Federal Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Mayock said last week that the administration’s Federal Sustainability Plan will put the federal government “back in a position where we’re leading by example” on climate goals for the private sector to emulate.

“The government basically sat out sustainability for four years, and at best, things stayed in place, and at worst, we went backward. So we’re in a rebuilding phase and a learning phase,” Mayock said on June 28 at the Federal Sustainability Forum, hosted by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and the Digital Climate Alliance.

President Biden, as part of an executive order he signed last year, expects agencies to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across all federal operations by 2050. That includes a 65% reduction by 2030.

“We’re not getting where we need to go, unless we focus on how we scale. And how we scale is through technology,” Mayock said.

Melanie Nakagawa, special assistant to the president and senior director for climate and energy at the National Security Council, said the leadership of at least 20 agencies is committed to implementing the administration’s clean-energy goals across the federal government.

“It’s really hard to find a department or agency that isn’t willing to take the call or engage,” Nakagawa said.

While agencies with the biggest climate impact are moving ahead on the administration’s sustainability goals, Mayock said the Federal Sustainability Plan focuses on making green initiatives a top priority governmentwide.

“We need to start acting and delivering as an enterprise, versus the deeply federated federal government that we are today. There are lots of efficiencies and lots of actions that we can take when we work better and more closely together,” he said.

The White House Council on Environmental Quality in May launched an interagency task force with the General Services Administration, the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency to develop the first-ever Federal Building Performance Standards.

The standards will establish metrics, targets and tracking methods to reach federal carbon emissions goals. Mayock said the standards, which he said will be publicly released in two or three months, will set standard performance goals across more than 300,000 federal buildings.

“The ways that we’ve executed this sustainability plan and past versions of it over past administrations, that didn’t speak to the decarbonization moment that we’re in today,” Mayock said.

While the administration is making government more sustainable where possible, several administration officials said some federal climate goals will rely more on cooperation with the private sector.

Mayock said emerging sustainability technologies, for example, will be crucial to meeting some of the federal government’s climate goals.

“A lot of the technology, but not all of the technology, is where we want to be. How do we handle that moment in the marketplace to make progress now, while we’re all pushing for the technology that we need to be delivered along the pathway?” Mayock said.

Tanuj Deora, CEQ’s director for clean energy, said the administration is trying to use its collective buying power to support sustainable energy industries but is also trying to overcome supply constraints in the market for goods like electric vehicles.

“We don’t want to be consumptive of the market’s ability to supply. We don’t want to crowd out other folks who are trying to invest. I know with electric vehicles right now, one of the biggest challenges GSA has is that the vehicles just aren’t available,” Deora said.

Deora said a pandemic-era shortage of semiconductor chips has limited the supply of all vehicles, including electric vehicles, for federal agencies to purchase.

White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator under the Obama administration, said last year that less than 1% of the federal fleet is plug-in electric vehicles, and that agencies bought only 200 electric vehicles in 2020.

Kinga Hydras, a sustainable program design expert with GSA’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, said electrifying the federal fleet also impacts plans to improve the energy efficiency of federal buildings.

“It’s not just buying the vehicles, it’s also creating the infrastructure and doing it in a smart way.  Now that it all plugs into our federal building portfolio, then how does that impact our energy consumption? How do we go about partnering with the utilities in the servicing markets, and maybe utilize the electric vehicle fleet as backup power. A lot of questions, a lot of opportunities out there,” Hydras said.

Hydras said GSA’s federal building portfolio within the Washington, D.C. metro area has reduced energy consumption by 60% through integrated energy retrofit projects.

GSA manages a portfolio of 370 million rentable square feet of space for more than a million federal employees. Its Federal Acquisition Service, meanwhile, oversees about $75 billion worth of annual contracts.

“We are all in it together. As most federal agencies and large organizations have silos, we do have silos too, but this aggressive goal brought us all together,” Hydras said.

The Energy Department, meanwhile, partnering with GSA to spend $13 million to retrofit and upgrade 17 federal facilities to reduce emissions and energy costs.

“We believe technology is way ahead. We see in the marketplace the technology’s there. We need to be smart about implementing and using everything in our tool house,” Hydras said.

Hydras pointed to the New Carrollton Federal Building as an example of a successful retrofit project. The building went through upgrades between 2012 to 201, which reduced the building’s energy consumption by 62% and cut water consumption in half.

Deora said federal agencies can better leverage data to find more buildings that stand to benefit the most from these sustainable upgrades, much like the New Carrollton Federal Building.

“It’s just a great example. There was one great value case, how can we take that and then replicate that and make that system-wide? We need to think about the value stack from not just energy or storage or whatever, but from the data itself,” Deora said.

The Biden administration is also looking to accelerate the pace of federal permitting and environmental reviews for thousands of infrastructure projects under the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The White House in May released a permitting action plan outlining ways agencies can ensure infrastructure spending projects remain on time and on budget.

However, Cole Simons, a policy adviser for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said that more federal permitting reforms to are needed to prevent wasteful infrastructure spending.

“We need to eliminate some of the duplicity that is in the process. We’ve got issues right now, where Army Corps [of Engineers] says yes. Six months later, the EPA drops in and says ‘Just kidding, no,’ and there’s already been steel put in the ground, or there’s already been a process started, that just creates more waste, both from having already started a process and having to end it and you’re just like, ‘Well, what do we do with stuff that’s already there?’ as well as a lot of financial waste and a lot of uncertainty provided to anybody who seeks to develop in the U.S,” Simons said.

As the director of the Buildings Technology Services Division at the General Services Administration’s Office of IT, Sandy Shadchehr said there has been a surge in desire for interconnected building systems over the past decade. In her office’s case, presidential mandates to integrate buildings for more, and more efficient data, are reinforcing the trend to migrate systems to the network.

“There’s a lot of IP-enabled devices. And with that, obviously, with the connectivity, with all those benefits that you get from connectivity, there comes the risk. And what is happening these days, back to your question is cyber, cyber, cyber,” she said on Federal Monthly Insights — IoT Security.

In the days of “standalone mode,” building systems were meant to last 20 or so years, and the risk levels were comparably low because those systems were not connected. Today, when system components are now IT components, the risk if greater, she said. But, interconnectivity can have preventative measures that bring on cost benefits.

“Once you have the systems interconnected and they communicate with each other, then you can actually have a dashboard that you can have in an entire building in a nice console that you’re looking at and you can start doing predictive analysis so that you’re not just waiting until system breaks down,” she said on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “You can actually have a way of systems sending you notification: This thing doesn’t sound like this, this piece of equipment is not working quite right.”

That can mean fewer people needed in the building at all times, as well as greater energy efficiency, she said. But it also raises questions around ownership of the data on those systems. If something is hacked, Shadchehr said, traditionally that was a problem for IT or the singular security person. She said GSA changed its stance and determined that everyone has a role in solving cybersecurity weaknesses, from the Public Buildings Service to the chief information officer, to the building manager, the operational management maintenance person, and the service center director.

Examples of cyber dangers to building systems include people obtaining data about the operations to predict when personnel are working, to disrupt operations by hacking into a building. GSA’s portfolio of critical buildings for the federal government’s more sensitive agencies are top of mind, and are why constant vigilance is required, she said.

“Another one is that there can be a disruption of operations. There could be a very sensitive court proceeding going on and somebody can turn the lights on and off, and that can disrupt, or it can make a building very hot in the middle of July in Arizona, or in Texas,” she said. “They can make it unbearable to be in the building or incredibly cold, and the pipes get burst … so many things, so many scenarios that can happen, absolutely.”

Part of the predictive analytics of buildings systems Shadchehr described comes from occupancy and environmental sensors. The former can be things like thermostats and motion-detected room lights. COVID-19 was a game changer for these, as agencies needed to spread out their building occupancy for social distancing. At GSA headquarters in Washington, D.C., they used sensors to determine where to place people throughout the building. It is not just cameras but also devices using wifi or Bluetooth can alert a censor when they enter the building. The Office of IT is tapping into the Internet of Things to see what works and what does not compromise security or privacy.

