The General Services Administration issued a rule last week that effectively ended the relevance of that old cliché about government decisions being made in smoke-filled rooms. The rule, published in the Federal Register on Dec. 22, closed smoking rooms in all federal buildings owned or leased by GSA. It also prohibited smoking in building courtyards and within 25 feet of doorways or air intake ducts. Agencies will implement the rule over the next six months. While this will undoubtedly change federal culture for many, FedLine wonders if it will change the lexicon of political expression. Somehow saying decisions were made…
We at Federal Times had an enlightening editorial board meeting at our offices earlier this month with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which resulted in several interesting stories. But the crack staff at the Onion appears to have scooped us on the real story:
If you’re one of the 187,000Â employees under the Defense Department’s performance-based pay system, figuring out how much your raise is going to be next year is sort of like doing your taxes — only worse. There’s no Turbo Tax equivalent for the National Security Personnel System. Luckily (we think), the helpful folks at the Pentagon have just come out with a fact sheet that attempts to bring clarity to the complex pay formula that’s used to determine raises.
President-elect Barack Obama today named two deputies to serve under Hillary Clinton at the State Department. James Steinberg and Jacob Lew will serve as deputy secretaries of State under Clinton. Steinberg is expected to be Clinton’s top advisor on policy issues, while Lew’s chief task will be securing additional financing for the diplomatic corps. Both nominations are subject to Senate confirmation, as is Clinton’s. Steinberg and Lew both held key policy positions under President Clinton. Steinberg was deputy national security advisor from December 1996 to August 2000 and previously held leadership positions in the State Department. He currently is dean of…
As we’re reporting in today’s Federal Times, dozens of federal building projects are on hold because of the worsening credit crisis. The problem is especially severe for so-called build-to-suit lease projects, which are new facilities built to agency specifications and owned by private developers, then leased back to the government. The General Services Administration has nearly four dozen such projects on standby right now, some dating back five years. Hours after we wrapped up this week’s issue on Friday, the General Services Administration provided us an updated list of the projects that are on hold. Most of the buildings are…
David Safavian, the former Bush administration official and friend of Jack Abramoff, has been convicted for the second time on charges he lied to investigators about his relationship with the corrupt lobbyist. A jury convicted him Friday on one count of obstructing justice and three counts of making false statements to federal investigators, according to the Associated Press. Safavian accepted an extravagant golf trip to Scotland from Abramoff while Safavian was chief of staff at the General Services Administration. Although an ethics officer gave Safavian approval to go on the trip, he failed to tell the ethics officer –Â and later…
President-elect Barack Obama took to the stage Friday afternoon in Chicago to announce four nominees for labor and transportation positions: Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary, Rep. Ray LaHood as transportation secretary, former Dallas secretary Ron Kirk as U.S. trade representative and Maine venture capitalist Karen Mills to lead the Small Business Administration. With labor and transportation announced, Obama rounded out his Cabinet today and took a moment to brag about his speediness in filling the Cabinet. With these outstanding appointees, I have filled out our economic team, and done so at an earlier point than any President in history,…
While most people who aren’t former Nixon staffers or convicted Watergate criminals agree that Mark Felt did the right thing by talking to Bob Woodward, not all leaks are as cut and dry. Wired posted a blog entry yesterday that says someone has uploaded a classified report to Wikileaks on the military’s Warlock radio-frequency jammers, which soldiers use to cut off signals to remotely detonated bombs used by Iraqi insurgents. (The Wired blog has some profanity.) The four-year old report contains information on how the jammers work, such as what frequencies they stop. Though the models described in the report are…
Mark Felt, the former associate director of the FBI who helped break the Watergate scandal, died yesterday at 95. Felt, who for decades hid his role in the scandal and was known only as Deep Throat, was the consummate whistleblower. As a career agent and the number two man at the FBI, Felt had firsthand knowledge of how the Nixon administration tried to sabotage the Bureau’s investigation into the Watergate burglary. He used that information to guide Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they dug into the scandal. Felt’s “Deep Throat” moniker, which was given to him…
Does the federal government have too many middle managers? President-elect Barack Obama has promised to thin the ranks of management, especially in the Washington area, and shift more employees to “front-line” positions in field offices. But the plan isn’t sitting well with groups like the Senior Executives Association and Federal Managers Association. A coalition of managers groups sent a letter (pdf) to John Podesta, the co-chair of Obama’s transition team, urging the president-elect to reconsider: An arbitrary cut of managers based upon an across the board ratio for all of federal service is not the answer. Instead, we encourage you…