The White House announced six more political appointees Tuesday, including three for the Veterans Affairs Department. Roger Baker, nominee for assistant secretary for information and technology, Veterans Affairs. Baker is the former president and chief executive office of Dataline, a technology company in Norfolk, Va. He also is a former chief information officer of the Commerce Department and served on President Barack Obama’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications policy group during his 2008 presidential campaign. William Gunn, nominee for general counsel, VA. He represents military members and veterans in his Northern Virginia law practice. He retired in 2005 from the Air…
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Update,10:40 a.m.: The President has made the big contracting reform announcement. He called the government’s contracting system “broken” and said it was “plagued by massive cost overruns and outright fraud.” He added: We need more competition for contracts and more oversight when they’re carried out. Ending the “unnecessary” use of sole-source and cost-based contracts, ensuring that government work isn’t improperly outsourced and opening more contracts to small businesses will save the government $40 billion of the $500 billion spent on contracts annually by increasing competition and reducing waste, he said. These estimated cost savings are part of the $2 trillion…
With pressure mounting to purchase environmentally friendly products, sorting through the various federal programs to determine whether there are specific products identified that meet environmental standards can be daunting. After all, federal agencies are rating scores of products — everything from awards and bed linens to vending machines and water coolers — for recycled and biobased content, energy and water savings and absence of environmentally harmful chemicals or gases. Agencies are required to buy environmentally preferable products, but finding out whether green alternatives exist for products being purchased is often a time- consuming and frustrating exercise. Now there is a tool…
Although the details of what should be the final stimulus bill have only just been made public, earlier this week the White House ordered agencies to get cracking on plans to manage and oversee the unprecedented amount of spending they’ll be asked to do. In a Feb. 9 memo first reported by Government Executive, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag wrote: Meeting these commitments will require sustained focus by managers throughout the federal government, particularly in planning, awarding, managing and overseeing contracts and grants. Departments and agencies should immediately begin developing plans…
President Barack Obama wants agencies to consider requiring contractors on large-scale federal construction projects to enter into collective bargaining agreements. In an executive order issued this afternoon, Obama said the White House would encourage agencies to require so-called project labor agreements for facility, highway or other construction projects totaling at least $25 million. The union contracts would establish work rights and labor dispute procedures for all employees working for a contractor or subcontractor on a specific construction project. Obama said such work rules would ensure big construction projects don’t get bogged down by disputes among various companies working on a single…
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…
We noted earlier today that President Barack Obama wasted no time in laying out a series of executive orders designed to set the tone for an open, transparent government that is responsive to the American public. Part of that effort comes in the form of an ethics pledge that every political appointee will have to sign. The pledge applies to all appointees brought on board after Jan. 20 — including every non-career appointee to the Senior Executive Service or equivalent systems, policymaking and confidential jobs under Schedule C, and all other noncareer slots filled by the president or vice president.…
President Barack Obama greeted his new White House staff this afternoon with a few announcements that he said “represent a clean break from business as usual.” According to this Associated Press report, President Obama said he’s instituting a pay freeze for the roughly 100 White House employees who make more than $100,000 a year. The move is a direct response to the economic crisis gripping the nation. In another move, Obama issued new rules that attempt to crack down on lobbyists influencing the administration. The rules restrict political appointees who leave the administration from lobbying former friends and colleagues for at least…
What’s the first thing on the new president’s to-do list today? Barack Obama told ABC News’ Robin Roberts at the Neighborhood Ball last night: We’ll be making a series of announcements both on domestic and on foreign policy that I think will be critical for us to act swiftly on. We’re not going to be able to delay — there have been a lot of things that have been pressing. Fortunately, we’ve seen Congress immediately start working on the economic recovery package — getting that passed and putting people back to work, that’s going to be the thing that we’re…
The new WhiteHouse.gov is up and running. Its inaugural blog post promises timely communications with the public, transparency and public participation. But the most exciting part of the site for this FedLine reporter is the fun facts page. Because we all know I have no interest in fun facts of any sort, right? 😉