DoD Chief Sustainability Officer Joe Bryan said last week that the department must plan for logistics to be part of a contested environment.

“We cannot expect a free pass to deliver the fuel we need, to where we need it, when we need it. So reducing the energy demand for our weapons platforms, and our forward-deployed forces is an imperative,” Bryan said on June 28 at the Federal Sustainability Forum, hosted by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the Digital Climate Alliance.

Bryan said that about 70% of DoD’s energy use comes from its operations, and that two-thirds of its operations energy use comes from its airplanes.

The Army, as part of its latest climate strategy, expects to put micro-grids on all its bases by 2023, and carbon-free by 2030.

Rachel Jacobson, the Army’s assistant secretary for installations, energy and environment, said the Army also seeks an all-electric non-tactical vehicle fleet by 2035, as well as progress in fielding some hybrid tactical vehicles. The Army is also looking to have a resilient supply chain by 2028.

Jacobson, said climate change is a “threat multiplier,” that can accelerate damage to DoD’s infrastructure, interrupt supply chains and interrupt personnel training because of extreme weather.

“There are going to be a lot of incremental approaches. It’s aggressive, but within a decade or so, we think we can achieve many of these goals,” Jacobson said.

The Army unveiled the DoD’s first floating solar array at Fort Bragg last month. The array is meant to provide backup power to Camp Mackall during electricity outages and provide supplemental energy to the local grid.

The Army in May also broke ground on a 100-acre solar-power project in Southern California and Joint Base Los Alamitos.

Jacobson said both projects utilize an electronic “recloser,” which can quickly reset the system and restore power during an outage.

“It will respond to events like tree limbs, falling on power lines, to reset the system to avoid what can be catastrophic when those kinds of things happen,” she said.

DoD funded the research behind the recloser in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department.

The Army is also prototyping a hybrid Bradley fighting vehicle this summer at Yuma Proving Ground, where it will be tested against the conventional gas-powered Bradley.

Jacobson said hybrid vehicles are expected to reduce fuel consumption by 20% or more.

They’ll also require less maintenance, and will have a reduced heat and sound signature, making the vehicle harder to detect on the battlefield.

“It has these operational strategic benefits in addition to the greenhouse gas of benefits from it,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson said the Army is also looking to partner with the Energy Department on better measuring energy usage, as well as the impact of renewable energy projects and their cost savings.

“We have such a diversity among our bases. However many bases we have, that’s how many different kinds of measuring of programs we have, with respect to gathering this data. And ultimately, this has to be data-driven. This data has to be rock solid, because we keep having to make the case over and over again, that whatever investments we’re making now will pay off. The cost avoidance of not doing something is much worse than the investments we’re making now, but we have to show that,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson said DoD has set ambitious goals for bases to be carbon-free within about a decade, she said this work won’t happen overnight.

“We need energy independence and energy resilience, but the truth of the matter is that backup power is mostly diesel generators,” she said.

Jacobson said the Army still relies on an “ancient” a coal-fired power plant, at a base in Alaska.

“It’s a transition, and we’ll get there, but we can’t jettison the use of fossil fuels entirely at this time,” Jacobson said.

DoD is working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s  Lincoln Laboratory to evaluate backup power in the event of power failure on the local grid. Jacobson said the Army continues to rely on fossil fuels in combination with renewable energy to power bases.

The Army’s Office of Energy Initiatives manages its privately-financed, large-scale, energy projects Through this office, the Army has leveraged over $650 million through these projects so far.

“Obviously, if we just had to rely on appropriations, these projects would compete with other mission-critical projects, with other infrastructure projects, with just the array of investments that are needed on an Army base,” Jacobson said.

First off, the National Parks Service posted this on their Twitter account reminding everyone of all the monuments and parks that they manage. This evening, the National Mall, managed by NPS, will be host to fireworks in Washington, DC.

National parks are home to many of the nation’s most beloved monuments, historic sites, & landscapes. They tell stories from the road to revolution & creation of a new nation, to the journey of people continuing the fight for the freedom & liberty that our nation was founded on. pic.twitter.com/AG6T7Kf7ga

— National Park Service (@NatlParkService) July 4, 2022

The armed forces also wished everyone a great holiday:

Celebrating independence on watch around the globe, and at home. 🇺🇲⚓️ #HappyIndependenceDay #4thofJuly pic.twitter.com/dW3R9ljqwh

— U.S. Navy (@USNavy) July 4, 2022

Happy 4th of July from the world’s greatest Air Force 💥 pic.twitter.com/Mw6qxkidx2

— U.S. Air Force (@usairforce) July 4, 2022

We wish you all a very happy, but most importantly safe, 4th of July! 🇺🇸 🎆#coastguard #4thofJuly #semperparatus pic.twitter.com/vX0JowIACf

— U.S. Coast Guard (@USCG) July 4, 2022

#DYK
John Adams believed July 2nd was the correct date to celebrate and would reportedly turn down invitations to appear at July 4th events in protest.

Adams & Thomas Jefferson both died July 4, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. pic.twitter.com/MnVkqUnQdB

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) July 4, 2022

Elsewhere in the government, the National Archives and Records Administration celebrated in style. Pictured below is the Acting Archivist of the United States, Debra Steidel Wall standing with a few costumed colonists.

In Boston, the USS Constitution set sail in celebration of Independence Day.

In Poznan, Poland, U.S. soldiers celebrated with lunch and a cake.

In Asunción, Paraguay, Marines prepared for an Independence Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy.

The new policy states that service members who commit sexual assault will be subject to immediate initiation of discharge procedures. Only in very few circumstances can an airman or guardian be considered for an exception.

Those exceptions are what DAF is updating; under previous policy there were more situations where assaulters would have an opportunity to stay in the service.

Exceptions are now strengthened for and bar exceptions when an airman or guardian assaults a child or if that person has a prior assault or harassment charge.

“Sexual assault is incompatible with our core values, the Guardian Ideal, and military service. These revisions will significantly improve our ability to discharge those unworthy of calling themselves airmen and guardians,” said Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones. “Our policies must set clear expectations and consequences for the force. Everything we do, and everything we say communicates the value that we place, or do not place, on one’s service.”

There are also factors that DAF will no longer consider when making an exception. Those include personal, family or financial circumstances, good military character and medical or mental health condition.

What DAF will still consider, according to the new separation guidance, is if the member’s continued presence is consistence with “the interest of DAF in maintaining proper disciple, good order, leadership, morale and a culture of respect for the safety, dignity and personal boundaries of all service members.”

The change adds mission-focused criteria to the exception consideration.

“These new objective criteria reflect our commitment to justice for sexual assault survivors and accountability of offenders,” added Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. “We are determined to maintain a culture of respect for the safety, dignity and personal boundaries of every airman, guardian and civil servant.”

DAF and the Defense Department are putting a large emphasis on combating sexual assault. DAF is asking Congress for increased funds in 2023 to strengthen sexual assault and integrated violence prevention programs.

Nearly a year ago, DoD announced it was changing policy to address issues with its sexual assault and prosecution process.

DoD is in the process of removing sex crimes and related crimes like domestic and child abuse from the military’s oversight and giving them to independent civilian agencies. DoD added sexual harassment as an offense in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and is creating offices in each military department to handle the prosecution of special crimes with appropriate legal oversight and guidance from the Pentagon.

Military personnel analysts told Federal News Network the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case could make it harder for service members and civilians in states banning abortion to seek reproductive health care and could jeopardize their privacy.

The repercussions of the case make it especially trying for people who want an abortion and work in a career field where their bodily fitness is paramount and where stigmas against pregnancies are still prevalent. Despite efforts from DoD to give service members an opportunity to start a family, take parental leave and allow troops to recover fully from childbirth, pregnancy can still be disruptive to careers. That compounds with the same stressors those in the civilian world face around pregnancy and abortion.

In the wake of the Dobbs decision, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on June 24 that DoD will continue to provide seamless access to reproductive healthcare as permitted by federal law.

