On Monday, Scott Bloch announced he planned to resign on Jan. 5, the scheduled end of his term. Today, apparently, the White House decided that wasn’t soon enough. Bloch was called to 1600 Pennsylvania for a meeting this morning and was dismissed from the agency, according to sources. OSC is holding an all-hands meeting right now so Bloch can break the news. More details as they come… Update: Sources say the Federal Protective Service prevented Bloch from re-entering the agency’s M Street offices after his meeting at the White House. Update II: Background on the strange case of Scott Bloch.…
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Bet your bottom dollar that the Small Business Administration’s second annual report card on the government’s use of small businesses in procurement will come out tomorrow. We say this because we’ve been told there is a press conference on that very topic, so it’s a pretty safe bet. The report cards grade agencies on how well they’ve met their individual goals for contracting with small businesses. These goals are often above and beyond the governmentwide goal of 23 percent, which is set by statute. Last year, SBA reported 12 agencies got red scores indicating they failed to reach their goals…
As we’re reporting on the Federal Times Web site, Special Counsel Scott Bloch announced his resignation — he’s leaving office on Jan. 5, the scheduled end of his five-year term. He made the announcement in a letter to the president (pdf) earlier today. Bloch had the option to stay for one more year (or until the Senate confirms the next special counsel, whichever comes first), but he declined to stick around. Bloch’s announcement is true to his word from an interview two months ago, when I asked Bloch about the increasingly vocal calls for his resignation: But when asked about…
The FDA announced this week that it will start opening foreign offices – first in China and India, and eventually in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. It’s a promising step for the agency, which is simply terrible at inspecting foreign plants: Less than 30 percent of foreign drug plants, for example, are checked on schedule. So the FDA deserves a lot of credit for starting the program and investing $30 million to open those offices. But the announcement leaves some unanswered questions. In the United States, FDA inspectors can walk into any food or drug plant, unannounced, and…