last several years has led to a “complex technical and programmatic architecture.” Hegseth directed the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer to restructure Advana into three distinct programs. This restructuring will help accelerate progress toward a clean DoD financial audit in 2028.
GSA's new administrator set the tone for how he views the agency's role across government. Ed Forst has officially been on the job as GSA's administrator for about 15 days. But he's been learning about the agency for several months. During that time, Forst, speaking at the Coalition for Common Sense in Government Procurement's winter conference yesterday, said he understands the role GSA should be playing across government. "Let's advance mission and let's have the engine room, what's behind the curtain, consolidate and get even better. That's where I see GSA in the federal government. We are the engine room." Forst said.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers are looking to give federal correctional officers a major salary boost. A new bill introduced in both the House and Senate aims to increase pay rates for Bureau of Prisons staff by 35% across the board. Authors of the bill say it would help address longtime staffing shortages at the agency. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents thousands of BOP workers, has expressed support for the bill.
The Department of Health and Human Services is rescinding all layoffs for employees at a workplace safety agency. HHS last spring sent layoff notices to about 1,000 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. NIOSH focuses on workplace safety and health standards. Those layoffs targeted about 90% of NIOSH’s staff. HHS walked back some layoffs last year, but said it’s now reinstating every NIOSH employee who received layoff notices. Hundreds of these terminated employees have been on paid administrative for the past nine months.
Five years in the making, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy will finally kick off a new effort this winter to review procurement laws and how they apply to commercial buying. Matthew Blum, OFPP's deputy administrator, said the requirement is from the 2019 defense authorization bill and will provide OFPP with a big opportunity to conduct a comprehensive review. Congress told OFPP and the FAR Council to determine if commercial buying has been hampered by the improper application of federal procurement laws. Blum said this review will provide OFPP with a big opportunity to conduct a comprehensive review in the spirit of streamlining and restoring common sense to procurement.
Hundreds of federal employees are calling for the restoration of their collective bargaining rights. At a union rally on Wednesday, hundreds gathered outside the Capitol building to urge a Senate vote on the Protect America’s Workforce Act. After the legislation cleared the House in December, federal unions have been pushing senators to take up the companion bill. If enacted, the act would restore collective bargaining for an estimated two-thirds of federal agencies, effectively reversing President Trump’s orders for most agencies to terminate their federal union contracts.
The Postal Service’s regulator is setting limits on how often the agency can set higher prices for its mail products. The Postal Regulatory Commission said that starting in March, USPS can only raise mail prices once per year. This limit will remain in place through September 2030. USPS has generally been raising mail prices each January and July. The regulator eased restrictions on USPS prices in December 2020, when the agency was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and was months away from running out of cash.
The White House said the new U.S. Tech Force is generating a lot of interest. More than 35,000 Americans have expressed interest in serving in the Tech Force. That’s according to Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “That's insane. That is incredible. That is something we should all be celebrating, this entire committee. The fact that we have so many great Americans that want to step in, move their families and their lives to D.C. to solve these problems for Americans," he said. Testifying before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Wednesday, Kratsios said the tech force has unique buy-in from private sector companies. He brushed off criticism that the Trump administration spent the past year cutting many tech-focused staff, including at the former U.S. Digital Service.
Federal agents have searched the home of a Washington Post reporter as the latest step in their investigation into a contractor accused of mishandling classified information. The FBI took the unusual step of serving a search warrant on a journalist as part of its investigation into a federal contractor who’s accused of taking classified information home. The newspaper said federal officials have given assurances that neither the Post nor the reporter, Hannah Natanson, are targets of the investigation. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the search was conducted at the request of the Pentagon, which reportedly told the Justice Department that the contractor had leaked classified information to Natanson.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)
The Department of Homeland Security’s inconsistent hiring practices present major challenges at a time when DHS is surging recruitment across its law enforcement components, according to the department’s watchdog.
The DHS inspector general, in an annual report on top management and performance challenges, flagged “fragmented law enforcement hiring” as one of the department’s top three issues.
The IG warns that those longstanding issues have been amplified by a recent influx of funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the Secret Service have all embarked on major hiring initiatives over the past year, backed by billions of dollars in funding.
“There is overlapping, competitive, law enforcement hiring among ICE, CBP, and USSS,” the report warns. “These competing interests can undermine the hiring process when conducted without departmentwide planning. Law enforcement hiring will endure additional stresses in the coming years due to the OBBBA, which funds an increase in departmental law enforcement personnel.”
DHS recruiting is “further complicated by inconsistent vetting requirements and application processes” across law enforcement agencies, according to the report.
“These inconsistencies make it difficult to implement a more centralized, efficient hiring process, resulting in duplication of effort, higher costs, and slower onboarding across the department,” the IG states.
The report comes as the Trump administration touts ICE’s hiring of 12,000 new employees in less than a year. However, the vetting and training of ICE officers has come under increasingscrutiny amid the rapid hiring blitz.
Cyber and AI hiring
The IG report also highlights challenges with DHS’s hiring of cybersecurity, IT and artificial intelligence specialists. For instance, DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Coast Guard, respectively, face administrative challenges in recruiting personnel with AI-related skillsets, according to the IG.
Those types of challenges could delay key DHS AI projects, the report states.