“We’ve done a few different pilots to see what works better for us. And we have buildings and all shapes and sizes and color so it’s we have to probably try different types of things for different types of buildings that we have,” Shadchehr said.

Sensors and networks produce data, and the “mad rush” of IoT inspired a similar dash to collect that data. Just because GSA is collecting that data does not mean it will “just talk with each other,” she said. The Office of IT wants to work closely with the Office of Design and Construction to ensure the IT backbone is installed in new construction to be an afterthought.

“It’s a lot easier to put it in place or to build it correctly, as you’re building the building, instead of going back and retroactively try to fit that. We’ve been in that scenario many times, and it’s a lot more costly, a lot more time consuming to basically fit a square peg in a round hole,” she said.

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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 General Services Administration told lawmakers in a phone briefing Friday that sites in Greenbelt and Landover, Maryland, and Springfield, Virginia continue to meet the agency’s mission needs.

The FBI has been working with GSA, as the federal government’s landlord, on plans for a new consolidated headquarters for nearly two decades.

House lawmakers, meanwhile, have recently proposed the first new tranche of money for a suburban FBI headquarters in the early stages of planning for fiscal 2023 appropriations.

The Biden administration, in its FY 2023 budget request, revisited plans under previous administrations to relocate the FBI headquarters to the D.C. suburbs.

Congress repeatedly stonewalled funding requests from the Trump administration to build a new FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the site of the current J. Edgar Hoover building.

The Maryland and Virginia congressional delegations are both vying for the new FBI headquarters to be built in their state.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) Ben Cardin (D-Md.), House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) urged GSA in a statement Friday to select a final headquarters location this fall.

“Today’s GSA finding that the two Maryland FBI campus sites remain viable options to meet the needs of the Bureau is another positive step towards our goal of securing a new, consolidated headquarters,” the lawmakers wrote.

“For far too long, the FBI workforce has remained in a building that does not meet their security or operational needs. That’s why we will keep pushing for the new headquarters, and we are confident that the Maryland sites in Greenbelt and Landover are the best locations,” they added.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) praised GSA’s determination that the Springfield site remains “a viable and competitive location for the new FBI headquarters.”

“This is an important milestone in the site selection process, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Administration to bring an FBI headquarters that best supports the mission of the FBI, to Northern Virginia,” the lawmakers wrote.

The House Appropriations Committee, in its draft financial services and general government spending bill for FY 2023, released Wednesday, would give GSA $500 million to build a new FBI headquarters.

Congress, as part of the fiscal 2022 omnibus spending bill, requested a briefing from the FBI and GSA on the viability of relocating the headquarters to one of the three potential sites. 

The FY 2023 spending bill also includes language that authorizes the administration to use previously appropriated funds to construct a consolidated FBI headquarters at one of the suburban sites.

Hoyer and Brown joined Reps. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), John Sarbanes (D-Md.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and David Trone (D-Md.) saying in a statement that the funding contained in the spending bill would “ensure that the Biden Administration has the resources it needs once it selects a site to move forward with construction of the new headquarters this fall.”

“The FBI will soon have a headquarters that meets its security requirements and allows it to carry out its vital national security mission,” the lawmakers said in a statement.

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The Air Force’s decision to pick Huntsville, Alabama, as the new headquarters of U.S. Space Command has been controversial from the start. And a new review by the Government Accountability Office says the selection process had a lot of problems. GAO doesn’t opine on whether Huntsville was the right or wrong decision. But the office says the Air Force made some fundamental missteps when it deviated from its own base selection framework. Instead, the ad hoc version it used for the Space Command selection had serious credibility and transparency problems. Elizabeth Field is director of Defense Capability and Management Issues at GAO. And she joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin to talk more about the findings.

Interview transcript:

Jared Serbu: Elizabeth, thanks for doing this. And before we dive into the bulk of the report, I want to set this up a bit by just pointing out to listeners that there is kind of two different versions of this report. The publicly releasable one does not have as much detail in it, because the Defense Department considered a lot of those facts and figures to be privileged and did not want them in the final report. First of all, how unusual is that in the context of this sort of information, and then maybe you could describe a little bit to us what’s not in the final report?

Elizabeth Field: Sure. It’s it’s not that unusual for us to issue two versions of a report, one that is sensitive or even classified, that is available to members of Congress, and then one that is fully unclassified and available to the public. And it’s certainly not unusual. And in a situation like this one, where we were looking at a very sensitive strategic basing decision for the department to designate information as being sensitive. In this case, some of the information that we have had to omit from the report includes things like the number and names of candidates that the Air Force would have considered under an amended enterprise definition. Certainly some of the specific numerical candidate scores and rankings, that the Air Force concluded where their rankings during part of the process have been omitted. And also certain input to some deliberations that happened before a meeting at the White House in January 2021, that we talked about in our report. So those are just a few examples.

Jared Serbu: Got it. I just wanted to make that clear before we dig into the meat here. Okay. And then as far as the meat, essentially, as I understand what’s going on here is Space Command basically borrowed the Air Force’s strategic basing process and then sort of partway through the Air Force modified that process, essentially, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense. Have I got that about right?

Elizabeth Field: Pretty much. So the Air Force does have an instruction. It’s called an Air Force instruction, that guides strategic basic decisions. And it was a process that it was following for the most part, up until about March 2020. Then to your point, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper directed the Air Force to reopen the process and revise the process to model the Army’s future command basing process that it had used. I should note that that process was also not consistent with an existing policy. So there really wasn’t policy that the Air Force was or could follow at that point. The memo from Secretary Esper essentially superseded the Air Force instruction.

Jared Serbu: But I think the point here is that the Air Force could still have built a process or followed a process that used all of the best practices that GAO’s identified whenever you’re doing any kind of analysis of alternatives. And you found some serious shortcomings there. You want to briefly take us through what those were?

Elizabeth Field: Sure, well, and first, I want to very much affirm your question about whether the Air Force still could have followed best practices? And the answer is absolutely. And in fact, that’s the reason that GAO created these best practices back in 2016. We recognize that there was not a broadly recognized set of guidelines that federal government agencies or even private sector entities could use to help consider different options and alternatives when they were faced with a question like the one that the Air Force was faced with in this instance. So we applied what we call our analysis of alternatives criteria to the Air Force’s process for selecting the SPACECOM-preferred location. And what we found, were quite a number of weaknesses. So those criteria that I just mentioned, are grouped into four characteristics of a high quality, reliable process. And those characteristics are comprehensive, well documented, credible, and unbiased.

And we went through a fairly methodical approach of applying our criteria where we actually come up with a numerical score that we can give to the Air Force for each of those characteristics. And what we found is that the Air Force substantially met the comprehensive characteristics. So in that case, there were some good things that the Air Force did, but it only partially met The well documented and unbiased characteristics, and it minimally met the credible characteristic. And just to give you a few examples of some of the problems that we identified, the Air Force changed the definition of some of the criteria that it used over time as it was trying to evaluate the candidate locations. The Air Force also changed how it was weighting different criteria, which is important because you want to maintain however you are weighting different criteria across the board. There was no independent review conducted of the process, which typically the Air Force would do, and so on, and so forth. So there really were quite a lot of problems.

Jared Serbu: I wonder to what extent if at all, the Air Force deserves a bit of a pass here in the sense that they were directed to deviate from what would have been their normal practice, again, by the secretary, in a pretty heavily politicized environment, and in a situation that’s really kind of a one-off for them, right? Because they’re not making a basing decision for one of their own bases. They’re acting as the executive agent for someone else. There’s a lot of uniqueness about this event that in some ways, it’s understandable that they would deviate from their own processes, isn’t it?