The Pentagon released its first guidance on the issue four days later.

“Federal law restricts the department from performing abortions or paying to have them performed unless the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest,” Gilbert Cisneros, Defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness.

The Supreme Court decision does not prevent DoD from performing those “covered abortions” in its medical facilities, even in states where abortion in any form is banned.

Things become more complex for service members who are not in those situations, but decide an abortion is right for them.

As of June 30, seven states have banned abortions. A total of 17 states are expected to ban most abortions if legal challenges in those states do not hold up. An additional six states would restrict abortions, such as Florida which bans abortion after 15 weeks.

Some pregnant service members seeking uncovered abortions would have to travel hundreds of miles to find care.

However, the Pentagon’s hands are largely tied from doing more to aid service members in those cases due to federal law, Katherine Kuzminski, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security told Federal News Network.

Cisneros’s memo states service members can still take leave to find abortion care.

“Access to emergency convalescent leave remains unchanged for all service members,” he wrote. DoD civilian employees may continue to request sick leave and other forms of leave as necessary to meet the health care needs of the employee and his or her family members.”

Cisneros added that the implications of the decision are complicated and “must be evaluated against various state laws, together with the views of the Department of Justice.”

Taking that leave can be a complex and time sensitive issue for service members, however.

“If a person needs to leave the area for this type of medical care, then there has to be a conversation with the chain of command because you can’t just leave,” Tammy Smith, former Army personnel chief, told Federal News Network. “There’s a leave form where there’s a process, there’s accountability, there’s all these things unique to our military community.”

The bottom line is that service members must get permission from their commanding officer before taking time off to go get an abortion in another state. Otherwise, they risk criminal punishment.

“The leadership answer to that is that there needs to be some signaling and some conversation,” Smith said. “Commanders need to be speaking up and saying that there is a place where you can have these conversations. These are difficult conversations to talk about human sexuality. That’s one of the most awkward conversations that you can maybe have with somebody who is a coworker or somebody is a member of your squad or platoon.”

Kuzminski said leave requests can lead to uncomfortable situations. If someone needs to take leave quickly to get an abortion, they may need to disclose that they are pregnant to their superior officer to explain the reasoning for the leave.

“The decision rests with the unit level commander,” she said. “There could be challenges there as well depending on the needs of the military and the needs of the unit. It could also bring into question the individual commanders flexibility for such a decision.”

Another issue for pregnant service members taking leave to travel to another state for an abortion is the incurred costs. DoD is prohibited from reimbursing service members for getting that care. Travel plus the procedure and prescription drugs can easily get into the thousands of dollars.

“I don’t necessarily know that DoD has much in the way of options,” Kuzminski said in terms of financially aiding service members.

The costs could be unsustainable for many service members. In 2021, Feeding America estimated that 160,000 active duty service members were food insecure due to poverty.

The organization estimated that nearly 30% of junior ranks were food insecure, the same service members who are in their childbearing years. E-1s to E-4s make between $19,000 and $41,000 a year.

Smith said there may be some relief for service members. Organizations like Army Emergency Relief (AER), a nonprofit that offers grants and loans to soldiers for emergencies, could provide funds. Federal News Network reached out to AER, but they did not respond by the time of publication.

The Dobbs ruling is just one of the handful of recent battles between conservative state laws and the military this year.

In March, the Air Force offered medical and legal help to military families living in states clamping down on LGBTQ+ and transgender children.

“The health, care and resilience of our Department of the Air Force personnel and their families is not just our top priority — it’s essential to our ability to accomplish the mission,” said Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones. “We are closely tracking state laws and legislation to ensure we prepare for and mitigate effects to our airmen, guardians and their families. Medical, legal resources, and various assistance are available for those who need them.”

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It’s become an unfunny joke. No matter what crucial intellectual property gets developed in the United States, it gets stolen by China or maybe Russia. A special team deep in the Defense Department has been working on one strategy to counteract this. It looks for investments in U.S. companies by suspicious foreigners. For his work collaborating with many other agencies, the team leader is a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program. The deputy director of the Office of Foreign Investment Review at DoD, David Rader joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Mr. Rader, good to have you on.

David Rader: Hi, thanks so much for having me. Good to be here.

Tom Temin: So tell us about the Office of Foreign Investment Review and what you do on that team how the whole thing works.

David Rader: Yeah, you bet. Foreign Investment Review or FIR as we call it, large part is the CFIUS Office. That’s the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. That’s a very narrow kind of structure, regulatory process. But what we’ve discovered is a lot of things that pose threats to national security fall outside of CFIUS itself. And so I built a team of data scientists and economists, lawyers, former program managers and project officers, if you will, to really look at sticky national security issues in the financial and economic domain, that are kind of non-traditional, but pose a great risk to us.

Tom Temin: And you say financial and economic domain that are non traditional, maybe explain that a little bit more.

David Rader: Yeah, traditionally, the department or national security apparatus is writ large, never look at economics as a function of warfighting or a warfighting domain, or an area of exploitation is generally viewed as something kind of separate. And so taking that approach or using that lens to look at transactions and what that means for national security is a primary focus of ours.

Tom Temin: And do you focus on investments in technology companies or potential suppliers to the Defense Department? Or do you look at the economy in a larger sense?

David Rader: Yeah, it’s an unfair answer, but it’s everything. So we look at macroeconomic data to kind of see where the market’s moving directionally, then we’ll look at specific transactions to your point and emerging critical or disruptive technologies, all the way to core military systems that you’re used to protecting. But the world is shifting and civil and military fusion is occurring around the world, both organically and inorganically. And so semiconductors and thrusters and rockets, and lasers, you know, for cutting in factories, or materials are all playing a role in national security and our defense platforms.

Tom Temin: So you’re looking for transactions, then that would indicate someone that we don’t want investing in one of these companies investing in it?

David Rader: Exactly. And relationships. And you know, some of our adversaries are pretty clever, they use some obfuscated ownership or opaque structures to extract technology and try to replicate it or just take it overseas. So joint ventures, their relationships with academia, there’s a lot of ways to go about it. And so we kind of look at everything.

Tom Temin: Fascinating, and what are your sources of data, you say, transactions and who might be behind them, and so forth? How do you ingest the information you need? And where does it come from to do the analytics?

David Rader: Yeah. And so we’re really an aggregator in that sense. So we use our commercial sources, the typical subscription kind of products, news, open source, or OSINT, the intelligence community is a great ally, and partner, the interagency partners, so other governments, you know, will call and say, hey, we heard about this, or have you seen this. And then lastly, is commercial partners. We even have commercial partners, and we do a lot of industry engagement. And that’s one of the best sources for us to understand where the market is going, who’s creating what and with whom they’re interacting.

Tom Temin: And what happens when you find something suspicious, say someone via a shell company in Great Britain, who’s actually Russian invests in Hypersonics-R-Us, for example, that’s doing work with AFWERX?

David Rader: Yeah, so that’s where the secret sauce is made up of various methods, but we tried to pull them into the CFIUS framework, that’s probably the easiest and most well structured, we have some cool authorities and capabilities elsewhere within government that allow us to really, you know, have a meaningful conversation and address the threat.

Tom Temin: Do you find that sometimes the companies themselves don’t realize that they’ve been invested in by people with bad intent?

David Rader: You know, I’d argue that’s probably 50% of the time, I think, you know, companies are really focused on developing their product making money, they might not understand that to your point that Canadian or British shell is actually something else. And then a lot of them don’t understand how they fit into something like made in China 2025. China does a very good job of telegraphing, or, you know, explaining to its people what it’s going after. And so they might say biotech or hypersonics. And so companies, you understand that, you know, we might make a widget and biotech that we don’t think matters for national security. But if China or Russia is looking for it, you’re in our orbit, you’re part of the game now.

Tom Temin: So basically, you’re looking for people that would take our property from the front door and not the back door.