“These challenges are magnified by inconsistent hiring practices across components, pay disparities with the private sector, and complex clearance requirements,” it continues.
Meanwhile, DHS’s Cyber Talent Management System has not met its original goal to help recruit thousands of cyber experts. Hiring using CTMS has reached just several hundred staff since the system was launched in 2021.
“Although there has been some success using CTMS, the department continuously improves it in partnership with hiring managers to make it a more effective tool,” the IG report states.
Furthermore, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency last year terminated many probationary staffers who were part of CTMS, further shaking confidence in the novel talent system.
Still, the IG report recommends DHS deepen centralized hiring efforts like CTMS to address its tech talent gaps.
“These centralized hiring efforts are a step in the right direction,” the report states. “However, it is unclear that these hiring efforts are sufficient to meet the hiring surges required by the OBBBA or keep pace with evolving Department needs as AI and machine learning are integrated into all operations. Since previous hiring surges did not achieve intended outcomes, DHS should pivot to more successful recruitment methods.”
FILE - Customs and Border Patrol agents question occupants of a vehicle they pulled over, during an immigration crackdown in Kenner, La., Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
Terry Gerton Your office recently took a closer look at how EPA oversees state and local air monitoring schedules. I’m wondering, was there a specific concern or a trend that raised the alarm with you?
Paul Bergstrand We came across a study from 2021 that had some analysis showing that there was a difference in pollution levels when air monitors were off compared to when they were on, and this interests us in several ways. So just to be clear, it is completely normal for monitors to be off. It happens because monitors have a schedule where they’re designed to be off or where there is some kind of technical difficulty that they’re correcting. But what interested us is the fact that there was a difference between when they were on and off in terms of pollution levels. They should be the same. And so we wanted to take a closer look for ourselves to see how the EPA is overseeing this issue and if they were doing anything to fix it.
Terry Gerton You looked at thousands of monitoring sites. What did you discover about the trends once you dug into the data?
Paul Bergstrand We use satellite and model data as alternatives to data from regulatory air monitors to compare air quality when monitoring sites are off and when they’re on. And we found that for a fine particulate matter, which was the focus of our evaluation, it amounted to an average increase of 4% for monitors that operate on daily schedule and 9% for sites that operate in one every three days. And then separately, we found that 35.7% of intermittent modelers had worse air quality on average when they were offline.
Terry Gerton What difference does that make for public health?
Paul Bergstrand Well, importantly, the EPA sets standards for air quality, and if the standards aren’t met, then the area is in non-attainment. And that means that there can be harmful cardiovascular effects, reduce visibility, contribute to water acidification. And so poor data quality means that some areas that should be in non-attainment might not be designated correctly.
Terry Gerton There’s an interesting catch-22 here around transparency. The EPA publishes the monitoring schedule online, which we would think would be good, and people can know about that, but it creates some perverse incentives for the regulated agencies. Talk us through how that works.
Paul Bergstrand Yes, it has been their regular practice to publish those schedules. But I want to note that our analysis did not indicate any malicious behavior. But it is a concern that someone could take advantage of that scheduling to choose to conduct maintenance and shut down a monitor when they know there will be increased ambient air pollution. So it was a concern of ours and the EPA saw the concern and they took action actually during our work and decided not to publish the 2025 schedule. And they’ve agreed to continue not to publish the schedule.
Terry Gerton Is that the best solution here? Are there other factors that you might consider or recommend?
Paul Bergstrand Well, in addition to that, we’ve asked them to do some more data analysis during their quality control checks of state and local data. And this would mean using some of the techniques we had in our report that they could replicate and improve upon to come up with their own analysis to look for data that might be poor or missing.
Terry Gerton You also flag that local agencies may have incentives to under-report pollution. So again, we have some mixed messages kind of happening here. What drives those incentives?
Paul Bergstrand Again, we did not identify any malicious behavior, but as you say, there are incentives. If the EPA does designate a state as a non-attainment, there are expensive controls they have to put in place. So there is that incentive to try and hide the pollution, so to speak, so they can eliminate the data point basically from the data the EPA is collecting. But it also could be completely normal that the data points are missing, and that’s why we’re suggesting that the EPA do its own analysis.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paul Bergstrand. He is Assistant Inspector General, Office of Special Review and Evaluation for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General. Does EPA have the capacity and the tools to strengthen the oversight in that way that you were just recommending?
Paul Bergstrand We think they do. They can use similar or improved statistical methods using these alternative satellite data and modeling to help the quality control checks. That’s the way.
Terry Gerton Are they using those tools now?
Paul Bergstrand I can’t speak to what they’re doing now, whether they are or not, but we know they’ve done it in the past. They’ve done in 2022, where they looked at missing air pollution data from 2002 to 2018.
Terry Gerton So you mentioned that EPA was taking action to address some of your concerns even as the evaluation was going on. Are there further recommendations that you’ve made that you hope the EPA takes action on?
Paul Bergstrand Yes, I mean, they’ve agreed to both of our recommendations. And that second recommendation is that they incorporate some of these analyses into really spot-checking. And what’s important is that they can improve upon what we did to identify pollution that’s under-reported.
