After weeks of negotiations and disagreement, Senate leaders have settled on an organizing resolution that will officially put Democrats in charge of the committees for the 117th Congress. The resolution was approved Feb. 3 and is modeled after the 2001 organizing resolution, the last time the Senate split 50-50. Here are some names to pay attention to for Fed IT issues. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 9 at 9:15 a.m. EST on President Biden’s nomination of Neera Tanden to become Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved by voice vote today several tech-related legislative measures including S. 4200, which would direct the General Services Administration (GSA) to establish an IT modernization Centers of Excellence (CoE) program that would facilitate adoption of modern technology by executive branch agencies. […]

The Senate is scheduled to vote July 20 on the nomination of Russell Vought to become the next director of the Office of Management and Budget.  The July 20 date was set by the Senate after a 47-44 vote on July 2 to invoke cloture on the nomination. […]

The nominee to be the next deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told a Senate panel this week that OMB can help speed IT modernization in the Federal government through a change in budget scoring rules, and through pulling together best practices developed by the CIO Council. […]

The chairman of the congressionally mandated National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service told a Senate panel that Federal hiring practices need “a major overhaul,” and highlighted three reforms from the commission’s March report. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted today to confirm the nominations of Russell Vought and Craig Leen as permanent director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), respectively, at a business meeting today. […]

Congressional staffers on House and Senate committees with strong interest in cybersecurity issues said today they are watching for “low-hanging fruit” in the form of easy-to-enact legislative proposals expected to make up some of the recommendations in the Cyberspace Solarium Commission (CSC) report set to be released on March 11. […]

The Federal defense agency responsible for secure communications of national leaders and military operations said Social Security numbers and other personal information may have been compromised in a 2019 data breach. […]

The Census Bureau still has work to do to prepare its IT systems and cybersecurity, but during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing, the director of the bureau and Government Accountability Office (GAO) officials noted that the 2020 Census is making progress on IT issues and is on track. […]

Federal agencies are unprepared to confront and mitigate cyberthreats today, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affair Committee Investigations Subcommittee determined in a report released today, recommending that agencies give CIOs more authority to make decisions on cybersecurity. […]

A bill approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last week would direct the Office of Management and Budget and Federal government agencies to promptly publish a laundry list of “guidance” communications that agencies issue and that constitute statements of “general applicability” but do not have the full force of law. […]

Yesterday, legislation was reintroduced to make it easier for cyber specialists to lend their expertise to other Federal agencies. […]

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced on Thursday the Democratic committee assignments for the new congress. […]

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted to approve a handful of bills that place a strong emphasis on cybersecurity, IT supply chain security, and the enhancement of digital citizen services. […]

Members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee quizzed the Trump administration’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) about agency reorganization, cybersecurity, and acquisition issues during a generally supportive nomination hearing today. […]

While some aspects of the Trump administration’s government agency reorganization proposal released in June have flown into moderate headwinds in Congress over jurisdictional and workforce issues, the proposal found a friendlier–if still somewhat cautious–audience at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees’ subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management Thursday. […]

Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and one of the Trump administration’s most visible point persons promoting its plan to reorganize numerous aspects of Federal civilian agencies, said on Wednesday that the first fruits of that plan may be efforts to standardize aspects of the Federal cybersecurity workforce, ease the backlog of Federal background checks, and make improvements in the provision of government digital services generally. […]