David Rader: Yeah, I mean, we do look at the whole value chain, if you will, but I think that’s a good way to frame it. I mean, it seems like we’re doing all the work. We’re spending the money. We’re doing the research, development, test evaluation, you know, commercializing the product, and then the bad guy show up the last day, take it and get to steal all of our hard work and we’re getting pretty tired of it, I think.

Tom Temin:
Right. What I’m driving at is that they could become a board member or an investor and just simply have access to the information that way, as opposed to hacking in.

David Rader: Oh, absolutely. Yep, board membership, investor relations, accessing data rooms through what seems like normal business transactions or a joint venture. So yeah, they’ll come through the front door 100%.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with David Rader. He’s deputy director of the Office of Foreign Investment Review at the Defense Department, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals Program. And the category in which you’re a finalist is emerging leaders, which is to say, younger people coming into government, you’re in your mid-30s. What in your background got you to this point, and what attracted you to federal service?

David Rader: I used to be in the Army in a previous life as an infantry man, and you know, had a great experience, all my best friends remained in the business. And so when I stepped away, I went to investment banking at JP Morgan. And I was a M&A consultant at Ernst and Young. And so I enjoyed learning the commercial skills necessary. But I really missed that mission to service. When the opportunity presented itself, I was quick to jump on it because we’re at a critical time right now, where we need to better understand the commercial side and have better relationships and training. But also the Defense Department and national security in general in the U.S. government need really good dedicated public servants who are trying to bring in that next generation, and I was happy to be part of the team.

Tom Temin: Did you get to the Army via enlistment? Or were you a ROTC? Or what was that path?

David Rader: Enlisted right out of high school.

Tom Temin: I’ll be darned. So you’ve had JP Morgan and Ernst and Young level salaries in your short career, and now you’ve got a decent, but it’s a pentagon salary. What effect is that had?

David Rader: There’s some personal adjustments that had to be made.

Tom Temin: But you’re committed to it, it sounds like?

David Rader: Yeah, absolutely. It’s the best place I’ve ever worked. Seen such a diverse group of people from all over the country, you know, kind of all over the world come here to solve really meaningful problems to watch over, you know, America, or investors or innovators, our people. It’s a cliche, but it’s one it’s like, it gets you out of bed in the morning. I really enjoy it. And I have the best boss in the world and great colleagues. So that even makes it easier.

Tom Temin: Yes. And are there any examples of things you’ve uncovered that you might be able to tell us about?

David Rader: Well, sadly, we weren’t quite on the quiet side of the business. There’s quite a few. But I mean, everything that you can imagine where maybe sometimes deals don’t go through or some of the things you’ll read in the headlines. Some, one of us is around there poking around.

Tom Temin: Got it. By the way, you mentioned some of the other DoD and intelligence community elements that you collaborate with. What about the Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, or some of the civil side of government? Is that also part of the CFIUS apparatus?

David Rader: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve expanded the scope, because we’ve realized, you know, if you’re looking at economics, it’s ridiculous to not involve the Securities Exchange Commission. I mean, they’re their regulators for the markets, if you will, the Federal Aviation Administration, the FCC, communication, I mean, kind of the whole panacea of government. We’ve had just excellent partners every time we pick up the phone and say, we have an issue, you know, we think it kind of fits into your authority bucket. But you know, we’d like to collaborate and find a solution for our country. They’ve always said, yeah, come on over. Or, you know, we’ll be there on Monday, and it’s gone really well.

Tom Temin: David Rader is deputy director of the Office of Foreign Investment Review at the Defense Department, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals Program. Thanks so much for joining me.

David Rader: Hey, thanks for having me. Great to see you, Tom.

The service brought together high-ranking Navy officials, enlisted sailors, think tank experts, non-governmental organizations, industry and legislative aides to participate in a tabletop exercise focused on responding to a climate event.

The exercise signals the increasing importance of climate change factors on how the military operates and plans for the future.

The situation involved a fictional scenario in late 2030 where the Navy is conducting an amphibious exercise on an island nation in the western Pacific. A typhoon forms, changes course and heads directly for the exercise.

“We had our groups built into three breakout groups that were related and dealing with that the same impacts in different ways at different times,” Meredith Berger, Navy assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment, told reporters during a roundtable. “They were faced with dilemmas. They had to work together as a team to make sure that they could answer questions and try to understand the practical operational applications.”

Berger said the exercise was an opportunity for the Navy to address some of the “very real” impacts that it knows are coming as a result of climate change. She said one of the key takeaways from the training is that the Navy cannot allow climate contingencies to become a surprise. The Navy must develop flexibility to address the issues that will arise from the new threat.

“Another lesson is tied to logistics,” Berger said. “The more that we can reduce those dependencies, the more that we can diversify where we do have dependencies the better we are set up for success. It is important that we think about redundancy and everything that we are doing to be more effective to safeguard against those types of failures. It goes back to the planning and it shows that we’re on the right course, that we are anticipating, that we are thinking about how to be efficient, how to be effective, how to make sure that we are sharing burdens and sharing opportunities to be effective warfighters.”

The Defense Department is also thinking about these issues by reinforcing its supply chain and considering adding to its emergency stockpiles.

Berger said the Navy is planning to build climate contingencies into other exercises and to start conducting more exercises specifically tailored to climate change.

The Navy and the military writ large have been putting increasing focus on climate change. That means making installations and weapons more resilient, figuring out how to operate in extreme weather and decreasing the military’s impact on the environment.

In May, the Navy released its climate action 2030 plan. The service has developed its strategy around DoD’s five lines of effort on climate change. Those include things like climate-informed decision making, where Navy leaders train for situations of extreme weather, and supply chain resilience, in which the Navy invests in companies that support national security and climate benefits.

Last October, the Pentagon took its largest step yet to become more climate conscious by releasing its climate adaptation strategy. DoD announced it will create a climate chief and stated that it will consider climate in every decision it makes from now on.

In the ruling, GAO found the same official, Sean O’Donnell, also served in the position unlawfully for nine-and-a-half months during a separate period at the end of the Trump administration.

GAO made the findings Tuesday in its role as arbiter over the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a complex and often ambiguous legal regime Congress originally created to limit how long political appointees can serve without earning Senate confirmation. The most recent version was passed in 1998.

In general, the rule is that no appointee can hold an “acting” title for longer than 210 days, though that timeframe can be extended in some circumstances. One of them is when there’s a presidential transition: under a new president, appointees get an extra 90 days, for a total of 300. Under GAO’s interpretation of the statute, Biden’s re-appointment of O’Donnell as acting IG expired on Nov. 15, 2021.

A spokeswoman for the IG’s office said its staff was aware of the GAO ruling and was still reviewing how it would respond.

But the ruling itself indicates the OIG’s interpretation of the Vacancies Act is different from GAO’s. The OIG believed that the law allowed O’Donnell to serve as acting IG under a different exception to the Vacancies Act: one that allows officials to serve in acting capacities while the Senate is considering a different person as their permanent replacement.

And that was the case here: President Biden nominated Robert Storch to be the permanent IG on the same day the 300-day clock expired, and his nomination is still stuck on the Senate floor.

But GAO found the “pending nomination” exception doesn’t apply because of another quirk in the Vacancies Act: it puts the time restrictions on hold the first and second time a president tries to nominate someone to the same position, but after the Senate’s rejected a nomination twice — no matter who the president was — the 210-day clock starts ticking again, and from there, the clock is all that matters.

The OIG’s interpretation appears to have been that the entire process should have reset once a new president took office, giving Biden two more chances to stop the clock by nominating a permanent official. But GAO says that concept simply isn’t in the statute. There hasn’t been a Senate-confirmed DoD IG since January of 2016, and GAO says former President Obama’s two unsuccessful attempts to nominate former acting IG Glenn Fine to the permanent job count toward the two-nomination total.

But the OIG didn’t pull its interpretation out of thin air, said Anne Joseph O’Connell, a Stanford University law professor who has studied and written extensively about the Vacancies Act.