Terry Gerton Are there things that communities should be doing themselves to maybe fill in gaps where the EPA isn’t monitoring or just get better data out to their citizens?
Paul Bergstrand I don’t, we didn’t look at that aspect in our report, but it’s a very interesting one. And I know there are maybe some grant programs or programs to get local air monitors, but in my experience, and I’m not speaking from the body of this report here, but in my experience, those are not used to do to collect regulatory data. So I’m quite sure on how to connect those dots from maybe your citizen-scientist using an air monitor to the data being used by the EPA.
Terry Gerton We’ve done a quick overview of your report and its findings and recommendations, but one of the things I want to point out to folks is that this information is really accessible. You’ve done an interesting job of making it available through what’s called a story map. Tell us about how EPA is using that kind of a tool to get this kind of information out.
Paul Bergstrand Yes, we wanted to be innovative in the way we’re portraying this complex status so it’s more accessible. And a story map is a web-friendly format where you can scroll at your leisure to look at dynamic information, graphics, maps. Just another way to present the information to the audience that we think has a lot of possibilities.
Terry Gerton So I don’t have to print off 100-page paper and put it under my pillow so I can absorb it while I sleep. This is very cool. Are you using it in other reports?
Paul Bergstrand We hope to be. This was our first one and it was sort of a pilot project. We are definitely going to be looking forward to more opportunities to use it.
FILE - In this June 3, 2017, file photo, the coal-fired Plant Scherer in Juliette, Ga. The Trump administration is doing away with a decades-old air emissions policy opposed by fossil fuel companies, a move that environmental groups say will result in more pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency issued notice Thursday it is withdrawing the “once-in always-in” policy under the Clean Air Act, which dictated how major sources of hazardous air pollutants are regulated. (AP Photo/Branden Camp, File)
As the Defense Department moves to meet its 2027 deadline for completing a zero trust strategy, it’s critical that the military can ingest data from disparate sources while also being able to observe and secure systems that span all layers of data operations.
Gone are the days of secure moats. Interconnected cloud, edge, hybrid and services-based architectures have created new levels of complexity — and more avenues for bad actors to introduce threats.
The ultimate vision of zero trust can’t be accomplished through one-off integrations between systems or layers. For critical cybersecurity operations to succeed, zero trust must be based on fast, well-informed risk scoring and decision making that consider a myriad of indicators that are continually flowing from all pillars.
Short of rewriting every application, protocol and API schema to support new zero trust communication specifications, agencies must look to the one commonality across the pillars: They all produce data in the form of logs, metrics, traces and alerts. When brought together into an actionable speed layer, the data flowing from and between each pillar can become the basis for making better-informed zero trust decisions.
The data challenge
According to the DoD, achieving its zero trust strategy results in several benefits, including “the ability of a user to access required data from anywhere, from any authorized and authenticated user and device, fully secured.”
Every day, defense agencies are generating enormous quantities of data. Things get even more tricky when the data is spread across cloud platforms, on-prem systems, or specialized environments like satellites and emergency response centers.
It’s hard to find information, let alone use it efficiently. And with different teams working with many different apps and data formats, the interoperability challenge increases. The mountain of data is growing. While it’s impossible to calculate the amount of data the DoD generates per day, a single Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle can generate up to 70 terabytes of data within a span of 14 hours, according to a Deloitte report. That’s about seven times more data output than the Hubble Space Telescope generates over an entire year.
Access to that information is bottlenecking.
Data mesh is the foundation for modern DoD zero trust strategies
Data mesh offers an alternative answer to organizing data effectively. Put simply, a data mesh overcomes silos, providing a unified and distributed layer that simplifies and standardizes data operations. Data collected from across the entire network can be retrieved and analyzed at any or all points of the ecosystem — so long as the user has permission to access it.
Instead of relying on a central IT team to manage all data, data ownership is distributed across government agencies and departments. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency uses a data mesh approach to gain visibility into security data from hundreds of federal agencies, while allowing each agency to retain control of its data.
Data mesh is a natural fit for government and defense sectors, where vast, distributed datasets have to be securely accessed and analyzed in real time.
Utilizing a scalable, flexible data platform for zero trust networking decisions
One of the biggest hurdles with current approaches to zero trust is that most zero trust implementations attempt to glue together existing systems through point-to-point integrations. While it might seem like the most straightforward way to step into the zero trust world, those direct connections can quickly become bottlenecks and even single points of failure.
Each system speaks its own language for querying, security and data format; the systems were also likely not designed to support the additional scale and loads that a zero trust security architecture brings. Collecting all data into a common platform where it can be correlated and analyzed together, using the same operations, is a key solution to this challenge.
When implementing a platform that fits these needs, agencies should look for a few capabilities, including the ability to monitor and analyze all of the infrastructure, applications and networks involved.
In addition, agencies must have the ability to ingest all events, alerts, logs, metrics, traces, hosts, devices and network data into a common search platform that includes built-in solutions for observability and security on the same data without needing to duplicate it to support multiple use cases.
This latter capability allows the monitoring of performance and security not only for the pillar systems and data, but also for the infrastructure and applications performing zero trust operations.
The zero trust security paradigm is necessary; we can no longer rely on simplistic, perimeter-based security. But the requirements demanded by the zero trust principles are too complex to accomplish with point-to-point integrations between systems or layers.
