It hasn’t been a good few months for the Interior Department. Interior’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, just released his office’s latest report (pdf). It examines how former deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald politicized the Endangered Species Act: We determined that MacDonald’s management style was abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive, and that her conduct demoralized and frustrated her staff as well as her subordinate managers. … MacDonald’s zeal to advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity of the ESA program and to the morale and reputation of the [Fish and Wildlife…
Monthly Archives: December, 2008
Update: Fifteen embassies have received envelopes containing white powder, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said in a press briefing this morning in Washington. The embassies are: Berlin; Bern, Switzerland; Brussels, Belgium; Bucharest, Romania; Copenhagen, Denmark; Dublin, Ireland; Luxembourg; Madrid, Spain; Oslo, Norway; Paris; Riga, Latvia; Rome; Stockholm, Sweden; Tallinn, Estonia; and The Hague, Netherlands. Tests have come back negative in all cases save for The Hague, where results are still pending. Wood said the department has no information on a possible motive for the mailings.  Looks like the U.S. Postal Service is busy sending more than just Christmas cards…
Tom Daschle, the nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, wants to know how you’d change the nation’s health care system. That’s according to an e-mail sent by John Podesta, co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. He’s inviting people to create health care forum discussions about what needs to be changed and promises the transition team will take those opinions seriously. “Secretary-designate Daschle is committed to reforming health care from the ground up, which is why he won’t just be reading the results of these discussions — he’ll be attending a few himself,” Podesta wrote in the e-mail, sent…
President-elect Barack Obama announced Saturday that New York City Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan, will be the nominee for secretary Housing and Urban Development. As housing commissioner, Donovan expanded affordable housing in New York through plans to give tax breaks to developers who built affordable housing in upscale developments. He also launched a program to provide financial education, legal and credit assistance to those at risk of predatory lending. As HUD Secretary, Donovan will be charged with carrying out Obama’s top housing priorities, such as modifying terms of mortgages to prevent foreclosures and expanding the amount of affordable housing.…
An interesting bit of information from the Transportation Department: Americans drove 100 billion fewer miles in 2008 than in 2007. That’s the biggest decline in American history. (The news may come as a surprise to Washington-area residents — traffic hasn’t gotten any better around here!) It’s good news for the environment, but bad for the department, which depends largely on revenue from gas taxes to pay for highways and bridges. The Highway Trust Fund collected $3 billion less in 2008 than it did in 2007. And it underscores a key problem facing our transportation policy. Washington wants more fuel-efficient vehicles,…
Did anyone catch NPR’s news quiz Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me this weekend? Because it was [bleeping] awesome. And not just because Carl Kasell did the best reading of the Rod Blagojevich tapes I’ve heard to date. But because CIA Director Michael Hayden was the guest for “Not My Job,” the portion of the show where they ask famous people obscure questions to win a listener the privilege of having Carl Kasell’s smooth voice on the listener’s answering machine. After telling some funny spy stories, Hayden was tested on his knowledge of obscure breakfast cereal. So how did the director of central intelligence…
Anyone with a human resources background — or even a lick of common sense — will cringe as often as laugh at the boneheaded management tactics depicted on NBC’s The Office. But if you want to find out what HR people really think of Michael Scott’s … um … unique leadership style, check out the blog That’s What She Said. Every Friday, a former HR professional analyzes the management sins from the previous night’s episode and tabulates how much the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company might have to pay if a fed-up employee filed a lawsuit. For example, the entry for the episode “Did…
Citizenship and Immigration Services wants to replace the current immigration system — most forms are paper-based, and CIS frequently mails documents around the country — with an electronic system. But not as quickly as it hoped. The agency awarded a five-year, $500 million contract to IBM last month; this week, Accenture decided to protest the bid. A final decision on the protest is expected by March, according to the Government Accountability Office. “The protest is still very basic.. they haven’t really fleshed it out to any degree,” said Michael Aytes, acting deputy director at CIS. “While it’s in protest… we’re…
A fixture in the federal community stepped down last night — in grand style. After more than 14 years at the helm of the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government, Patricia McGinnis yesterday passed the baton to interim successor Lynn Jennings, the Council’s executive vice president, at a gala dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington. As president and CEO of the Council, McGinnis led the council in many initiatives, including: serving as an early advocate for the expansion of electronic government; expanding the Excellence in Government Fellowship program, a leadership development program for senior government managers; promoting Public…
When the transition to the new administration kicked off on Nov. 5, President Bush pledged his administration will fully cooperate with President-elect Obama’s transition team to ensure things go smoothly. But it appears not every Bush administration official has received that message if this article in the Orlando Sentinel is correct: NASA administrator Mike Griffin is not cooperating with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, is obstructing its efforts to get information and has told its leader that she is “not qualified†to judge his rocket program. The piece goes on to say that Griffin also telling federal employees and contractors…