“Most commentators, myself included, and the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, thought that everything restarted with the new presidential administration,” she said,  “I can’t think of any court case, GAO violation letter or published opinion that takes the position GAO took today. And if you look at executive practice, the practice has also not followed what the GAO ruled today. It’s always thought of the new administration as restarting the vacancy.”

Former President Trump withdrew Fine’s second nomination in February 2017, leaving him with the title of “performing the duties of the inspector general” until May 2020. Fine resigned from his DoD OIG position when Trump fired him from a separate board Congress created to oversee pandemic relief spending.

Shortly thereafter, Trump appointed O’Donnell as the new acting IG. But Tuesday’s ruling found that appointment was invalid, since the 210-day clock that started ticking the last time a previous nomination attempt failed had already run out.

“We recognize the concerns raised by DoD OIG regarding this conclusion, specifically that it means that past nominations may disadvantage a newly inaugurated president by limiting the period acting officials may serve in the new administration,” wrote Edda Emmanuelli Perez, GAO’s general counsel. “But these concerns cannot override the plain meaning of the Vacancies Act’s provisions. Reading the statute as a whole, if Congress intended a restart of the count for nominations … it could have so provided as it did by expressly extending the timeframe for presidential transition periods.”

The upshot of the GAO ruling is that O’Donnell was unlawfully in the position for more than nine months during the Trump administration, then held it completely legally once the clock reset at the start of the Biden administration, and then became an unlawful appointee once again when the clock expired last November.

It was unclear Tuesday what the practical consequences of the legal finding would be. Under the law, GAO is required to report to Congress whenever it finds violations of the Vacancies Act, which GAO said it has now done. But Congress has no clear way to enforce those violations.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the most common enforcement mechanism is lawsuits by private parties who were harmed by a decision an unlawfully-appointed official made. In the case of the DoD IG, it’s not immediately clear who would be in a position to bring such a lawsuit — it’s not obvious that anyone was harmed by the technical disagreement over whether O’Donnell  should have had to step down last fall.

But O’Connell said GAO’s new interpretation of the law could create problems for other agencies, now that there’s a clear legal guideline.

“If the executive branch continues its practice of allowing two new nominations in agencies where there might be more litigation risk, then you could potentially get issues,” she said.

Something similar happened when GAO ruled in 2020 that Chad Wolf was never properly appointed as acting secretary of Homeland Security. The Trump administration openly defied the ruling and left Wolf in place, pointing out, correctly, that GAO’s opinion wasn’t legally binding.

But litigants who’ve had wide ranges of disagreements with DHS over decisions Wolf made during that  have been able to leverage the GAO opinion in their own court cases, arguing that since he was not properly appointed, whatever actions he took that were adverse to their interests should be invalidated.

“That GAO decision in and of itself didn’t change anything: Chad Wolf continued on as acting secretary of Homeland Security,” O’Connell said. “But there is now a whole slew of lawsuits against DHS that cite to the GAO decision as an authority. It’s not going to bind what the executive branch does, but it could create litigation risk. And given what happened there, I could see a strategic decision to follow the GAO opinion here, even though it is not binding on the agencies.”

The center will focus on tactical autonomy, meaning systems that act independently under the bounded authority of human support. The systems support missions like situational awareness, force protection, cyber defense and logistics. The center will also focus on system collaboration and man-machine learning.

The collaboration will be the first academic research center affiliated with the Air Force and the 15th connected to the Defense Department.

“It’s a gap in our suite of research institutes right now that we don’t have one focused on this area of autonomy,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said at the Pentagon Monday. “I’m very focused on the threat of Chinese military modernization and what that means in terms of our viability of our forces for the future. Part of the future of the military is going to be autonomy, there’s no doubt in my mind to that. We’re seeing increasing evidence, evidence for almost in every conflict that occurs.”

The Air Force is committing $12 million per year for the next five years to the collaboration. DoD will be adding an extra $2 million per year.

The Air Force and DoD are currently working with the 11 HCBUs that qualify as high-research activity schools as designated by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to decide which school will lead the center. That school will be responsible for building a consortium of educational institutions to conduct research.

The collaboration is also working a secondary goal of increasing diversity and inclusion, a mission DoD has been working on since the national response to the murder of George Floyd.

“This is an opportunity to tap into universities that have enormous amount of capability in science and technology,” Kendall said. “The HBCUs put out about 30% of the scientists and engineers that are that are produced by that community.”

DoD will also work on growing the STEM community within HBCUs. The center will not work like other academic research consortia. The Pentagon wants the consortium to build capabilities, but also build its research abilities.

“We understand that there are historical inequities, and we want help them build capacity, as well as deliver results to us,” said Victoria Coleman, DoD’s chief scientist. “We want to advance their efforts to move at least one, hopefully more than one, institution from the Carnegie Foundation Research Classification from ‘R2,’ which means a high research institution, to an ‘R1,’ which is very high research.”

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The House Armed Services committee spent time last week marking up the defense authorization bill for 2023. As always, the NDAA has a lot to say about procurement and contractors. But it doesn’t say anything about whether they’re compensated for inflation. Joining the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with what the services contractor community is watching closely, Professional Services Council president David Berteau.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: David, do you listened in on this, and what do you see going on here with respect to contractors?

David Berteau: Yeah, Tom, there was a welcome change, you know, the entire House Armed Services Committee markup was done live on the web starting at 10 a.m. Last Thursday and lasting until midnight or later, I didn’t stay up all the way to the end, I confess, but we got to see hundreds of amendments disposed of the final bill, we’re waiting to see the actual language of the final bill. But it did add, you know, $37 billion to the DoD (Department of Defense) request. This is a little bit short of what the Senate added, they added 45 billion, but we haven’t seen the Senate’s language yet, either. They just put out a little bit of a press release that touted a couple of items. The big issue for companies, though, is how does this help them address the inflation that they’re experiencing today, particularly workforce inflation, the extra cost of workers, not only to recruit them, but to retain them?

Tom Temin: Right. And so contracts that might be ongoing, that have certain labor and rates built into them. You’d be stuck if those rates continue, but the labor costs are going up?

David Berteau: Right? Well, look, we’re living in fiscal year 22. Right now. Right? So the legislation is for FY 23, which doesn’t start until Oct. 1. And as we expect, won’t actually start until sometime well after that, because we’ll be under a continuing resolution for a while. This year’s budget FY 22, assumed an inflation rate of about 2.2%. It’s actually as we know, 8.6% or higher in many cases for government employees and government contractors. Well, that’s a difference of, you know, $50 billion right there across the board for the Defense Department. None of that is addressed in the NDAA. There’s a 4% assumption of inflation for FY 23, which is, again, is about $30 billion short, if you assume that today’s inflation goes on forward. They attempted to address that, but only in a couple of areas.

Tom Temin: All right. And what about procurement? I mean, so you’ll go broke trying to fulfill contracts on fixed prices that we can pretty much assume but often the NDAA has procurement provisions. What do you see shaping up here this time?

David Berteau: It does in some of the procurement provisions. Of course, you know, we watch these very closely. A number of amendments were proposed that could add some value to this. A couple more proposed that would not. One that we were particularly pleased to see go down to defeat was a proposal to interfere with the e-commerce pilot project. You may remember a few years ago, the FY 18 National Defense Authorization Act created an e-commerce portal pilot project under the General Services Administration. And ultimately, GSA awarded contracts to three companies. And it’s a three year pilot. This is a real pilot, unlike some pilots, which are just designed to take care of an issue and put it on the shelf after the pilot is done. It’s a real pilot to see if we can have the government buy off the internet the same way you and I do every day. Well, not every day. But every day we buy, we buy something there, right? And this is now two years into it. This amendment would have kicked one of the current contractors off the contract. This is a major precedent, it would set up the Congress interfering legislatively in an ongoing contract by essentially forcing a termination for convenience by the government without any rationale or cause other than the fact that Congress decided it was time to do that.

Tom Temin: Which one did they want to get rid of?