Zero trust requires integration across all pillars at the data level –– in short, the government needs a data mesh platform to orchestrate these implementations. By following the guidance outlined above, organizations will not just meet requirements, but truly get the most out of zero trust.
Chris Townsend is global vice president of public sector at Elastic.
If you were to do a cost-benefit analysis of your lunch, it would be pretty difficult to do the calculation without the sandwich. But it appears that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving in this same direction—removing the benefit—when it comes to air pollution regulations.
According to a New York Times report based on internal emails and documents—and demonstrated by a recently produced analysis on the EPA website—the EPA is changing its cost-benefit analysis process for common air pollutants. Instead of comparing the economic cost of a certain pollution limit to an estimate of the economic value of the resulting improvements in human health, the EPA will just qualitatively describe health benefits while carefully quantifying economic costs.
Cost-benefit analysis has been a key component of EPA regulations. Any decision to raise or lower air quality standards or pollution limits includes evaluations of the cost that change, like the addition of new pollution control equipment at power plants, would incur, for example.
The secretive National Reconnaissance Office has announced a new top official. William Adkins was appointed principal deputy director of the NRO on Monday. Adkins previously served as professional staff on the House Appropriations Committee. He’s also a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and had been detailed to the NRO to manage technology development projects in the late 1990’s.
Congress breathes new life into the Technology Modernization Fund. House and Senate appropriators agreed to give funding to the Technology Modernization Fund for the first time in four years. Lawmakers on the Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee allocated $5 million for 2026 in the bipartisan deal struck over the weekend. Congress had zeroed out any new funding for the TMF since 2023. Two other centralized IT funds also received support from Capitol Hill. The Federal Citizen Services Fund is slated to receive $70 million and the IT Oversight and Reform Fund is getting $8 million.
The Pentagon has rolled out a new artificial intelligence strategy that seeks to transform the department into an “AI-First warfighting force.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department will invest heavily in AI compute infrastructure, from data centers to systems at the tactical edge. The strategy directs the chief digital and artificial intelligence office to enforce the Pentagon’s “Data Decrees” to make all DoD data interoperable, visible and trustworthy. Military departments and defense agencies will be required to establish and maintain federated data catalogs that expose data assets and system interfaces across all classification levels. Hegseth also directed the department to use special hiring authorities and talent programs to bring in AI talent.
A new bill will require the Pentagon to assess whether its current efforts to recruit, train and retain cyber talent are working. The Department of Defense Comprehensive Cyber Workforce Strategy Act of 2025 tasks the Pentagon with developing a new cyber workforce strategy. The lawmakers want the Pentagon to assess remaining gaps in implementing the DoD’s 2023–2027 Cyber Workforce Strategy, and identify which elements of the current strategy should be continued or dropped. Congress is also requesting detailed workforce data, including the size of the cyber workforce, vacancy rates, specific work roles and other data related to personnel system metrics. The Pentagon faces a shortage of approximately 25,000 cyber professionals.
The state and local cloud security program known as GovRamp has new leadership. Tony Sauerhoff, the chief artificial intelligence and innovation officer for Texas, is the new president of the GovRAMP Board of Directors. He replaces JR Sloan, the Arizona CIO, who served in that role since 2021. Sauerhoff also served as Texas' chief information security officer and previously worked for the Marine Corps and Air Force. In addition to Sauerhoff’s appointment, GovRAMP announced its 2026 board and committee leadership.
Lawmakers look to put more money behind plans to offload unused federal office space. House and Senate appropriators want to give the General Services Administration more than $1 billion to carry out new construction and repair the federal buildings it already owns. Lawmakers said they’re concerned about a multi-billion-dollar maintenance backlog for these buildings. GSA will likely need much more funding to keep its buildings from falling into disrepair. The new GSA administrator said the agency is looking at a $24 billion maintenance backlog, and said that is likely an undercount.
The latest spending package for fiscal 2026 directs the General Services Administration to improve public-facing service delivery. Lawmakers want GSA to make federal websites more accessible to people with disabilities. The spending package also calls on GSA to help agencies improve their public-facing benefits and services through AI tools. But the spending deal doesn’t put any new funding behind this goal.
The Department of Homeland Security is flush with funding for new drone technologies. Now DHS is establishing an office to lead those purchases. DHS’ new Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems will oversee strategic investments expected to total in the billions of dollars in the coming years. This week, the office plans to finalize a $115 million counter-drone award to help secure America250 and FIFA World Cup events. And late last year, DHS began accepting proposals from the counter-drone industry for a $1.5 billion contract vehicle.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is on the verge of going a full year without a permanent leader, as cyber experts say the void is preventing CISA from moving forward on key issues and leaving an already reeling workforce in the lurch.
The Senate earlier this month returned Sean Plankey’s nomination to the White House after lawmakers failed to vote on it during last year’s session. President Donald Trump formally nominated Plankey in March of last year.
Plankey is a widely respected official whose nomination had broad backing from industry and bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
But his nomination was placed under multiple holds, some of them unrelated to CISA or cybersecurity. Most recently, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) had reportedly placed a hold on Plankey after the Department of Homeland Security terminated a Coast Guard cutter contract with a shipyard in Florida. Plankey has been serving as a senior advisor in the Coast Guard while he awaits confirmation.