Elizabeth Field: Well, it’s certainly understandable that they might deviate from their own process. I think where things went south is that in doing so, they made some mistakes that are really pretty fundamental problems that if you don’t have those sort of boxes checked, you’re gonna have a problem at the end of the day. But that is why we, our recommendation in this report is that moving forward, the Air Force, establish guidance that is consistent with our practices that it can apply to future basing decisions such as this one, so that it doesn’t run into the same problems that it did this time around.

Jared Serbu: Well one thing I do want to make clear is it didn’t seem like any of the people that you talked to, or that were stakeholders in this process, had the sense that Huntsville was a bad choice in the end. It was always considered among the top tier of possible locations for Space Command. So whatever one thinks of the process and how the Air Force got there, there’s not really a risk, that Space Command is going to end up in a bad place for its needs. Is that fair?

Elizabeth Field: That is fair. So there are six final candidate locations, all of them are considered what is termed reasonable alternatives to the selected location, meaning, any of those six the Air Force has determined could meet the mission need.

Jared Serbu: But the process is still problematic, right? And I think you make this point in your conclusion that the public needs to have confidence that the process is sound, so that things don’t go off the rails next time and where a bad choice really could be made.

Elizabeth Field: That’s right. I mean, ideally, even if someone disagrees with the final decision and doesn’t like the location that was picked for reasons that are pretty obvious, they should still have competence that the process was handled appropriately and responsibly. And that just didn’t happen here.

Jared Serbu: What more specifically, could the Air Force do? I mean, did they need to design and write down a process that is tailorable for something like this, where they’re called upon to go outside of the way they would normally use a basing process for their own bases, for their own needs?

Elizabeth Field: Well, our best practices that we recommend they adopt in guidance for future processes allow for tailoring to whatever the question is that you’re approaching. And so, and this is really important to point out, a certain amount of professional judgment is always going to be part of any process like this, and our criteria account for that. So it’s really more about making sure that you have a methodology that you have clearly defined from the outset that you don’t deviate from, in the middle of the process, that you clearly document, the assumptions that you’ve made, the methodology that you’re using, the decisions that you’re making along the way. And then you do things like having an independent review to ensure impartiality, and conducting something called a sensitivity review, where you test the assumptions in your model and see how changes to those assumptions affect your outcomes. The Air Force really didn’t do any of those things.

Jared Serbu: And I think maybe this is just a piece that’s not in the final report. But I think one of the big missing pieces were cost differentials between possible alternatives, how much they would save or spend if they went with a different location.

Elizabeth Field: That’s right. So one of our best practices is that the body that is conducting the process considered sort of full lifecycle costs of whatever the decision is that they’re trying to make. And we found that there were some costs that were not considered at all, such as any cost that might be incurred for relocation of Space Command. Right now it is provisionally located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. So those costs weren’t considered, maintenance of infrastructure costs were not considered. We also found that there were costs that the Air Force just couldn’t document how they calculated them. So there’s something called high altitude, electromagnetic pulse shielding. It’s also known as hemp shielding. And it’s really important though, because it protects communications technology from high intense energy attack, essentially. And the Air Force told us they had some experts who came up with those cost estimates, but they couldn’t show us where that was documented. So all of those things are problematic.

Jared Serbu: Elizabeth, pretty strong language in this report by GAO standards, and you found what you’ve talked about are serious problems. Why is there not a recommendation here for the Air Force to go back and redo its work the right way?

Elizabeth Field: Well, I appreciate that question. And there are a couple of answers to that. The first and most important here is that that is ultimately a judgment call. It is a policy call. And GAO is not a policymaking body. This decision has not yet been finalized. And so it is up to the Air Force, along with Congress and others to weigh the costs and benefits of potentially redoing the process. The second reason is, we did not in this report seek to validate the decision that the Air Force made. We don’t suggest whether the Air Force made the “correct decision” or not, or even whether the Air Force would have come to a different conclusion had it fully applied our best practices. And so the lack of a recommendation to redo the process should not be taken as an endorsement of Redstone Arsenal as the preferred location, or denigration of Redstone Arsenal as the preferred location.

Jared Serbu: And I guess that brings up one last question, which is, would it be possible for the Air Force to work backwards here a little bit? Fill in some of the missing data, do some of the the legwork that wasn’t done as part of the process in order to solve some of the credibility and transparency problems that you identified without going all the way back to the beginning? Or is the problem just that the data doesn’t exist and can’t be recreated at this point?

Elizabeth Field: Well, it’s certainly the case that some of the data cannot be recreated. When we tried to collect the documentation that the Air Force had compiled to do the analysis. We weren’t able to collect it in many cases, either because it never existed, or because it had been lost. The Air Force pointed to a software update that caused them to lose some of their documentation. I think it also would be hard to ameliorate all of the problems that we found with this process, because some of them were there from the beginning, for example, not clearly defining criteria, and so it would be hard to go back and do that.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is set to increase in-office work for union-covered employees starting June 13, but the union representing those workers is pushing back against the agency’s plans.

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 1,400 EEOC employees, said the agency made changes to its COVID-19 safety plan without completing union negotiations.

Moving from one day up to two days per week in the office has been EEOC’s plan for bargaining unit employees since early May, but in response to the lack of negotiations, the union filed a fourth unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint on June 8 against the commission.

“While the plan states that EEOC workplaces should not be more than 25% occupied during periods of high community transmission, the agency contradicted this agreement in a message sent to employees. This unilateral change is substantially impacting working conditions, including the health and safety of the workplace, as exposure incidents are occurring in numerous offices, including those in high transmission areas,” AFGE wrote in a statement.

Rachel Shonfield, AFGE president for council 216, said in an interview with Federal News Network that 64% of the agency’s field offices were in either high or medium COVID-19 transmission levels.

“When the agency is trying to push to two days, it just isn’t a safe time to do that. There are really problematic conditions,” she said.

Frontline EEOC employees in the union are the last group of the agency’s employees to return to an office setting. Previously, senior leaders, supervisors and managers returned to the office on a similar timeline, starting at one day per week for the first month, then moving up to two days per week.

AFGE recommended bringing EEOC union employees back to the office in a phased approach based on local COVID-19 transmission levels, but the union said the agency implemented a generalized return-to-office plan without completing negotiations.

Shonfield said she’s concerned about the agency wanting to bring all employees back to the office, regardless of whether they have public-facing duties. She said it’s critical to get an agreement and wants employees to remain at only one day per week in the office due to rising COVID-19 levels in some areas.

“Our bargaining unit is very committed to carrying out our duties that put in place the civil rights laws that we enforce, and we’ve been doing that effectively for two years remotely,” Shonfield said. “We have a plan for how we could offer some services in person for members of the public who need to come in. There’s a way to do that safely and still only have folks coming into the office one day and possibly more if they have public facing duties that need to occur in the office.”

EEOC Communications Director Victor Chen told Federal News Network that its COVID-19 coordination team continuously monitors transmission rates of the virus in communities at its headquarters office and its 53 field offices across the country. The team updates EEOC employees every week.

“When community levels are high in the county where an EEOC office is located, all EEOC employees, contractors and visitors are required to wear masks, regardless of vaccination status,” Chen said. “Individuals who are not vaccinated are required to follow EEOC’s screening testing program.”

EEOC said it also follows governmentwide health and safety guidance, monitors local COVID-19 conditions and requires masks in the office in counties with high transmission. The agency is following the lead of the Safer Federal Workforce task force, which last week clarified and added new guidance on governmentwide COVID-19 policies.

“Per the [task force’s] current guidance, occupancy limits no longer apply to federal workplaces. Previously, occupancy limits were based on CDC’s community transmission rates, which are now obsolete,” Chen said. “The [task force] requires federal agencies to review community levels weekly to determine current safety protocols.”

Shonfield also wrote two letters in the last two weeks to EEOC Chairwoman Charlotte Burrows about health and safety concerns in increasing to two days a week of in-person work.

“The agency has received the union’s letter and the issues the union raised are being carefully considered. The agency currently has no plans to change the reentry timeline for staff, but will continue to closely monitor local conditions and public health guidance and respond accordingly,” Chen said.

