Monthly Archives: April, 2009

Melissa Hathaway, the official in charge of the White House’s 60-day cybersecurity review, gave a speech last night at the RSA conference in San Francisco. The review concluded last Friday, so there were high expectations around the speech: most experts expected her to announce her findings. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, apparently because the administration hasn’t read the final report yet. I’m told that the White House deputies committee is meeting to review it today or tomorrow. So we’ll probably see a final copy early next week. Hathaway did confirm that the final report calls for the White House to coordinate…

The White House is developing an executive order that will set new goals for greening federal agencies, the administration’s top environmental policy adviser said this afternoon. The White House Council on Environmental Quality is working with several agencies to draft the new presidential directive, council chairwoman Nancy Sutley said during an Earth Day event at the State Department. Sutley did not say when the order will be issued. Existing laws and executive orders already require agencies to cut their energy and water consumption, increase their use of renewable energy, purchase environmentally preferable products and buy alternative fuel vehicles. Sutley said the…

The Senate Finance Committee voted 15-8 in favor of Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services secretary, clearing the way to complete President Barack Obama’s Cabinet. Sebelius’ nomination now goes to the full Senate for a vote, the date of which hasn’t yet been announced. Sebelius had a confirmation hearing before the Finance Committee two weeks ago, but Republicans wary with her stances on abortion and Obama’s health care reforms delayed a vote on her nomination until after Congress returned from a two-week recess. Republican senators Pat Roberts, from Sebelius’ home state of Kansas, and Maine’s Olympia Snowe voted in…

Last month I asked “Where’s Cass?” — Cass being Cass Sunstein, the president’s supposed pick to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. The Obama transition team announced that it would nominate him in January, but the nomination wasn’t made official. Not until today, at least: The president sent Sunstein’s nomination to the Senate. (You can read the profile I wrote of Sunstein in January here.)

A lot has been made about the 17 percent up-tick in protests handled by the Government Accountability Office last year, but today GAO released a long-awaited trend report that shows, historically speaking, protest levels are relatively low. GAO first got the protest authorities we know today in 1984. Since then the number of protests it handles have dropped significantly from 2,240 in 1989 to 1,027 last year. But protests have been inching up since 2001, mirroring the rise in procurement spending, according to the report. Last year’s rise is primarily due to GAO’s expanded authority to handle protests of task orders…

Symantec has an interesting report out on government IT threats. I’ve uploaded a copy, in PDF form, here. Still digesting the whole (lengthy) report, but it seems like hackers are “diversifying” their attacks — using different approaches than they did in 2007. U.S. government systems are still popular targets (nearly a quarter of attacks on government systems target the U.S.); most of the attacks come from China, it seems.

I wrote yesterday about negotiations between the Postal Service and the National Association of Letter Carriers, which represents more than 214,000 city letter carriers. The negotiations are finished; both sides just agreed on a deal that allows the Postal Service to rapidly adjust delivery routes for city carriers. About 90,000 routes will be reviewed this year; the changes could take effect as early as this summer. The Postal Service reviewed about 70,000 city routes last year, and 2,400 of them were eliminated. We’ll have more details later today…

I’m a little surprised at the FDA’s quick reaction to the news of possible salmonella contamination in pistachios. The agency convinced Setton Pistachio, the nation’s second-largest pistachio producer, to recall its entire 2008 crop — even though nobody has reported a confirmed case of salmonella poisoning from those nuts. Contrast that with the peanut recall earlier this year, where almost a month elapsed between the initial reports of contamination and a complete recall of the Peanut Corporation of America’s product line. FDA officials say they’re taking a harder line with food producers, and that’s a positive development. Still, the pistachio…

Want to hear more on Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to dramatically reshape his department’s programs and priorities? You can watch him discuss those plans in an interview tonight on PBS’ The New Hour with Jim Lehrer. Gates announced yesterday his long-awaited plan to make some deep program cuts. His plan would end some defense programs such as the Air Force’s F-22 fighter and combat search-and-rescue helicopter program, the Army’s Future Combat Systems armored vehicle programs, the Navy’s new DDG-1000 destroyer, and the Marine Corps’ presidential helicopter program. And he proposes to beef up spending on other priorities such as…

With the U.S. Postal Service poised to run out of money by year’s end, it’s had to make some tough calls. It’s cutting management and supervisory positions, encouraging employees to retire early and closing administrative offices. Its latest target? A rural airmail service that provides weekly mail delivery to about 20 addresses scattered across hundreds of square miles of Idaho backcountry. Facing a $6 billion deficit this year, the Postal Service says it can no longer afford to make the deliveries. That’s cold comfort to the residents, of course, who pay extra to get necessities such as food and medicine delivered along…