On Tuesday, Trump re-nominated Plankey to lead the cyber agency. CISA is currently being led in an acting capacity by Deputy Director Madhu Gottumukkala, who was chief information officer for the state of South Dakota when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was governor there.
Mark Montgomery, the executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0, said the uncertainty comes at a time when CISA “desperately needs strong leadership.”
“I think they can’t focus,” Montgomery said. “They can’t come up with a strategic plan that’s going to drive a four-year administration. They’ve already lost a year. Every day, every week, every month, that you don’t have your Senate confirmed person, you take risk. This is the civilian cyber defense agency. It needs strong, focused leadership.”
Senate-confirmed leaders are typically more capable of advocating for their agencies, both within the administration and on Capitol Hill in front of lawmakers. Plankey’s nomination fell by the wayside as cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure continued to rise last year, noted Bob Ackerman, a venture capitalist who founded AllegisCyber Capital.
“CISA owns the essential national security mission of protecting the homeland from such society-crippling cyber-attacks,” Ackerman said. “Yet, while we wouldn’t charge the U.S. Marines with executing their missions without a leader, CISA’s mission to block and deter our adversaries has been left leaderless at this urgent moment of need.
Over the past year, Montgomery said CISA has not advanced public-private collaboration “in any meaningful way.”
For instance, he said the cyber agency has yet to take significant actions to address Volt Typhoon. U.S. officials have accused the China-linked group of hacking into critical infrastructure networks, like power and water systems. In January 2024, then-FBI Director Chris Wray said the goal of the hacks was to “destroy or degrade” those systems during a future conflict.
“We’re 24 months since [Director] Wray laid out the Volt Typhoon challenge, and we still don’t have an integrated policy to address it,” Montgomery said. “That should come from CISA. It should have come from the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative, the Joint Cyber Planning Office, and we haven’t gotten it. And the reason is it takes interagency leadership, which you’re not going to get from an acting director.”
Cyber experts also pointed to stalled efforts like the reinstatement of the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council (CIPAC) as an example of where Plankey could make a difference.
The Department of Homeland Security disbanded CIPAC last spring as part of a broader purge of federal advisory councils. CIPAC had provided authorities for government officials and industry to collaborate on cybersecurity issues through various sector coordinating councils.
Industry officials had been encouraged by Noem’s speech at the RSA Conference in late April 2025, during which she said CIPAC would be reinstated and “will bring more people to the table and be much more action oriented.”
But since then, DHS has not acted to revive CIPAC or any related authorities. Since the council was disbanded, there has been “less engagement and less communication,” Ari Schwartz, coordinator of the Cybersecurity Coalition, told Federal News Network.
“I do think we do need to see some action on that,” Schwartz said. “I don’t think that that can really wait around at this point.”
CISA’s workforce, meanwhile, has experienced deep cuts under the Trump administration, driven by deferred resignation and early retirements. Many who left were experienced staff that led CISA programs.
Office of Personnel Management data shows CISA’s headcount has gone from a high of 3395 employees in 2024 to 2376 staff at the start of this year.
One CISA employee, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said the last year at the agency was “extremely difficult.”
“From the onslaught of policy changes targeting us – like return-to-office, standard hours, contract delays and cuts – to the huge amounts of departures and the lack of new leadership in place, we as an agency made little to no progress and in some instances went backwards in my opinion,” the employee said. “For 2026, I was expecting to finally get some concrete leadership direction and priorities, but with the CISA director still not in place and another possible shutdown looming, I’m expecting another year of chaos and little progress.”
Both Montgomery and Schwartz said one positive at CISA over the last year has been Nick Andersen, who joined the agency in August as a political appointee leading CISA’s cybersecurity division. Andersen has spoken at multiple public events, briefed the media on agency cyber directives, and met with industry groups.
But Montgomery noted that doesn’t outweigh not having a Senate-confirmed director.
“You lead CISA from the top and to go fight battles within DHS for the restoration of manpower, to lead interagency work to develop and execute an integrated defense plan against Volt Typhoon’s operational preparation of the battlefield,” he said.
It took a while, but a consensus has emerged in Europe that the continent's space industry needs to develop reusable rockets. How to do it and how much to spend on it remain unresolved questions.
Much of the discourse around reusable rockets in Europe has focused on developing a brand-new rocket that might eventually replace the Ariane 6, which debuted less than two years ago but still uses the "use it and lose it" model embraced by the launch industry for most of the Space Age.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is offering money to emerging rocket companies in Europe to prove its small satellite launchers can do the job. ESA is also making money available to incentivize rocket upgrades to haul heavier cargo into orbit. ESA, the European Commission, and national governments are funding rocket hoppers to demonstrate vertical takeoff and vertical landing technologies. While there is significant money behind these efforts, the projects are not unified, and progress has been slow.
The Defense Logistics Agency is initially focusing its use of artificial intelligence across three main mission areas: operations, demand planning and forecasting, and audit and transparency.
At the same time, DLA isn’t waiting for everyone to be trained or for its data to be perfect.
Adarryl Roberts, the chief information officer at DLA, said by applying AI tools to their use cases, employees can actually clean up the data more quickly.