Chen added that EEOC headquarters and field office staff are able to physically distance with the current one-day-per-week schedule and that will still be possible once staff begin returning to the office two days per week.

“In-office days are staggered and, where necessary, staff schedules have been adjusted to allow for distancing,” he said.

But telework also works well in many cases, the agency said, specifically for its mediation program – an alternative way that the agency resolves workplace disputes. In a June 1 press release, EEOC reported that its virtual mediation program has been “highly successful.”

“EEOC mediators found that online mediation is easier to use and more flexible than in-person mediation, achieved similar or better quality and value of settlements for both parties and increased access to justice for charging parties,” the press release stated. “Participants cited flexibility, convenience, cost savings and a ‘safe space’ as reasons for preferring online mediation.”

Currently there is no further information on the agency’s reentry plan after it expires on Dec. 31, but EEOC will use its reentry procedures this year to inform future plans for in-office work. EEOC continues to communicate with the union and considers AFGE valuable in ensuring a safe and successful return to physical offices, Chen said.

Shonfield, though, continues to push for more response from EEOC leaders to work through negotiations, which are currently on hold.

“The ball is in the agency’s court,” she said.

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• Federal workers who get injured on the job may soon have better access to workers’ compensation. The House passes legislation that would expand federal employees’ choice of medical providers. The act would cover the cost of medical care for injured federal workers who seek treatment from physician assistants and nurse practitioners. The current law limits reimbursable medical fees just to physicians. The bipartisan bill cleared the House in a vote of 325-83.
• The Senate reversed a 16-year-old law that made it harder for contractors to respond to disasters. The Repeal of Obsolete DHS Contracting Requirements Act rescinded a section of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. This provision required the Department of Homeland Security to prohibit the use of subcontracts for more than 65% of the cost of certain emergency response and recovery contracts. The section conflicted with a provision of the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act that imposed a governmentwide limitation to prevent excessive subcontracting. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who co-sponsored the bill, said the provision caused confusion for FEMA officials and contractors, and weakened disaster response efforts.

• Two senators are urging President Joe Biden to update what they say is an outdated government classification system. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said there is an urgent need to modernize rules governing classification and declassification. They are urging Biden to either amend or replace the current executive order on classified national security information. Earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers that overclassification is a threat to U.S. national security.

• The agency that manages the Thrift Savings Plan has a new team of leaders. The Senate confirmed four members to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. Dana Bilyeu and Michael Gerber are reappointments, while Leona Bridges and Stacie Olivares are new board members. The confirmation comes after six Republican senators placed a hold on the nominees last month. The lawmakers raised concerns about Chinese investments through the TSP’s mutual fund window, but after the members said they would not let TSP funds invest in China, the senators lifted the hold.

• Federal employees have a chance to help improve the Freedom of Information Act process. The FOIA Federal Advisory Committee is looking for new members after the current group finished its fourth term. The committee is made up of 20 members, divided evenly among the public and private sectors. Members serve two-year terms and attend monthly meetings to discuss possible improvements to the FOIA process. Applications for the 2022 to 2024 committee are due on June 30. The committee is a part of the Office of Government Information Services.

• The National Archives’ FOIA Federal Advisory Committee offered 21 ways departments across the government can improve the Freedom of Information Act process. The committee’s recommendations include advising agencies to post information beyond what is required by law on their FOIA websites and to proactively update an online searchable FOIA log. Their report also includes possible ideas for expanding documents included in FOIA to the judicial branch.

• The Postal Service’s regulator finds USPS’ plans to upgrade some its package services might lead to inefficiencies. The Postal Service’s proposal would upgrade service standards for its retail ground and Parcel Select Ground services to a 2-to-5 day delivery standard. USPS currently allows up to 8 days to deliver under its standard. But the Postal Regulatory Commission in a nonbinding opinion finds the plan may lead to more manual processing of packages and a higher demand for staff at facilities. The PRC says this could lead to disruptions in processing and transportation as well as cost increases. The commission’s raised concerns about USPS slowing some first-class mail and its first-class package service.

• A key group behind the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is rebranding. The CMMC Accreditation Body is now the Cyber AB. The independent group is responsible for accrediting organizations and individuals to conduct CMMC assessments of defense contractors. The Cyber AB said the new name is less phonetically challenging and helps differentiate it from the internal Defense Department program office. The Pentagon is still moving forward with the cyber certification program, but is not expecting to publish final rules requiring CMMC assessments until next year.

• Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Langley is nominated as the next chief of U.S. Africa Command. In that position he will be responsible for operations in the Africa area of responsibility. Langley is currently the head of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command. He will take over for Army Gen. Stephen Townsend.

• The Army laid out its digital transformation and budget priorities for 2023. It’s asking for almost $17 billion for its IT and cybersecurity budget in fiscal 2023. About $2 billion of that is for cybersecurity operations. Raj Iyer, the Army’s CIO, said 2023 is a year of inflection for their digital transformation journey. “Our technologies, our networks, how we get to data centricity, how we address cybersecurity, all of these things need to be addressed from that future threat perspective.” Iyer said investments in cloud, business system modernization and the unified network top his priority list. (Federal News Network)

• Women veterans now have more options to get screened for breast cancer. Biden signed two bills into law that will expand veterans’ access to mammograms. One bill expands the eligibility of veterans who were exposed to toxic chemicals to get the test. The other bill creates a plan to improve access to breast imaging services in rural areas where the Department of Veterans Affairs does not offer in-house tests. Female veterans are three times more likely to develop invasive breast cancer and it is currently the leading cancer affecting women who served in the military.

• A bill to help VA staff up in underserved areas is introduced in the House. The VA Workforce Investment and Expansion Act would require the VA to create a national VA Rural Recruitment and Hiring Plan, and allow the agency to waive pay caps for certain positions to compete with the private sector. The bill would also expanding hiring opportunities for housekeeping aides, which is one of the most understaffed and hardest to hire positions across the VA.

USPS announced Wednesday that it would soon publish a Notice of Intent that will supplement the Final Environmental Impact Statement for its next-generation delivery vehicle (NGDV) fleet.

USPS said that update will reflect its plans to consolidate its delivery facilities across the country, which may justify the agency purchasing more electric vehicles as part of its next-generation fleet.

“Delivery network and related route refinements may alter the appropriate mix of vehicles to be procured under the NGDV contract,” the agency said Wednesday.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, speaking at the National Postal Forum in Phoenix last month, said USPS will consolidate delivery units into Sort and Delivery Centers, with enough space, docks and mail processing equipment to operate more efficiently than its current infrastructure.

DeJoy, speaking Thursday at a Reuters event on supply chain execution in Chicago, elaborated on the agency’s consolidation plans.

“We are consolidating our routes. Our routes, which normally might have 20, 24 carriers and reach 40,000 people, will now have 300, 400 carriers and reach 600,000 people,” DeJoy said.

USPS, he added, operates 220,000 routes that deliver to 160 million addresses six days a week.

DeJoy said this consolidation would add more miles to most delivery routes, and that longer routes would result in a better cost analysis for electric vehicles.

Letter carriers affected by this consolidation would drive more miles out to their delivery stops, and more miles to return to the Sort and Delivery Centers.

DeJoy said the plan would also streamline the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, as it would reduce the number of facilities where charging stations are needed.

“The big, big risk in this is the infrastructure to accommodate for this. Well, we’re going to use a lot of our old plants and existing plants. We have hundreds and hundreds of them around the country. They have good amperage, they’re industrial facilities, and they can accept the infrastructure that’s necessary,” DeJoy said.

USPS delivery vehicles currently operate from almost 19,000 delivery units around the country.

DeJoy said he spoke with members of Congress yesterday before USPS announced it would update its environmental impact statement.