David Berteau: They didn’t specify the name of the company. What the amendment did is it said, no company can be on this contract if their market cap, their actual stock value times the number of shares outstanding, is more than $600 billion. Well, there’s only one company of the three on the contract that meets that test, right? The three companies on this contract were Fisher Scientific, Home Depot and Amazon. And you can do the arithmetic in your head as to which one meets that test. So the amendment did not specify by name. But it’s not so much the company involved as it is the precedent that this would set if Congress interfering in an existing contract. The whole federal procurement system depends upon the integrity of the process. And the ability of contracting officers to exercise their want in the interest of the federal government and particularly something that’s already two years in of a three year contract made no sense whatsoever. So we were really pleased to see this go down to defeat in a roll call vote in the committee markup.

Tom Temin: Interesting somebody had it in for that company, I guess.

David Berteau: Well, it’s not the first time this has been proposed. It’s been brought up as amendments on the floor. It’s been brought up as separate bills, etc. So we continue to watch this sort of thing. And again, it’s not about the individual contractor company, it’s about the precedent that it sets for the government.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with David Berteau. He’s president and CEO of the Professional Services Council. Well, that aside, then it gets us back to inflation as biggest concern going into next year and the dollars available. What do you think can be done to address this issue?

David Berteau: Well, this is not something really Congress can address, although there is the potential of a supplemental for FY 22 for inflation. But all the Congress can do is actually put money in specific line items and the NDAA did that put about $3 billion, $3.5 billion for fuel inflation, we all know about fuel inflation every time we put gas in our vehicles, right. And, military construction projects’ inflation, but this doesn’t address the contractors’ cost, particularly cost of workforce. What could be done, and what you’re seeing being done, is some agencies are opening the aperture for a request for an equitable adjustment, subject to the available funding, right. So no more money needed, just what funding is out there today. Other agencies are making it very hard for companies to submit such requests, what we probably need is a government wide set of guidance that says, if you’ve got the money, open up the door, let the contractor submit their requests, and adjudicate them positively so that the companies can stay in business. This is particularly true for small and mid-sized businesses that don’t have the resources necessary to ride this out for how long? How long will inflation keep going? I don’t know, do you?

Tom Temin: I wish I did, I would bet on it. But the issue of contractor labor costs, do contractors sometimes have the capability or the flexibility or the rights under the contract to reduce staffing for a given contract so that the costs remain stable. But there might be fewer people?

David Berteau: You’ve hit on something really key there, because ultimately, you can’t perform above the funding that’s there. And if your costs increase, and then somewhere along the way, you just have to fail to meet the requirements. That’s not in the company’s interest. That’s not in the government’s interest. That’s not in America’s interest. And so making adjustments to be able to cover those costs will be particularly useful here. I think, though, that there’s also the possibility that you could see some encouragement coming out of the Congress on this. But we haven’t seen any language along those lines, yet. There was one other bill, one other amendment put into place that could have major implications there. And that has to do with O&M, operation and maintenance accounts and readiness.

Tom Temin: And what do you see in the bill with respect to those accounts?

David Berteau: So it requires DoD to submit to Congress starting next year’s budget, right? Information about the operation and maintenance funding. And this is a particular line of funding that is one year money, that they need to keep weapons systems ready going forward. It’s kind of surprising that DoD doesn’t do this already. But I found when I was in the Pentagon as the assistant secretary for logistics, that it was very difficult to get those kinds of estimates going forward. So you know what you have for one year, but you don’t know whether you have the money in the out years for that as well. So this would be a huge step in the right direction. One of the lessons from Ukraine is how hard it is to support your forces once a war is underway. And it’s important for the U.S. to make sure we’ve got the funding necessary to do that going forward.

Tom Temin: When they say operations and maintenance, they don’t just mean facilities, they mean also operations, as in warfare operations?

David Berteau: It is, this is flying hours, this is steaming hours for ships, this is tank miles. This is both for practice and for supporting forces in operations.

Tom Temin: So it has to do with continuity, basically?

David Berteau: It has to do with continuity, it has to do with demonstrating to any potential adversary that we’re perfectly capable of supporting our forces in a combat environment, unlike some in Ukraine today.

Tom Temin: And just a final question, what are your members saying about the issue of retaining employees now, because you hear a lot of companies, different industries, where people say, well, unless I get what I want, with respect to telework, and this and that I’m out of here. And there’s this sort of employees in the driver’s seat situation we have now in a lot of industries.

David Berteau: It’s probably the number one issue that our member companies are facing, Tom, you know, we’ve got 11.5 million job vacancies in America today and only 6 million people looking for. That says it’s a seller’s market, right. And that’s true even in the federal government and for contractors where we’ve got way more job openings than we have individuals. And they kind of get to name their own tune right now. Right? You drive by offices, you go to federal offices, you don’t see a lot of people going into the offices yet, in many cases. And so it’s a real tough challenge in three ways. Number one, it’s hard to recruit. Number two, when you lose somebody, then all the others are saying, wow, he just got a big raise by going to work for another company, not a contractor. What are you going to give me so that I don’t go do the same thing? And then it’s a question of training and investing in that workforce for the future as well. It’s a triple challenge across the board. We really need addressing of this by both the executive branch and the Congress.

Tom Temin: David Berteau is President and CEO of the Professional Services Council. As always, thanks so much.

David Berteau: Thank you, Tom. Look forward to continuing this conversation down the road.

The Defense Department has been talking about the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) standards for more than three years.

And while the final version 2.0 standards aren’t going to be ready until next summer, the impact of just talking about improving cybersecurity among contractors is real.

Stacy Bostjanick, the chief of implementation and policy and deputy CIO for cybersecurity for the Defense Department, said contractors are definitely more accepting of the need to protect their data. But, she quickly admitted, they may not have fully embraced CMMC.

“The 7012 [Defense acquisition regulations] clause started that in earnest in 2013. We got a ton of pushback and finally got it into a rule in 2017. And then after that, we had a few incidents like SolarWinds, the Colonial pipeline, and now people are like, ‘Oh, yeah, maybe people are coming after me. Oh, maybe it is an issue,’” Bostjanick said at the recent AFCEA NOVA Small Business IT Day.

Dr. Kelly Fletcher, the principal deputy chief information officer for the Defense Department, said the current approach, based on self-attestation, creates a potentially unleveled playing field for contractors who choose to take the right steps to secure their data and those that just say they do.

“We know we have totally divergent compliance. If you’re complying now with what is in your contract, you’re competing against folks that aren’t, and I think CMMC is trying to get after that,” Fletcher said. “I don’t think CMMC is perfect. I think any solution we come up with isn’t going to be perfect. But it is our first attempt to get after that.”

25% of DIB met cyber requirements

While the problem may not be new, the data collected by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) shows just how troubling it is.

John Ellis, the technical directorate’s software division director at DCMA, said out of 300 assessments the Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Assessment Center (DIBCAC) did over the last few years, only 25% of the companies were compliant with the 110 requirements in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Special Publication 800-171.

“If roughly 25% of companies were fully compliant when we assess them, now, if you extrapolate that across the DIB, that’s why we’re informing some of the decisions. So if what CMMC is going to do for us in the future that we can’t do today is what we do today is largely a post-assessment activity. There are holes in those mechanisms, things are not fully implemented,” Ellis said at the Coalition for Government Procurement spring conference in Falls Church, Virginia. “CMMC is going to let us address some of that stuff that does lead to stronger prevention of ransomware attacks because it’s going to require companies to become far more fully compliant. If 75% of your companies can’t meet the requirements and they’re required to meet all of those before they can be awarded a contract, what does that mean, in terms of who can compete for contracts? It doesn’t bode well.”

Ellis said the DIB’s shortcoming based on their assessments and the need to bring more companies up to par faster is why DCMA is launching the early adopter program for CMMC. This is for defense companies to work with certified third-party assessment organizations (C3PAOs) before the CMMC 2.0 is finalized. Ellis said DCMA auditors would look over the C3PAO’s shoulder and offer feedback and insights, but not an official DIBCAC review.