Adarryl Roberts is the chief information officer at the Defense Logistics Agency. (Photo courtesy of DLA).
“You don’t have a human trying to analyze the data and come up with those conclusions. So leveraging AI to help with data curation and ensuring we have cleaner data, but then also not just focusing on ChatGPT and things of that nature,” Roberts said on Ask the CIO. “I know that’s the buzzword, but for an agency like DLA, ChatGPT does not solve our strategic issues that we’re trying to solve, and so that’s why there’s a heavier emphasis on AI. For us in those 56 use cases, there’s a lot of that was natural language processing, a lot around procurement, what I would consider more standardized data, what we’re moving towards with generative AI.”
A lot of this work is setting DLA up to use agentic AI in the short-to-medium term. Roberts said by applying agentic AI to its mission areas, DLA expects to achieve the scale, efficiency and effectiveness benefits that the tools promise to provide.
“At DLA, that’s when we’re able to have digital employees work just like humans, to make us work at scale so that we’re not having to redo work. That’s where you get the loss in efficiency from a logistics perspective, when you have to reorder or re-ship, that’s more cost to the taxpayer, and that also delays readiness to the warfighter,” Roberts said at the recent DLA Industry Collider day. “From a research and development perspective, it’s really looking at the tools we have. We have native tools in the cloud. We have SAP, ServiceNow and others, so based upon our major investments from technology, what are those gaps from a technology perspective that we’re not able to answer from a mission perspective across the supply chain? Then we focus on those very specific use cases to help accelerate AI in that area. The other part of that is architecting it so that it seamlessly plugs back into the ecosystem.”
He added that this ensures the technology doesn’t end up becoming a data stovepipe and can integrate into the larger set of applications to be effective and not break missions.
A good example of this approach leading to success is DLA’s use of robotics process automation (RPA) tools. Roberts said the agency currently has about 185 unattended bots that are working 24/7 to help DLA meet mission goals.
“Through our digital citizen program, government people actually are building bots. As the CIO, I don’t want to be a roadblock as a lot of the technology has advanced to where if you watch a YouTube video, you can pretty much do some rudimentary level coding and things of that nature. You have high school kids building bots today. So I want to put the technology in the hands of the experts, the folks who know the business process the best, so it’s a shorter flash to bang in order to get that support out to the warfighter,” Roberts said.
The success of the bots initiative helped DLA determine that the approach of adopting commercial platforms to implement AI tools was the right one. Roberts said all of these platforms reside under its DLA Connect enterprisewide portal.
“That’s really looking at the technology, the people, our processes and our data, and how do we integrate that and track that schematically so that we don’t incur the technical debt we incurred about 25 years ago? That’s going to result in us having architecture laying out our business processes, our supply chain strategies, how that is integrated within those business processes, overlaying that with our IT and those processes within the IT space,” he said. “The business processes, supply chain, strategies and all of that are overlapping. You can see that integration and that interoperability moving forward. So we are creating a single portal where, if you’re a customer, an industry partner, an actual partner or internal DLA, for you to communicate and also see what’s happening across DLA.”
Training every employee on AI
He said that includes questions about contracts and upcoming requests for proposals as well as order status updates and other data driven questions.
Of course, no matter how good the tools are, if the workforce isn’t trained on how to use the AI capabilities or knows where to find the data, then the benefits will be limited.
Roberts said DLA has been investing in training from online and in person courses to creating a specific “innovation navigators course” that is focused on both the IT and how to help the businesses across the agency look at innovation as a concept.
“Everyone doesn’t need the same level of training for data acumen and AI analytics, depending on where you sit in the organization. So working with our human resources office, we are working with the other executives in the mission areas to understand what skill sets they need to support their day-to-day mission. What are their strategic objectives? What’s that population of the workforce and how do we train them, not just online, but in person?” Roberts said. “We’re not trying to reinvent how you learn AI and data, but how do we do that and incorporate what’s important to DLA moving forward? We have a really robust plan for continuous education, not just take a course, and you’re trained, which, I think, is where the government has failed in the past. We train people as soon as they come on board, and then you don’t get additional training for the next 10-15 years, and then the technology passes you by. So we’re going to stay up with technology, and it’s going to be continuous education moving forward, and that will evolve as our technology evolves.”
Roberts said the training is for everyone, from the director of DLA to senior leaders in the mission areas to the logistics and supply chain experts. The goal is to help them answer and understand how to use the digital products, how to prompt AI tools the best way and how to deploy AI to impact their missions.
“You don’t want to deploy AI for the sake of deploying AI, but we need to educate the workforce in terms of how it will assist them in their day to day jobs, and then strategically, from a leadership perspective, how are we structuring that so that we can achieve our objectives,” he said. “Across DLA, we’ve trained over 25,000 employees. All our employees have been exposed, at least, to an introductory level of data acumen. Then we have some targeted courses that we’re having for senior leaders to actually understand how you manage and lead when you have a digital-first concept. We’re actually going to walk through some use cases, see those to completion for some of the priorities that we have strategically, that way we can better lead the workforce and their understanding of how to employ it at echelon within our organization, enhancing IT governance and operational success.”