“I need to get vehicles, and we’ll explore electric vehicles as it makes financial sense,” he said. “There will be a lot of politicians saying they forced us into this. Not so! This is going to be an ongoing financial analysis, and where it applies and where we can accommodate, we’re going to do it, just like I said from the beginning.”

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), in a hearing last month, called on USPS to increase the number of electric vehicles that it purchases, and has requested documents from USPS on its fleet acquisition plans. 

Maloney said in a statement Wednesday that she was pleased by the USPS announcement to update its environmental impact statement.

“The Postal Service’s original EIS was deeply flawed, which is why I have been urging the Postal Service to issue a new EIS for months. Neither the Postal Service nor the American people can afford a gas-guzzling postal fleet that will damage our environment when clean, electric vehicles are an option,” Maloney said.

Maloney said she still has many questions about USPS plans to consolidate facilities and “will be monitoring this closely to ensure that mail is delivered on time as the American people expect and deserve.”

Joe Britton, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, said USPS still plans on “locking in decades of reliance on gas-powered trucks” as part of its next-generation fleet.

“We saw USPS ignore the crucial cost savings and societal benefits that electrification would bring to its delivery service and the public, using an error-ridden environmental analysis to justify procuring an overwhelmingly gas-powered fleet that will leave Americans worse off,” Britton said.

As part of this consolidation, DeJoy said USPS will close annexes around the country “that add cost, transportation and foster inefficient and ad-hoc operations.”

Annexes are USPS facilities separate from post offices used for mail delivery functions, but may not offer full retail services to customers. USPS said the consolidation will not change its retail presence.

DeJoy said these changes to the USPS network and local operations will take years to accomplish, but said each plant and delivery unit included in this overhaul “will provide immediate, systemwide benefits.”

To get USPS to break even starting in 2024, after 15 years of net financial losses, DeJoy said USPS needs to cut costs and increase revenue.

But with continued declines in first-class mail, the most profitable product for USPS, DeJoy said the agency is looking to expand its package business.

“Mail volume has continued to go down, so I have to supplement it with something. Home delivery is expected to go up somewhere between 4% and 8%. We’re going to capitalize on our piece of that,” he said.

To become a bigger player in the competitive package business, DeJoy said large regional plants, like one a million-square-foot facility being built in Atlanta, will help USPS reach more customers.

“You can enter a product into that plant and hit 5 million people next-day. And when we consolidate our delivery units, you can enter into our delivery units, like a lot of big players do, and instead of reaching, you know, 40,000 people, you can reach 750,000 people — next-day, if you do it in the afternoon, maybe same-day,” DeJoy said.

The network transformation initiative will impact nearly 500 network mail processing locations, 1,000 transfer hubs and 100,000 carrier routes. It will also impact 10,000 delivery units, which USPS defines as post offices, stations, branches or carrier annexes that handle mail delivery functions.

USPS announced in March it spent nearly $3 billion on 50,000 next-generation vehicles as part of its initial order to the vendor Oshkosh Defense. More than 10,000 vehicles as part of that initial order are electric vehicles — double its previous estimate.

USPS expects electric vehicles will make up at least 10% of its next-generation fleet, but remains open to purchasing more electric vehicles if its finances improve, or if Congress authorizes funding to support its acquisition.

USPS officials recently told the House Oversight and Reform Committee the agency was able to purchase more electric vehicles than previously expected because of the rising cost of gasoline, as well as long-term savings the agency is counting on, now that Congress has passed the first major piece of postal reform legislation in 15 years.

USPS is facing three separate lawsuits over its plans to purchase mostly gas-powered vehicles as part of its next-generation fleet.

The lawsuits argue USPS set the estimated cost for electric vehicles unrealistically high as part of its environmental impact statement but placed a low bar for the future price of gasoline.

USPS expects next-generation vehicles, including electric vehicles, will first appear on routes in late 2023.

USPS began its search for replacement vehicles in 2015. Next-generation delivery vehicles will have air conditioning and heating and improved ergonomics.

The vehicles will also have 360-degree cameras, advanced braking and traction control, airbags, and a front-and rear-collision avoidance system that includes visual, audio warning, and automatic braking.

The vehicles will also have increased cargo capacity to maximize efficiency and better accommodate higher mail and package volumes.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is still planning to reshape its real estate footprint across the country, even if a commission meant to refine these changes doesn’t come into focus.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough told reporters Wednesday that he’s concerned the Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission, which doesn’t have any Senate-confirmed members yet, won’t have enough time to review the agency’s plan to close some medical facilities and build others.

“If the commissioners are not confirmed, then we’ll continue to work this,” McDonough said.

President Joe Biden submitted eight AIR Commission nominees to the Senate in March, but the Senate VA Committee has not yet held a confirmation hearing for those nominees.

Federal employee unions, meanwhile, continue to hold rallies and pressure the Senate not to confirm nominees to the AIR Commission.

The VA issued its recommendations to the AIR Commission in March. The agency, under this plan, is looking to close approximately three dozen VA medical centers (VAMCs), but would replace about half of them with new construction. The VA would permanently close the other half, and would shift veteran care to local VA inpatient and outpatient facilities.

VA’s report kicks off a yearlong process of the commission reviewing the recommendations, holding public hearings and submitting its own recommendations to Congress and Biden by the end of January 2023.

Biden has until Feb. 15, 2023, to approve the AIR Commission’s final recommendations. If he doesn’t submit his approval to Congress before March 30, 2023, the process for modernizing and realigning VA’s facilities under the 2018 MISSION Act ends.

But if the AIR Commission process doesn’t move forward, the MISSION Act still requires the VA to conduct four-year reviews of its real-estate needs in each of its regional health care markets.

McDonough said the VA would be on the verge of starting the next quadrennial review soon.

“If there’s no commissioners, there’s still a statute. We still have these needs, and so we’ll be looking at what our options are there. But we’ll continue to communicate with the workforce, with you all, and with our veterans to make sure that everybody understands precisely the decisions we’re going to make. None of these decisions will be made behind closed doors,” he said.

The American Federation of Government Employees has held several rallies protesting the planned closure of VA medical facilities across the country.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) opposes the closure of two VA medical centers in Manhattan and Brooklyn. House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) also opposes plans to close the VAMC in Manhattan.

McDonough said in March that the changes envisioned in the AIR Commission recommendations, even if the process moves forward as planned, are still “decades away” from being implemented.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley told reporters last month at the union’s annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C. that the AIR Commission was a “closure commission,” comparable to the Base Realignment and Consolidation (BRAC) process at the Defense Department.

“This commission is designed to close VA facilities. That means that veterans would not have the care that they need. That means that the veterans would not have beds to sleep in when they have issues. That is a disgrace for our country,” Kelley said.

AFGE is directing its members to write to their senators, urging them not to confirm members to the AIR Commission.

“If the Commission is not seated by early 2023, its authority dies, and the closures will be halted,” AFGE’s webpage states. “The AIR Commission process is fatally flawed. We need to stop it cold and start a new process that actually focuses on investing in our veterans and their health.”

Meanwhile, McDonough said the VA is scrutinizing the market research that served as the basis for its AIR Commission recommendations.

The market research started in 2019, but doesn’t account for shifts in demand that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

McDonough said a VA “red team” and the Government Accountability Office both determined that the market research data was too old, and needs further review.

The VA has set up a process where regional VA officials can provide the AIR Commission with new information about their market needs. McDonough said he’s eager to get updated data from two of his recent VAMC visits in Chillicothe, Ohio and Coatesville, Pennsylvania.

“There will be others who want to provide updated data to the commissioners as well. And so I hope they are confirmed, and can get to work, because we’ve got important information to get to them, as well as important updates to get to them,” he said.

Regardless of the AIR Commission’s next steps, McDonough said the VA continues to spend too much money on maintenance and updates to aged medical facilities.

“We’re in a less strong position to invest in the modernized new facilities that we know we need in so many fast-growing markets,” he said.

‘Intense frustration’ over EHR rollout

The VA, meanwhile, continues to hear concerns about the rollout of its new Electronic Health Record.

