Tim Geithner is not having much luck finding a deputy. According to ABC News, his third pick for deputy treasury secretary — H. Rodgin Cohen, a partner in a New York law firm — has withdrawn his name from consideration. No word on why, just that a “problem” came up late in the vetting process. Geithner (who is arguably the most important Cabinet secretary right now) is supposed to have 17 confirmed deputies. He currently has zero.
Browsing: Agencies
Update 2: The Associated Press is reporting that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is on leave “until further details of the case become known” following the raid of his former office this morning. While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback. During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office. Stay tuned. Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents…
Charles Freeman, who was President Barack Obama’s pick to be chairman of the National Intelligence Council, is blaming a so-called “Israel lobby” for orchestrating strong online opposition to his appointment. Freeman was criticized for his connections to the Saudi-funded Middle East Policy Council, past statements critical of Israel, and his perceived leniency on the Chinese government’s repression of political dissent. Freeman released a statement Tuesday after taking himself out of the running: I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy…
Can agencies handle the upcoming crush of stimulus grant applications? Apparently Grants.gov is already seeing a big spike in traffic. So OMB director Peter Orszag wants agencies to review their grant systems and make improvements to handle the increased workload. The deadline for that review is Friday. “We want to make sure that the systems are in place to handle what everyone expects will be an unprecedented number of grant applications,” Orszag said. I wonder, though, if some agencies will be reluctant to invest a lot of time and money in adding new capacity to their grants systems — because…
The Senate voted Tuesday evening to approve a $410 billion spending omnibus bill to fund the federal government through the end of the current fiscal year. The Senate voted 62-35 to invoke cloture on the bill, HR 1105, ending debate on a series of amendments. The omnibus was approved by a voice vote. Republicans had proposed a series of amendments, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., allowed several to go to the floor for debate, hoping a few Republicans would then decide to cross party lines vote for the bill. No amendments were approved, including one that would have repealed…
We’ve got a story up on the Web site about the cybersecurity power struggle between the Homeland Security Department and the National Security Agency. It mentions Rod Beckstrom, the National Cybersecurity Center director who announced his resignation last week. His resignation letter was pretty critical of NSA’s cybersecurity role: NSA effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions, and the proposed move of… the NCSC to a Fort Meade NSA facility. NSA currently dominates most national cyber efforts… I believe this is a bad strategy on multiple grounds… the intelligence culture is very different than a network operations or…
We reported back in January that the president planned to nominate Harvard professor Cass Sunstein to head OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. So where’s his nomination? The White House’s nominations list doesn’t mention Sunstein. (In fact, if you search for him on the White House Web site, you won’t get any results.) The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee tells me it hasn’t heard a word about Sunstein’s nomination. And the White House hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
Should the taxman call to “tell you how it will be,” at least you’ll know it’s a fed. That’s because the Internal Revenue Service terminated its controversial outsourcing of tax collection Thursday. An agency program review found tax debt collection was cheaper and more lucrative when performed by federal employees. IRS commissioner Doug Shulman said: IRS employees have more options available to them to resolve difficult collection cases Contracts with two private debt collection firms expired March 6. The agency will hire 1,000 new tax collectors in fiscal 2009 to target collection on areas of greatest need. IRS will recruit displaced…
The Senate will pass a short-term spending measure, keeping the government funded through midnight March 10, while it struggles to reach a compromise on a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. The stop-gap bill will keep agencies funded through midnight March 10. The omnibus would provide funding for all but three agencies that have been operating under a continuing resolution since Oct. 1. That continuing resolution expires Friday. Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs departments did have their appropriations bills passed in time. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he is one vote short of the 60 votes needed to invoke…
Television personality and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta has pulled his name from consideration for surgeon general, according to a statement by CNN. Gupta appears frequently on CNN as a commentator on medical and health issues. CNN U.S. President Jon Klein said Gupta made his decision to spend more time on his medical career and CNN career, according to a statement on CNN’s Web site. Though a distinguished Atlanta neurosurgeon and professor, Gupta is best known to most Americans as a prolific television commentator. However, he served as an adviser to the Clinton White House, helping craft health care speeches and policy…