The courses and training has helped DLA “lay the foundation in terms of what we need to be a digital organization, to think digital first. Now we’re at the point of execution and implementation, putting those tools to use,” Roberts said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s workforce continues to face uncertainty amid abrupt cuts to disaster response staff and planning emails that show FEMA has been contemplating deeper reductions.
Late last month, FEMA sent non-renewal notices to 50 Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees (CORE) whose terms ended between Jan. 1 and Jan. 4. CORE employees are hired for two-to-four year terms, but they are often renewed to continue ongoing disaster work. CORE staff make up the majority of FEMA’s workforce, constituting 39% as of 2022.
FEMA did not respond to a request for comment. In other stories on the CORE cuts, a FEMA spokesman has characterized them as “a routine staff adjustment of 50 staff out of 8,000.”
But a current FEMA supervisor and former FEMA supervisor, who were granted anonymity to candidly discuss the situation, both disputed the characterization of the terminations as “routine.”
They said FEMA CORE staff are almost always renewed due to demand for staff to respond to an increasing rate of disasters and other agency tasks in recent years.
CORE staff are often among the first FEMA employees to be deployed in a disaster, according to Rafael LeMaitre, a former FEMA director of public affairs who now serves on the advisory council for the advocacy group Sabotaging Our Safety.
“While they serve two-year contract terms, those are routinely renewed, because the number of disasters that the nation has been dealing with has not gone down,” LeMaitre said. “If anything, it’s increased, both in the number of disasters and the severity of disasters, given changes to the climate, and frankly, additional pressures that FEMA has been put under to respond to non-traditional types of emergencies.”
But the FEMA supervisors also described how, contrary to the recent non-renewals, decisions about extending CORE appointments are typically done on a case-by-case basis. The process typically includes an analysis of the employee’s workload and the need for them to continue working on a given disaster.
“We never fire people just because their renewal dates happened to fall in a given time frame,” the current FEMA supervisor said.
The renewal process typically starts 90 days before the employee’s “not-to-exceed” date, which refers to when their term ends.
But in early December, emails show FEMA divisions and regions received a tasking from the agency’s chief human capital office to submit justification packages for every CORE staff with an NTE date falling in January.
Those packages were submitted, but FEMA CORE staff with renewals falling Jan. 1-4 still received termination letters in late December.
It’s unclear what will happen to other FEMA CORE staff whose terms expire in January. With approximately 9,000 total FEMA CORE staff, hundreds could be up for renewal in any given month.
Earlier this week, FEMA leaders received new direction to submit justification packages for CORE staff whose terms expire in February, according to the current supervisor.
“This is not a targeted workforce reduction – this is using a sledgehammer when you should be using a scalpel,” the current FEMA supervisor said.
CNN first reported on FEMA’s CORE cuts.
Workforce reductions exercise
The cuts and uncertainty around CORE staff renewals come as FEMA has been analyzing much deeper cuts to its workforce, agency emails show.
In a Dec. 23 email viewed by Federal News Network, FEMA’s chief human capital office sought leadership input on a “Workforce Capacity Planning Exercise.” The email references how the exercise is “consistent” with a recent executive order and corresponding White House guidance on federal hiring.
The email included a “draft workforce plan” with a table laying out FEMA’s workforce totals as of Sept. 30 and fiscal 2026 “target” reductions.
The reductions listed in that table include a 50% overall reduction to FEMA’s total workforce of 23,000, including a 15% reduction the permanent full-time workforce and a 41% reduction to the disaster full-time workforce, which includes CORE staff.
The email states that the exercise is “pre-decisional in nature” and that “no staffing actions or personnel decisions are being directed or implemented as part of this request.”
But current and former FEMA staff say it would be highly unusual to conduct such an exercise without planning for some form of workforce reductions.
The Washington Post first reported on the workforce planning email.
FEMA cuts criticized
The latest FEMA cuts come after a year of turmoil at the agency that saw more than 2,000 employees depart through voluntary programs and some terminations. Those departures included two dozen senior leaders, according to the Government Accountability Office.
However, both President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have expressed a desire to eliminate or downsize FEMA, and instead shift more disaster recovery responsibilities to state and local governments.
Democrats in Congress were quick to criticize the latest FEMA CORE cuts and reports of deeper potential reductions.
“Even considering cuts of this scale is more evidence of the Trump administration’s reckless and dangerous behavior and sends a clear message that the administration is willing to gamble with Americans’ lives and violate federal law that Congress passed to ensure readiness for disasters,” House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) is among the lead sponsors of a bipartisan bill to overhaul FEMA. The legislation would notably remove FEMA out from under the Department of Homeland Security and have it report directly to the president.
“After multiple Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearings, we keep concluding FEMA needs more staff to meet the response needs of more frequent and severe disasters — like the recent flooding in my district,” Larsen said in a statement. “Cutting CORE staff will leave remaining FEMA workers scrambling and disaster survivors waiting longer for assistance. This is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. The administration must reverse this decision.”
FILE - A sign for the Federal Emergency Management Agency is pictured at FEMA headquarters, April 20, 2020, in Washington. (Al Drago/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
The Defense Information Systems Agency isn’t just talking about meeting Secretary Pete Hegseth’s goal of “speed to capability.” It’s holding contracting officers and program managers accountable.