McDonough said he heard “specific concerns about safety” regarding the new Cerner Electronic Health Record at a recent visit to the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, but said the rollout remains on track for now.

While McDonough expressed “intense frustration” with a series of EHR outages, he said he would let VA’s patient safety experts across the country assess whether outages and other EHR concerns warrant further delays in the rollout.

“We have patient safety experts here who are engaged in processes across the country, in our facilities in every community, making those assessments. I’m going to take my risk advice from those clinicians, working then with our clinicians on the ground,” he said.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough told the House VA Committee last month about his concerns with the EHR rollout to date, but said the agency will press ahead with the rollout.

“The only reason to do this is if it has clinical value and improves outcomes for our veterans. Our clinicians continue to believe that it will and that it does. If it ever stops being the case, then I’ll come here and I’ll tell you that we’re not going to proceed, but I don’t have a basis on which to make that decision yet,” McDonough told the committee at an April 28 hearing.

The Spokesman-Review first reported Cerner has not kept the EHR in Spokane, Washington online consistently enough to meet a benchmark in its contract with the VA.

As a result, Cerner is giving the VA a credit in exchange for falling short of its “uptime” targets.

The VA inspector general’s office has issued several reports about the EHR rollout, but McDonough said many of these reports have highlighted concerns the agency has already addressed.

“So much of the reporting from the IG to date has been really going back to the start of the effort in Spokane – not all of it – but we want to make sure that we’re staying current, so that we can both account for what’s happened heretofore, but then that we’re making changes,” McDonough said.

VA seeks AI solutions to veteran suicides

The VA is also looking at artificial intelligence and automation tools to address veteran suicides.

Dr. Matthew Miller, VA’s executive director for suicide prevention, said the VA answers 2,000 calls a day, within 10 seconds or less, through its Veterans Crisis Line, and is looking at how technology can help the VA workforce keep up with the incoming call volume.

“We’re looking for ways to advance artificial intelligence to help us to address demand and capacity,” Miller said.

The Federal Communications Commission this summer will enable individuals to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988. Veterans under this new system will be routed to the Veterans Crisis Line.

Miller said the VA expects a “significant increase in demand” once 988 launches nationwide.

The VA is launching an innovation challenge online to help the VA develop new suicide prevention strategies for veterans. Participants in the challenge, called Mission Daybreak, must submit their concept online no later than July 8.

By the end of the challenge, 40 teams will receive awards ranging from $100,000 to $3 million. The VA expects to award $20 million in total through this challenge.

“Mission Daybreak creates a marketplace, if you will, for innovation around suicide prevention. Within this marketplace, we create an idea, we create a vision of what we’re looking for to advance the veteran suicide prevention mission,” Miller said.

The targets are part of the service’s new climate change strategy, which the Navy released on Tuesday. The document follows the broader Defense Department strategy, which braces the military against the future effects of extreme weather and attempts to mitigate some of the Pentagon’s impacts on the environment.

“The Navy is truly in the crosshairs of the climate crisis and it does impact our combat readiness at the Naval Academy and out in the fleet and in the Marine Corps as well too,” Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee last week. “We’re making great strides to try to come to terms with this.”

Del Toro noted that Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany became the military’s first net-zero base this month, meaning it gets as much power from renewable resources as it does from fossil fuels.

The report laid out a handful of specific targets that will achieve two specific goals: making sure the Navy and its facilities can operate in a world impacted by climate change; and reducing the Navy’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

To reduce waste, the Navy will cut back emissions by 65% by 2050, will get all of its power from carbon pollution-free sources by 2030 and buy zero-emissions vehicles by 2035. All light-duty vehicles will be zero-emission by 2027. The Navy will also reduce emissions from buildings by 50% by 2032 and divert at least half of its waste from landfills by using other methods like composting food.

The Navy has made efforts in the past to cut back on emissions, but never to this extent. In 2016, it launched its Great Green Fleet, which used alternative fuels to power ships and other vehicles.

The service is developing 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.

“The Navy is leveraging public and private innovation in the climate and energy resilience sectors by implementing Silicon Valley-based principles through NavalX Tech Bridges and business accelerators,” the report states. “Tech Bridges attract small and medium businesses using innovation challenges, often teaming with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership organizations and the DoD-funded National Security Innovation Network.”

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.

“Climate change will continue to amplify operational demands on the force, degrade installations and infrastructure, increase health risks to our service members, and could require modifications to existing and planned equipment,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in the plan. “Extreme weather events are already costing the Department billions of dollars and are degrading mission capabilities.”

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Some members of Congress believe former President Donald Trump had a conflict of interest. As a private citizen, Trump had leased, from the General Services Administration, the old Post Office Pavilion. It became a Trump Hotel. Now Representative Dina Titus (D-Nev.) has introduced a bill that would require the GSA to terminate any lease with an elected federal official or head of an executive agency. She spoke with the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Tell us what your bill would require of the General Services Administration?

Dina Titus: Well, thank you for having me. Just a little bit of background, the GSA owns and oversees about 377 million square feet of space within 9,600 public buildings. In addition to that, they do something they called out leasing. Usually that’s a minor project like a Starbucks in a federal office building. But with the Old Post Office, they out leased the entire building, did a big remake and turned it into the Trump Hotel. Some of us felt like that was a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Because that says you’re not supposed to take things from foreign entities or other levels of government. Trump was both the tenant and the landlord. And so there was obviously a conflict of interest. But when we tried to get information about the books, who was staying there, how much they were paying, the GSA just shut us down. So that’s not supposed to be a political partisan agency, supposed to just be a neutral regulatory oversight agency. So this bill will ensure that that’s the case.

Tom Temin: And what about the future leases? In other words, it would terminate leases, but also prevent this type of leasing in the future?

Dina Titus: No, not necessarily. But it will provide more congressional oversight and require the GSA to bring those leases to Congress. Also, what it will prohibit, is any kind of foreign interest being engaged in those leases.

Tom Temin: Now, in the case of the Trump Hotel, I remember when that lease was signed, it was a 100 year lease with the Trump Organization. This was six, seven or eight years before Donald Trump became President Trump. And so I think there’s a provision then that upon becoming president, that lease would terminate.

Dina Titus: That’s right, it will prohibit any kind of leases with the president, vice president, member of Congress, or head of an executive agency. I believe that’s already backed in the Emoluments Clause. But that’s something that the courts just wouldn’t really interpret in several cases that were brought. So this states it explicitly.

Tom Temin: Right. Are you aware of any other instances of where this has come up at all?

Dina Titus: Not really, nobody in government has kept a lease like this. And most things are put into blind trust. And this was just run or owned or operated by some of the family. And so it was obviously a conflict of interest. You had lobbyists stay in there. You had foreign dignitaries stay in there. You had the Republican Party doing events there. So obviously, there was some attempt to curry favor with the president by putting money into his operation.

Tom Temin: Well, maybe it’s because it had the best bacon you could get anywhere in Washington. I don’t know.

Dina Titus: I don’t know either. I never ate there.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Democrat Dina Titus, who represents Nevada’s first district. And do you have any other support for this bill, even from any Republicans by any chance?

Dina Titus: Well, we’ll see if any Republicans sign on to it. This was a topic that we discussed at length within the subcommittee that I chair, which is part of infrastructure and transportation. The chairman, Mr. DeFazio has signed on to this bill with me. And he was pursuing this issue long before I got here. And so we went through about 24,000 pages of records to come up with a report on it. So this is not some fly by night thing. This has been a long time in the making, and based on a lot of facts and figures.

Tom Temin: Sure. Anything in the Senate at all at this point?

Dina Titus: No. The Oversight Committee, in addition to my committee looked into the issue. So I’m sure we’ll get support from the members of that committee, at least on the Democratic side.

Tom Temin: All right. I want us to switch gears if I may while we have you for just a moment. You have asked Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to stop the mustang roundups. And apparently there’s been some serious issues with the burros and the mustangs under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, including in Nevada.