“We started the planning for the early adopter program a couple of months ago, but we haven’t started the assessments yet. I expect us to start them later this summer,” Ellis said. “The assessments are on site, but also include a lot of coordination ahead of time with the company, the C3PAO and our folks. It’s a 45-60 day process that happens at the company’s site.”

Ellis said the C3PAO and the DCMA auditors will conduct a medium or high confidence assessment, which is more like a document review, where they, with the company, to through the system security plan to ensure that they’ve documented their requirements in a way that that articulates that they understand the requirements.

Benefits for DoD, vendors alike

The early adopter program is part of several ongoing initiatives DoD is pursuing to get a head start on CMMC. Bostjanick said earlier this year that DoD will do a series of tabletop exercises to test out the cyber standards.

Bostjanick said the early adopter program benefits the C3PAOs, DCMA and the DIB because all will get experience with CMMC standards.

“You will be given a DIBCAC high assessment in supplier performance risk system (SPRS), and our intent, which means our hope because lawyers told me we can’t promise anything because rulemaking is that, when CMMC becomes a thing, either as an interim thing next May or a final thing the following May, that companies certifications will still be good for an additional three years,” she said. “One of the things that you’re going to see in CMMC 2.0 is each company has a requirement to do an annual affirmation. Which states ‘Yep, I’m still good. I’m still in compliance. Nothing has changed. Nothing has caused me to go out of compliance. I affirm I still meet the requirements.’”

Ellis said there are about 20,000 companies in SPRS today and if, based on the DCMA review of about 300 companies, approximately 75% are not in compliance with the 110 controls detailed in NIST 800-171 today, there is a lot of work that still needs to be done.

“The data is in SPRS says the opposite. We see an awful lot of scores that are very, very, very high, and we’re a little concerned about that for a couple of reasons,” Ellis said. “One, we’re concerned about companies not really doing the things that they said they were going to do. And two, it gives a false sense of security both to the companies and to the government in the procuring activities that are relying upon that information.”

DoD is facing similar questions about its own systems’ compliance. A recent Government Accountability Office highlighted in late May the Pentagon’s struggles in meeting the same NIST 800-171 standards for internal systems.

Ellis said DCMA started reviewing about 300 contractors’ compliance to the NIST standards in 2019 and the hope is that those companies that were among the first, would be part of the early adopter program.

He said the NIST reviews alone have improved vendor cybersecurity.

“We had one company that was in the negative 200 range and now they are in the mid-two digit range, meaning they have improved remarkable over the last few years,” he said. “It’s really important that folks understand, this is not meant as a threat. We’re looking at it to derive knowledge and insight. We’re going to anonymize the results, unless we were to stumble into something that’s fraudulent and then that’s a whole another can of worms, by the way. But what we will do is share that information of what we learned with the companies that we’ve assessed so that people can see the goodness of the information that’s actually in the system. It should inform both government folks and quite honestly, it should inform the DIB. You don’t ever want to be in a position where you think you’re much better than you are, and then either the DIBCAC shows up or a C3PAO assessment is conducted, and you find that you’ve missed the mark, significantly. That’s not good for you as a company. And it’s certainly not good for us to rely upon somebody that doesn’t have that understanding.”

To prepare for the influx of work coming from CMMC, the DIBCAC is staffing up. DCMA plans to grow its staff in the DIBCAC to about 150 employees from 50 a few years ago.

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This year’s Secretary of Defense Environmental Award winner in the environmental quality individual team category went to the Air Force Radioactive Recycling and Disposal Team. As part of the 88th Civil Engineer Group, AFFRAD handles low-level radioactive recycling and low-level mixed waste management in the Air Force and provides radioactive material recycling for the entire Defense Department. To learn more about this mission, Federal News Network’s Eric White spoke with Zack Olds, AFRRA team supervisor, and Chris Anthony, radioactive material program manager, on  Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript: 

Chris Anthony: We’re the belly button for the United States Air Force on all radioactive waste in recycling. So that covers Space Force, Air Reserve, Air National Guard and active duty worldwide. Basically, our mission is to see what we can recycle first. Does the radioactive material have some sort of use that we don’t have to dispose of? So we always look to see what we can recycle, and anything that that’s not viable for reuse, then that’s what we actually send for waste.

Eric White: And where does most of the radioactive material come from, not that I’m not trying to divulge any secrets or anything, but what how do you guys come about it? What steps are you guys in the process?

Chris Anthony: We are actually listed in several Air Force manuals or, I guess the Air Force equivalent to regulations. And even in Department of Defense instructions and things like that, as the disposition outlet. So when things are being trimmed out of the system, and if they are flagged as being radioactive, something like a compass, then the supply system will recognize that and relay that information to whatever installation RSO is trying to turn this stuff in, that they need to go through AFRRAD for the disposition of that. And I might add, we are also the recycler for Department of Defense. So we don’t handle any of their waste, but things that we know we can recycle like compasses and exit signs and things like that. We will take from specifically the Army since they are the lead agent for low level radioactive waste, and they use us for the recycling part. So a lot of this relies on every installation’s radiation safety officer to be aware of what’s on their base, and whenever it needs to be turned in, that they know where to go. And we’re outlined in regulations and manuals and things like that.

Zack Olds: And that, too, I’d add, basically what Chris was alluding to is these guys are plugged in with the radiation safety officers across the Air Force. So they are a resource for those RSO’s. And so they provide consultative services to those individuals. So because they’re specifically listed, because AFRRAD – I say “they” – but because AFRRAD is plugged into that community listed in the Air Force manuals and instructions and DoD instructions, they’re inherently part of that disposition process. So they are the subject matter experts as a result. And so they’re regularly consultated for that types of questions that come up, with respect to radiation material, radioactive material disposition.

Eric White: So basically, they know you guys can handle any kind of waste. So they come to you even when it’s not you directly handling material, do they ask you for consulting and things like that as well?

Chris Anthony: By Air Force regulation, all disposition has to go through our office. Whether we handle it directly, like remediation waste, where there may be a facility that needs to be cleaned up or demolished or whatever. We wouldn’t necessarily handle that waste, physically. But we provide the consultation to those agencies to get rid of the waste, specifically radioactive, right? So we have to know. We keep the records for the Air Force. So anything that’s recycled or waste, it goes through our office and we do manage those records.

Eric White: Who’s actually handling this stuff. I mean, you guys are pretty small team. Are you guys putting on the gloves and grabbing the thing? Are you just telling who should be handling it?

Chris Anthony: Well, it’s it’s not as glamorous as like “Silkwood” or something like that. But there are four of us. We have the capability to go worldwide to assist in the installation that would have things that we couldn’t necessarily package and ship back to Wright-Patterson [Air Force Base], but we would actually go out and inventory and package it and then get a contract broker in to ship it out to a waste processor, or a disposal site. Mainly our personal protective equipment is gloving, lab coats, things like that. Very rarely do we have to crawl into the Tyvek suit and respirators. So it’s not as – we have the precautions in place. And there’s a lot of training that’s involved with that, as you can imagine.

Eric White: And Zack, what is your role as far as environmental compliance comes? Are you, the job title describe it pretty well?

Zack Olds: Fairly well. So AFRRAD is just one of the programs that I supervise. I’m also over the hazardous material, hazardous waste program, solid wastes and toxics, infectious waste programs. So I’ve got a team of folks that manage each of those. AFRRAD is unique, it’s unique to Wright-Patt, unique to the Air Force. And so it’s kind of, it’s a fun diversion from the standard environmental media programs that I deal with.

Eric White: Yeah, what are just a few of the considerations you have to have when dealing with radioactive material, not just around Wright-Patterson, butmin other projects that you’re working on?