By March, at least 40% of all task or delivery orders let through the General Services Administration’s schedules program or an agency blanket purchase agreement must use at least one “acquisition accelerator.” By September, 80% of all task and delivery orders issued through GSA or their own BPA must use these tools to speed up the acquisition process.
“It’s oral proposals or presentations. It is confidence ratings. It’s about reaching consensus as soon as a presentation is provided instead of waiting a couple [of weeks]. It’s saying, ‘No, you’re doing it now and you have an hour,’” said Doug Packard, DISA’s procurement services executive, at the recent Forecast to Industry day. “It’s best suited where you have 20 firms submit an offer and you get the two that are best suited to meet that requirement. You have a couple of things to talk to them about that aren’t minor. You can pick the firm and talk with just them, not the other 19, and that saves us months in trying to get us to who is the awardee.”
While Packard didn’t have any specific metrics, he estimates that DISA is shaving weeks off acquisitions timelines, specifically during the source selection phase.
DoD issues 31 FAR deviations
DISA is receiving some additional policy support to expand the use of these accelerators. The Defense Department’s Office of Pricing, Contracting and Acquisition Policy issued the first set of deviations to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to begin implementing the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the FAR Council’s overhaul of the 40-year-old regulations.
On Dec. 18, John Tenaglia, the principal director of DPCAP, signed 31 class deviations that will be effective on Feb. 1.
“[T]hese class deviations retain DoD-specific statutory direction and direction determined necessary for sound procurement within the new, streamlined RFO structure,” Tenaglia wrote in the Dec. 19 memo. “The [revolutionary FAR overhaul] Phase 1 changes represent actions we can take unilaterally, in advance of formal rulemaking, to reduce regulatory and procedural burden on both our workforce and on industry. Issuing this first tranche of class deviations now provides a preview of the kinds of changes you can expect to see next month once we release the remaining class deviations.”
Among the 31 deviations DoD initially issued are updates to FAR Part 6, competitive procedures, Part 10 for market research and Part 12 for commercial products and services.
“Each class deviation reflected below consists of the revised DFARS part with its associated solicitation provisions and contract clauses, followed by the revised procedures, guidance and information (PGI),” DoD wrote on its FAR deviation website. “The line out documents reflect the current DFARS and PGI with markings to identify high level changes to the official versions at 48 CFR chapter 2 and published on the DPCAP DARS website. The portions of the regulation and PGI that are proposed for removal are struck through. Regulatory text and guidance that have been revised are retained in their original form.”
DoD plans to issue a second tranche of deviations later this month and throughout 2026.
In the coming months, the Pentagon will issue the deviations for FAR Parts 8 and 16. DISA is applying its acquisition accelerators to contracts under these sections.
So far, 23 civilian agencies have issued FAR Part 8 deviations and 18 have issued Part 16 updates.
OFPP seeking feedback through Jan. 12
OFPP and the FAR Council also have issued FAR Companion guides and practitioner albums to help the training and education of the acquisition workforce on the new rules.
Additionally, OFPP Administrator Kevin Rhodes held a series of roundtables with contractors, industry associations and others to gain their perspectives of the FAR overhaul. OFPP says these contractors and associations “shared feedback on five priority goals: increasing competition, reducing costs, accelerating the acquisition system, changing cultural norms and deploying best practices.”
Rhodes said in a statement that “the feedback we received will help inform our efforts for the next phase of the RFO.”
OFPP is accepting more feedback through Jan. 12 through its IdeaScale on ways to continue to improve the FAR across the five priorities.
“Please share a specific buying practice that should start, stop, continue, adjust, or scale in the new era of federal acquisition. Your idea does not need to be new, it only needs to address a real issue or practice that matters to you or your organization that can improve federal buying today,” OFPP wrote in asking for feedback.
As of Jan. 6, public and private sector stakeholders have submitted 86 ideas, ranging from ensuring the “rule of two” remains in place to expanding oral presentations and streamlined source selection beyond IT acquisitions to limiting the flow down requirements to small business subcontractors.
The use of streamlined source selection and oral presentations are examples of what DISA is requiring of its contracting officers in 2026.
Packard said DISA tested out these about 11 different accelerator tools over the last 18 months and determined they worked for both the agency and industry.
Carlen Capenos, the director of the Office of Small Business Programs at DISA, said at the DISA event that the accelerators don’t just benefit the agency, but contractors too.
“We hear often from small and large business that if they’re not going to win, they want to know that fast, the idea of failing fast. So we see step things where you have to provide X, Y and Z, and if you don’t have that, well, then we don’t need you to put together a full-blown proposal because you don’t have the ability to ever win. Or if there’s somebody that’s so much better that has a better solution that we’re talking about, instead of all the check marks, we can eliminate the rest of it and go fast,” she said. “There’s a lot of those things that are really great for small business when they just want to get in front of folks to say, ‘I have the solution. Let me articulate it for you.’ So there are those that really like that point. Our office has done a couple trainings with the contracting folks that have set these up, and they run through it once a year, twice a year, where they provide it to anybody who wants to sign up for it.”
Packard said now that DISA has tested out these accelerator concepts, even winning a protest, it’s time to apply them to increase the “speed to delivery” and attract more commercial companies into DoD.
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