Dina Titus: Oh, yes, especially in Nevada. We have the most wild horses of any state in the country. And they’re such an iconic symbol of the Wild West. You don’t have to be from the West to appreciate them. The folks who support my efforts come from all over the world, in fact, not just all over the country because there’s such majestic creatures. And the BLM has done a dismal job of trying to manage these herds, and they do need to be managed because if they just keep reproducing, they’ll starve to death or they’ll die of thirst because there just aren’t that many resources on public lands. Now the cowboys hate them, or the ranchers because they want their cows to get the water and the grass out there on public lands and see the horses as a pest. But the public certainly is supportive.

Now, there are a couple of areas that are problems. One is the roundups themselves, they use helicopters. There are about three companies that have had all the contracts with helicopters, and they make a lot of money that comes right out of the taxpayer’s pocket. Also, it’s just a cruel process, they just run the horses down scare them to death. There was a recent incident that was on national TV of a little colt that they ran down, it crippled it and they had to shoot it. So that’s a problem. Now the third problem that has arisen is they put all these horses in very close, small, contained spaces, once they round them up. So they get diseases that are quickly passed from one to another. And we’ve seen just recently, about 150 Horses die in several pens from respiratory ailments. So I would want to look into this. I wrote the Secretary to stop the roundups until they can figure how to do them better, and how to better manage the horses. Oh, let me add a fourth problem shows you how bad this is. They had an adoption program at the BLM. They gave you $1,000 to take the horse, and then they didn’t follow up. And a lot of people were getting the money and then selling the horse for consumption across the border. It is just a nightmare. And so we need better management. And I think we need to focus on birth control as opposed to just putting these horses in these pens.

Tom Temin: Yeah, the National Park Service manages some of the bison herds out west. And they do regular culling, as you say, to prevent the same problem of overpopulation and starvation and so forth. And they can become a pest if you let them. Maybe there’s some National Park Service aught to collaborate with the Bureau of Land Management on how to manage herds.

Dina Titus: Well, that’s a good idea. I’ll reach out to them because the BLM certainly has done a terrible job and they are in the pocket of the ranchers it appears because they don’t seem to want to help in this case, you know, only a very small percentage of the money that we give to BLM for management has been used for birth control. And listen to this interesting story. They have used drones for round ups, because a horse will follow a drone, then you don’t have to chase the horse. You don’t have to scare it to death. But you can leave it to someplace where you want it to go. Wouldn’t that be more humane? Plus, I say hire some more cowboys. They know how to round up horses. So this is an employment bill but some of those cowboys do work and get out of the helicopter.

Tom Temin: Yeah, get some of those casino workers maybe and retrained as a round up folks.

Dina Titus: Well, everybody’s talking about workforce development. This may be something to look into.

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The Navy builds lots of things that float, but it also needs ports, depots and other constructed facilities. The Naval Construction Battalion Center is celebrating 80 years having been established June 2, 1942. For the latest on the Seabees’ contemporary mission and activities, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to its commander Capt. Jeff Powell.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Capt. Powell, good to have you on.

Jeff Powell: Thanks, Tom. It’s great to be with you today.

Tom Temin: Well, let’s begin with the beginning. What exactly does the Seabees do at the Naval Construction Battalion Center?

Jeff Powell: So the Seabees were formed in World War II in 1942. There was a need for overseas construction, and that was being accomplished by civilian contractors. As the war progressed and enemy activity increased, they realize they cannot have civilians that were untrained. They want combatants out in these far flung reaches mostly in the Pacific. And so the idea was born that we needed kind of combat construction personnel. And so the original Seabees, and their numbers swelled to 350,000 or so during World War II, but the original Seabees were tradesmen. I mean, they weren’t not necessarily your 18-year-old recruits. They were some 30, 40, 50 years old at the time, and they came in at different rates and pay grades, and they put them in military formations. And their exploits during World War II were pivotal, certainly in the Pacific, but also across the European theaters.

Tom Temin: Right, they built runways and so forth.

Jeff Powell: They would go to an uninhabited island in the middle of Pacific and tear down the jungle and figure out how to get the rock and quarry and water and supplies. And they would build a runway and build a base and, I’m no aviation expert or ship expert, but our ships and our planes did not have the range that they do now. And so they needed these intermediate staging areas. They walk across the Pacific on their way to Japan and taking the fight to the enemy. So they needed a lot of bases back then. And then certainly, anytime you need expeditionary construction, quick construction, they call the Seabees. And that’s where the history and the legacy of the units were born.

Tom Temin: Now that’s less of a requirement in ordinary times nowadays. So what does the battalion do these days?

Jeff Powell: Over the years, as the Navy, the entire Department of Defense would swell up for World War II and then it would contract a little bit. We’d have, they called it peace dividend, right? Your ships are decommissioned and units are decommissioned. And then it would increase again for Korea and then it would contract again. So we have ebbed and flowed over the years. Currently there are six active duty battalions, and there are five reserve battalions. Just a few years ago, kind of the height of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there were 21 total battalions. There were nine active and 12 reserves. So even in recent history, in the last 10 or 15 years, we have contracted and gone back to this steady state of now about 11 battalions. They are still deploying and so we have three active battalions here at the base in Gulfport, Mississippi. There’s three active battalions in a base out west called Port Hueneme, California. And they deploy on a six month rotation headquartered in Rota, Spain, and our case here in Gulfport. And then from there, they fanned out to all over Europe, Africa and even some of them go to the Pacific. And they are doing peacetime construction. They’re doing training, they’re doing partner kind of nation building, and their afforded presence, like a ship or any other military asset overseas ready to respond to anything that may be called upon. But they’re doing all kinds of construction. And certainly, nowadays, the specialty and the focus is going to be on airfield damage repair, port damage repair, again, when and if we need to, for a contingency getting an airfield and port facilities up and running so that our planes and our ships or submarines can refuel and resupply.

Tom Temin: I guess it’s overlooked sometimes, the fact that the Navy does need airfields because planes from carriers don’t live their entire lifecycle just on a carrier.

Jeff Powell: Correct. No, of course, I’m a little biased but I think the Navy obviously goes from space to air to surface to below surface and in my world, people for years have asked me after 27 years in the Navy, what ships have I been on? I’ve never been on a ship. I am a dirt sailor. So there’s certainly a land component to the Navy and there’s certainly need for facilities ashore. And that’s where the Seabees come in, primarily in overseas and contingency and hostile environments.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Capt. Jeff Powell. He’s commander of the Naval Construction Battalion Center – Seabees – now celebrating its 80th anniversary. So just to make sure we understand for U.S.-based facilities that need modernizing and construction, that’s not the Seabees. That’s contractors the Navy hires, otherwise?

Jeff Powell: That is correct. So Seabees might do some small projects here and there. So I mentioned their six-month deployment, they’re then home for 12 months, and that’s kind of the 18-month cycle. So while they’re home for 12 months, they might do small projects on this base, or on another base to train. But it’s a lot of classes, they’re doing weapons proficiency, they’re doing military tactics, they’re taking different specialized construction classes. They’re not necessarily building things on this base. A lot of the projects we’re doing are pretty complex. There’s lots of environmental considerations and mechanical, electrical and computer systems that have to go into a lot of our facilities now. And so those are contracted out to civilian contractors. Different tours that I’ve been in I’ve managed those kinds of projects as well. But the Seabees are kind of fast expeditionary construction, not necessarily the finished permanent facilities that we would occupy in the United States and on a military base.

Tom Temin: Yes. So what kind of talent do you need to fill out the Seabees? And what specific types of work do they do? I mean, the old pictures show people smearing concrete and digging and that kind of thing. Do they still do that kind of thing? And what kind of talent do you need?