Zack Olds: So, obviously, the radioactivity and the exposure, that these guys have a potential hazard, for us is a consideration. That’s unique to AFRRAD. It’s essentially the considerations I have, that are unique to AFRRAD is really the radioactivity and the exposure that these guys can potentially, be. So that’s the uniqueness that I have to consider with AFRRAD. I mean, they deal with low level radioactivity, so for the most part, they’re not really dealing with things that that can be an acute hazard. But definitely, the chronic hazards and chronic exposure is a consideration that we have to be mindful of in the work that we do.

Eric White: Yeah, Chris, can you expand a little bit upon, handling that material and what that’s like?

Chris Anthony: I’ve been doing this close to 40 years. So it’s normal to me. There’s respect. And as long as you respect what you’re dealing with, things work out. I always tell Zach – he has a chemistry background, I, my education, my major was in chemistry, but chemicals scare me to death. And so I can deal with radioactive material. And, we kind of laugh at that. And I guess it’s all perspective. So, you respect what you’re doing, respect what you’re dealing with, and ultimately, you get the job done, but being very mindful of the protection of the people that are performing the function, protect the environment and protect the base populace, and community. And that’s our goal.

Eric White: Forty years, I mean, I imagine you’ve had to see some changes in the safety procedures. Were things a little bit more cowboy back in the day, or were they still pretty tight?

Chris Anthony: I don’t think things have become more cowboy. I mean, there’s always that sense of respect, but it’s more scientific now. Equipment, instrumentation, requirements are regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And so we’re able to track doses better. We’re able to, better instrumentation and detection and things like that. So in that respect, it’s gotten a lot better than 40 years ago, but as far as the safety aspect that’s always been there.

The Navy is taking several steps to shorten the time it takes to get its vessels in and out of maintenance at its shipyards, including with a huge, multiyear and multibillion dollar program to modernize the yards’ outdated infrastructure.

But as officials dug into the problem of maintenance delays and broader logistics issues, they found at least one other massive contributor that’s arguably easier to fix: getting the parts the Navy’s tradesmen need to do their work at the jobsite at the time the projects begin. Fixing that problem alone could go a long way toward making sure ships’ maintenance availabilities are finished on time.

That’s one of the more potent discoveries the Navy has made as part of a much broader project called Naval Sustainment System-Supply (NSS-S), led by Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP), and in the case of the shipyards, supported by Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

Rear Adm. Peter Stamatopoulos, NAVSUP’s commander, said the project’s data analytics showed that, on average, only about 30% of the parts needed to complete a submarine or surface ship’s planned maintenance were available when the vessel entered the yard. And those late-arriving supplies, in turn, are responsible for about 30% of the total delays in ships’ scheduled maintenance periods.

“What happens is that the rest of the material requirements are discovered as that availability is moving along. Some of it is never identified upfront in the planning process, and some of it occurs when they open and inspect a planned job, but what we’ve found is that oftentimes, in that growth work, we should have the parts on hand and ready to go before the work is actually started,” he said during a wide-ranging interview about NSS-S for Federal News Network’s On DoD. “It’s part of the dysfunction that has developed over the course of time — we haven’t been able to be as predictive as we need to be in our requirements determination to support those jobs. But we’re getting after that.”

In the year-and-a-half NAVSUP has been working on NSS-S, the parts availability rate has improved noticeably, to 37%. The objective by the end of the five-year project is 100%, though Stamatopolous acknowledged that’s a stretch goal.

Another discovery Navy officials made as part of NSS-S: the low availability rates have flown under the radar until recently, in part, because local supply departments at each Navy shipyard have tried to solve the missing parts problems by themselves, ordering what they need on their own.

“So requirements were finding their way around the supply system, and not going through a central point,” Stamatopolous said. “And when we don’t go through a central point, we don’t have the demand visibility we need so that we can be more predictive with the material that we should have on hand, either in the shipyard ready to go, or in our wholesale supply system in NAVSUP and the Defense Logistics Agency.”

Going forward, the idea is to minimize the number of instances in which the Navy’s four public shipyards need to order items from vendors separately. NAVSUP is trying to centralize more of those orders through its own supply system to take advantage of the broader Navy’s buying power, apply category management principles, and give its vendors more predictability so that each of its shipyards aren’t, in effect, competing against each other with urgent requests for the same items that could, ideally, have been bought ahead of time and stocked in Navy or DLA warehouses.

Although the shipyard element has been a major focus of the NSS-S initiative, it’s only one of many. Stamatopolous said the bigger project — which ranges from improving NAVSUP’s industry relationships to getting a better handle on cash management in its working capital fund — has achieved about $600 million in verified savings thus far.

And many of the “pillars” of the project are interrelated.

For example, if the Navy can do a better job of forecasting the parts it’ll need for maintenance availability and minimize the amount of local purchasing, NAVSUP is likely to do a much better job of forecasting its demand to vendors.

“One of the things that I continuously hear from them is they would like to have a more stable demand signal,” Stamatopolous said. “We also need to make sure that we have the right mix of organic repair and commercial repair, because we have to preserve and protect both [capabilities], and the best way that we can do that for the commercial base is to give them a solid, stable demand. We have to be sensitive to their needs for cash.”

Meanwhile, the Navy is also starting pilot programs that try not only to minimize the number of cases in which local elements of the Navy’s sustainment system is competing for the same parts, but also the number of instances in which the acquisition portions of the Navy bureaucracy are competing against the sustainment portions for the exact same items.

“What we’re doing in NSS-Supply is bringing both of those disciplines into the room,” Stamatopolous said. “We’re creating RFPs for not only the new procurement of parts, but also the sustainment, and bringing it together. That’s the first time that that’s happened in at least 20 years, and what it allows us to do is bring the full buying power of both the acquisition community and NAVSUP into the same room. We’re negotiating upfront sustainment before we talk about how many numbers of airplanes or components that we’re going to be purchasing. It’s a whole different approach to how we do contracting and acquisition. And it’s exciting.”

The committee will markup the bill on Wednesday in its usual marathon fashion, bringing the full panel together for hours of debate and dozens of amendments.

Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Monday that he has faith in the bipartisan nature of the bill, which has eventually make it into law every year for the last six decades.

“This year’s NDAA brings together ideas from across the Armed Services Committee to strengthen U.S. national security by investing in the rich diversity of people who work to defend our country: service members and their families, civil servants across the Department of Defense, scientists and researchers, and the workers who power our defense industrial base,” Smith said. “I am particularly proud that this year’s mark supports the highest pay raise for service members in decades, improves oversight for military family housing projects, and requires a report on a more fair and transparent way for the department to calculate the basic allowance for housing.”

Federal News Network put together a list of interesting provisions in this year’s bill and ones that are likely to draw the most debate this week.

Military end strength

The Defense Department wants to temporarily decrease its end strength, only by a marginal amount, for now the committee is going along with the plan.

However, even with the small drop in service members, lawmakers concerned about pacing with China and Russia are likely to object. Expect an amendment to show up that increases military end strength.

The Pentagon’s plan reduces the number of people in the military by about 4,600 people, that’s out of a total of 2.1 million.

The Pentagon says the goal is to make the military more capable, not bigger.

The Army is taking the biggest cut by shedding 3,000 soldiers. The service says it’s temporary considering the current job market and amount of resources the Army would need to put into recruitment for little gain.

“We want to make sure that we are maintaining our emphasis on high quality talent, and we are looking at making sure that we fill the needs of a cutting edge Army through things like our Multi-Domain Task Force, and we’re enabling them to use the equipment that we’re developing into the future,” Army Undersecretary Gabriel Camarillo said in March. “This is not a budget driven decision. It is entirely about quality, and we will look to build back up are entering over the future years defense plan.”

Red Hill Facility

The Pentagon decided to close the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Facility in Hawaii after a spill sickened people in the area.

The committee is putting multiple provisions in its version of the 2023 Defense authorization bill dealing with the facility. The bill requires the Navy secretary to defuel the facility by the end of 2023. The Defense secretary must also certify to the committee that the defueling will not impact the ability of DoD to provide fuel for operations in the Indo-Pacific region.

