Tom Vilsack said yesterday he hoped to snag some stimulus money for IT modernizations at the Agriculture Department, but he may have to get in line behind the White House. Seems that yesterday there was a nearly 24-hour email outage in the West Wing that was resolved early this morning. The Washington Post gives a full account of the panic caused by what it terms a “mysterious ‘server outage’†here and here. Apparently people had to talk to other people using devices called telephones and do business on stuff called paper. No word yet on what caused the outage, though…
Monthly Archives: January, 2009
The Senate just voted to confirm Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. Senators on both sides of the aisle praised his financial expertise, but some Republicans withheld their support over a problem with some back taxes. The final vote was surprisingly close, 60-34; several Democrats were among the “nay” votes, including Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
I reported last year on Citizenship and Immigration Services’ struggles with fees and backlogs. So I was interested to see a new GAO report (pdf) on the agency’s user fees. GAO found a few problems, most of which are easily correctable. An example: CIS charges $1,000 for “premium processing,” one of its largest sources of revenue. Most of that revenue is used for business process modernization, not the actual costs of premium processing; GAO is concerned that regular applicants are subsidizing premium processing. Seems there’s an easy fix: Figure out the extra costs of premium processing, and make sure those…
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said modernizing agency information technology systems and addressing the aging work force will be top priorities for him. He said during a teleconference earlier today: It is important to me that the USDA be also a place of a modern workforce and a modern workplace. We’ll be focusing on IT improvements, process improvements and an empowered and diverse workforce to make that happen.â€
Sen. Russ Feingold has had it with controversies over the Senate appointments to replace Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: he plans to introduce a Constitutional amendment this week requiring Senate vacancies to be filled by special elections instead of gubernatorial appointments. In a statement released Sunday, Feingold said, In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution gave the citizens of this country the power to finally elect their senators. They should have the same power in the case of unexpected mid-term vacancies, so that the Senate is as responsive as possible to the will of the people.” Feingold, D-Wis., is…
A busy week ahead here at Federal Times, and around Washington: The House votes on the stimulus package, new Cabinet secretaries get to work, and President Obama starts his first full week in office. First, though, we go a couple hundred miles north to New York, where Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar says he wants to reopen the Statue of Liberty’s crown to visitors. The whole statue, you’ll remember, was closed for security reasons after 9/11; the base was reopened in 2004, but the crown has remained closed. Not for security reasons, though; the narrow, 168-step staircase leading to…
President Obama has appointed Stuart Ishimaru to be acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the commission said today. Ishimaru replaces Naomi Earp as chairman. In the statement announcing the appointment, the EEOC said Ishimaru’s more than five-year tenure has been marked by a focus on “large, systemic cases and in reinvigorating the agency’s work on race discrimination issues. He also played an instrumental role in the EEOC’s adoption of groundbreaking guidance on gender discrimination against workers with caregiving responsibilities.” Ishimaru called the appointment “a high honor and quite humbling:” The Obama administration brings new promise and possibilities to…
In a memo sent to all Environmental Protection Agency employees today, newly minted administrator Lisa Jackson promised to “make respect for the EPA work force a bedrock principle of my tenure.†She said: I will look to you every day for ideas, advice and expertise. EPA should once again be the workplace of choice for veteran public servants and also talented young people beginning careers in environmental protection – just as it was for me when I first joined EPA shortly after graduate school. She also reiterated promises she made to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to make…
Barack Obama’s Cabinet is filling up. Last night the Senate confirmed: Shaun Donovan to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Ray LaHood to be Secretary of Transportation. In other confirmation news: Susan Rice, Obama’s choice for U.N. ambassador, was approved. Nancy Sutley was confirmed as chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. And finally, Lisa Jackson was given the green light to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, after Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., lifted his objection to a vote by unanimous consent.
President Obama just named Kathie Ann Whipple to be acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. Whipple, who had been deputy general counsel, will immediately replace Michael Hager, who served as acting OPM director since last August. Whipple thanked Obama for the appointment in a statement issued this morning: I am humbled to have been designated by President Obama to serve as the acting director of OPM, an agency it has been my pleasure to serve for the past eight years. I look forward to leading OPM until the president appoints and the United States Senate confirms the next director.