The committee is also hedging its bets, even though it’s requiring the facility to defuel, it is not positive about totally closing it. The bill bars any funds from being used to close Red Hill until one year after the Defense Secretary shows that operations will not be affected by its closure. The committee also wants a study for alternate uses for Red Hill.

Finally, the committee is focusing on the people sickened by the facility. The bill requires a study on the future water needs on the island of Oahu, including new wells, privatization of DoD utilities and construction of water treatment plants.

Women in the draft

This idea isn’t in the committee’s bill, but it’s likely to come up. In the past, amendments requiring women to sign up for Selective Service have passed in the House NDAA markup. Those provisions didn’t make it into the final bill, but this could be the year.

There will still be plenty of fireworks over the issue, however. The Senate’s version of the 2023 NDAA requires women to sign up for the draft.

Multiple Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) have already come out against the provision.

“Women have served in and alongside the Armed Forces since our nation’s founding. Time and again, they have answered the call of duty and served honorably — often heroically — when our nation needed them,” a handful of senators wrote to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) last week. “But they have done so of their own will. While American men are required to register for the military draft and fight if needed, these requirements have never been applied to American women. Where they have fought, they have done so freely.”

A commission looking at public service found in 2020 that women should be eligible for the draft.

“Ultimately, the commission determined the time is right to require women to register with Selective Service,” the authors wrote. “This policy change represents a necessary — and overdue — step that is in the best interests of the United States. Requiring all Americans to register with the Selective Service System is needed to ensure that during a national emergency, the government would be able to call on the talents of all Americans and demonstrate the resolve of a united country.”

The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency is adding more data categories to its “continuous vetting” program, while more than three dozen non-defense agencies are using DCSA’s services as it moves ahead with security clearance reform efforts.

DCSA is now monitoring 50,000 cleared individuals from 38 non-defense agencies under its continuous vetting program, according to Heather Green, assistant director of vetting risk operations at DCSA. That’s on top of the 3.6 million Defense Department service members, civilians and contractors who were enrolled in continuous vetting by last October.

“We do anticipate this continuing to grow through this fiscal year and beyond as we add those additional CV services,” Green said on Inside the IC. “So as more services and capability comes online, we’re going to continue to grow our service to our federal agencies, as well as our DoD customers.”

DCSA is one of the lead agencies implementing the government-wide “Trusted Workforce 2.0” initiative. The effort aims to streamline the government’s personnel vetting process through automated record checks, simplified security standards and more information sharing across agencies.

Earlier this year, a White House official called 2022 the “most significant, most consequential” year for security clearance reform yet.

DCSA’s continuous vetting system is one of the centerpieces of the initiative, giving investigators the ability to receive automated alerts when a security clearance holder faces an issue that could put their clearance at risk.

DCSA’s continuous vetting system hit the “1.25” milestone last fall when the DoD cleared population was fully enrolled. But the system at that time was limited to three data categories: criminal activities, terrorism, and eligibility.

The agency is now adding alerts about suspicious financial activity, foreign travel, credit history and “public record information” to the continuous vetting system on the way to the “Trusted Workforce 1.5” milestone this fall, according to Green. Already, 2 million DoD clearance holders are  enrolled in that expanded system of alerts.

The continuous vetting system is replacing periodic reinvestigations, where investigators would do a background check on a clearance holder every five or 10 years. Instead of learning about potentially suspicious activity years after it took place, the system is intended to provide security offices with alerts about such activity. Investigators can then decide whether to follow up.

But Green says continuous vetting is not a “gotcha” program. Instead, she says it’s intended to improve security while also giving cleared personnel the chance to self-report and mitigate any potential issues.

“In the grand scheme of things, very few individuals actually receive an alert or require the additional investigative action to take place,” Green said. “But CV isn’t just about generating those alerts. It really is about self-reporting. There are self-reporting requirements for clearance holders, and it’s really supporting the goal of helping us identify potential issues before they fester into a larger insider threat concern.”

Security clearance reciprocity timelines down

DCSA has also made major strides in the time it takes for it to process and adjudicate a security clearance granted by another agency, a process referred to as “reciprocity.” The process affects personnel transferring from one agency to another, as well as contractors working on different projects for different agencies.

DCSA now takes an average of just one day to make a reciprocity decision, down from a peak of 65 days in mid-2020, according to Green.

She credited “business process engineering” leading to more efficient decision-making on reciprocity requests, as well as the merger of several organizations under DCSA, including the former National Background Investigations Bureau and the DoD Consolidated Adjudications Facility.

Last year, DCSA also completed the shift from using multiple personnel security databases to the Defense Information Security System (DISS).

“Having the ability to control the end-to-end process was certainly a part of that success,” Green said of reciprocity.

While other agencies, most notably in the intelligence community, take much longer to make reciprocity decisions, Green thinks the “transfer of trust” process, as it’s called under Trusted Workforce 2.0, will continue to improve with time.

Initial vetting hurdles

One of the next major hurdles for security clearance reform will be speeding up the time it takes to get an initial applicant, with no prior government background investigation, through the vetting process. The initial background investigations process often takes months and even years in some cases, making it harder for the federal government to hire new employees.

A quarterly update issued by the Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council earlier this year shows DCSA is expected to begin offering initial vetting products, using more automated processes and the new National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) IT system, starting next June.

“We are committed to being what I would call the ‘personal security provider of choice,'” Green said. “We’re working very hard to provide new and enhanced products and services to support that full TW 2.0 implementation to include initial vetting products. The actual implementation of the new standards will take some time and will be fully phased in as those products and services are available. But we are leaning forward, looking at how we can continue to evolve all our vetting products and services.”

“In order to do that we’re focusing on the crown jewel of our strategic plan, which is this idea of VAULTIS, which stands for visible, accessible, understandable, linked, trustworthy, interoperable and secure,” Saul said during a June 16 Digital Government Institute webinar. “It’s a fancy name that the DoD came up with that really captures the key elements for what we strive for our data to be. There are a number of drivers, like I said; the Joint Staff and [Office of the Secretary of Defense] are trying to bring us along in this logistics operation space to make sure that our data is ready to go. And that we are, as it states in our DLA strategy, ready at a moment’s notice to make data-driven business decisions.”

Those efforts have come with a lot of questions. Those questions have largely been variations on “why now?” Leaders frequently ask Saul why data management suddenly requires more resources. Her response is that data has largely been managed in silos for the past few decades, and it gets migrated from system to system. But modern data strategies and use cases require a new approach.

“In today’s day and age, where data is is deemed a weapon — or they even say data analytics platform is almost like a weapon system of the future for the Department of Defense — we really need to be prepared and equipped to have access to our data very quickly, be able to understand our data, and not do what we’ve done in the past, which is really rely on a single person who has all of the knowledge,” Saul said. “And instead, we need to make sure that it’s well documented, we have the right data dictionaries in place, the correct metadata and metadata management tools to link the lineage of the data to the present day. ”

That makes cross functional applications and collaborations easier. For example, Saul said, when the Ukraine crisis began, DLA was able to access the data and build a number of products within just a few days. And that means a lot when resources are faster able to get to people whose lives are on the line. Similarly, DLA has also been able to create applications in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services as part of the COVID 19 response.

DLA is also working on an initiative called Information Visualization Evaluation, using DoD’s Advana analytics platform.

“We really have the opportunity to see how that platform works, and leverage the data that we’ve been sharing over the past six months or so with OSD and Advana. So we’ve shared over 30 data sources, [and] made a number of system connections to Advana,” she said. “DLA Information Visualization Evaluation was really an opportunity to see how we could enhance certain products that were already there, that the Joint Staff J4 had already been producing for a common operating picture, with class three energy or fuels as well as class one operational rations. And we also took it a step further with class one to have one of our developers go into the platform and utilize their developing skills to build out a new application that provided insight into the positioning and whereabouts of our items as far as operational rations go. So that was really a big step for us.”