Jeff Powell: Across the Navy, there is different ratings, right, there’s medical corpsman, and there’s air traffic controllers, and there’s engine men on ships. Well the Seabees has seven different ratings. There are builders and steel workers, electricians, utilities, men who are plumbers, engineering aides or surveyors, drafters, equipment operators, and construction mechanics. So we have tons of construction equipment, generators and all kinds of things that need to be maintained. So that’s the equipment operators. We have a training program, lots of mobile cranes. So equipment operators, mechanics keep equipment running. They also will do some, what we call horizontal construction. So they’ll do the dirt work and earthwork and digging and berms and grading and road construction. And that’s where the runways and things come in. And then we have our utilities folks which are electricians and plumbers, connecting generators, building expeditionary restroom facilities, laundry facilities, things like that. And also they can wire a house or wire an operations center if we’re building an expeditionary kind of a hut to be an operation center, they can put plumbing and power in there if they need to. And then we have your typical builder – what they’re doing – masonry, carpentry, woodworking, any kind of construction. And then we have engineering aids, which are surveyors and they’re doing the testing and some of the planning and the drawing and the drafting for those. So it all comes together in a team. You mentioned concrete, on a concrete day though, maybe every Seabee is out there, helping place the concrete because that’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck evolution. There’s definitely some what we call cross grading. You may be trained as an electrician, but you’re also gonna understand how to place concrete or maybe you have to get into a piece of equipment and operate it. So that’s kind of where the Seabees are fairly legendary for their creativity and their teamwork and their can-do spirit.

Tom Temin: Well that takes the operation of a whirlybird when you’re done with the concrete roughed in. And so what I’m driving at is that it sounds like a great Naval career that could lead to a fantastic civilian career, because those jobs are in demand, they pay well, and anyone that’s ever seen the controls of a steam shovel or a crane knows that’s complex work.

Jeff Powell: Absolutely. And I will tell you, there’s lots of great jobs in the Navy, the Seabees are definitely ones that have applicability whenever that service members done serving, whether that’s their initial four-year stint, or whether you’re 20 or 30 years. The skills that they have are definitely in demand, project planning, they’ve done some deployments, they understand construction, they understand how to work together as a team, but they definitely have a tangible skill. And I’m not taking anything away from folks that are operating weapon systems on ships or submarines or things like that. But there’s not necessarily a civilian equivalent of that as direct as the Seabees have. So it’s definitely a neat part of the Navy that a lot of folks don’t know about. I should mention numbers, there’s about 9,000 active duty Seabees. And just for context, there’s about 330,000 active duty sailors in the Navy. So it’s something like 2% of the Navy is Seabees. It’s a pretty small thing. And the Navy has mostly ships and submarines and aviation. But we are there to support and move ashore when the Navy needs us to.

Tom Temin: And how are you celebrating the 80th anniversary?

Jeff Powell: Well so two big events this year: I mentioned 1942, and March 5 is actually the birthday, the Seabees celebrated their 80th anniversary as a force, as a part of the Navy. The base here in Gulfport, Mississippi, was also formed in 1942. And more specifically in June. But we had two big events already this year with some more highlights and celebrations to come later this year. But our big event was we have a Seabee ball every year. So there’s a Navy ball and the Army has a ball and the Marine Corps has a ball. The Seabees have their own ball, and it’s a great tradition. We get dressed up and we get some great remembrances and a good speaker and a good meal. And we did that in March. And then a better part of a month ago here we had what we call Seabee Day on the base, which is an open house, static displays of weapons and equipment and materials, and we had food vendors and live music and essentially our version of an air show for this base. It’s open to the public and we had about 4,000 to 5,000 people here. It’s something we do every couple of years and we happened to do this year with a theme built around the 80th anniversary of the base and how important it is to the community here in South Mississippi.

Tom Temin: And you said there’s some more coming up though.

Jeff Powell: We’ll just continue to have profiles and we’re getting some good public affairs products out there. And there’s some proclamations still coming from the city and some things like that that are gonna to celebrate the great relationship we have with the city of Gulfport, Mississippi.

Tom Temin: Yeah, probably a good chance to remind your congressional overseers too, and appropriators, “Hey, we’re here and look what we do.”

Jeff Powell: Right. It’s interesting, a lot of folks don’t know there’s Navy bases in Mississippi. There’s 70 bases in the Navy and we’re one of them, and we have an important mission. And I should just mention, we don’t just have Seabees here, we have other tenants. There’s about 40 tenants on this base. We provide some other services. They’re building ships in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and there’s also a huge Navy presence out at Stennis Space Center. We provide some services out there as well. So there’s a lot of military here and on the coast of Mississippi, and we’re the lone base down here providing a lot of the support and services to enable them to do their missions.

Tom Temin: And as commander, did you come up through the Seabees yourself and what was your particular skills?

Jeff Powell: I’m not prior enlisted, I went to Clemson University in South Carolina – Go Tigers – I’m sorry, I have to say that. And then I’ve done a variety of tours. So in our community as an officer community, we’re not always with the Seabees. I’m sometimes with just the short facilities I mentioned, managing civil and construction contracts or I’ve been the public works officer of a base. I’ve been to D.C. and worked at the Pentagon on the programming and budgeting side. Done lots of deployments and different things. I’ve had about five tours with the Seabees in different capacities as leadership capacities, but I don’t necessarily have a trade. I mean, my background, my degrees are in engineering. So that’s the leadership and oversight that I provide to the units as I’ve been with them.

Tom Temin: Well if you know your way around the [Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process], that’s kind of a trade in and of itself.

Jeff Powell: Oh, yes. I enjoyed D.C. It’s fantastic, good tour, in fact I counsel a lot of our mid-grade and junior officers that they have to get to D.C. to understand how the sausage is made and how the Navy and the nation works. And so it was a great tour, and I really enjoyed my time in the Pentagon. Hard to believe that but that is true.

Tom Temin: All right. Capt. Jeff Powell is commander of the Naval Construction Battalion Center, the Seabees, now celebrating its 80th anniversary. Thanks so much for joining me.

Jeff Powell: It’s great, Tom, great to talk to you and thanks for your time this morning.

DeJoy said Monday that USPS is showing progress under its 10-year reform plan by reducing costs and increasing revenue, but will need to continue its trajectory by closing and consolidating facilities across its delivery network.

The agency, he added, has decreased its forecasted losses by at least $100 billion over the coming years, and is more than halfway toward a goal of reaching break-even status, after 15 years of net financial losses.

“We are a better organization, in a better financial position, than we were just one year ago,” DeJoy said in a keynote address at the National Postal Forum in Phoenix.

DeJoy said USPS is on track to becoming financially sustainable in 2024, and will achieve 95% on-time performance across its product categories that same year.

As for the next steps under the agency’s 10-year reform plan, DeJoy said USPS will realign its network of processing facilities and improve the route structure its carriers rely on to deliver to 161 million addresses every day.

DeJoy said the overhaul of its delivery network will streamline how USPS delivers mail and packages in a way that will reduce costs and improve revenue.

“We process mail and packages in a complicated, illogical, redundant and inefficient way,” DeJoy said. “To compound this, our facilities are in disrepair, lack adequate space and equipment and are not suitable to the implementation of standard operating practices and measurements,” DeJoy said.

The network transformation initiative will impact nearly 500 network mail processing locations, 1,000 transfer hubs and 100,000 carrier routes. It will also impact 10,000 delivery units, which USPS defines as post offices, stations, branches or carrier annexes that handle mail delivery functions.

“These delivery units are in disrepair. They have poor employee amenities, have not accommodated our package growth, and operate to a dated and costly strategy,” DeJoy said. “Dramatic change is needed, and dramatic change is what we are pursuing.”

DeJoy said USPS will consolidate delivery operations into Sort and Delivery Centers, with enough space, docks and mail processing equipment to operate more efficiently than its current infrastructure.

“We will place large carrier operations inside our mail processing plants, dramatically reducing transportation, reducing mail handlings, increasing reliability, and decreasing time to delivery,” DeJoy said.

As part of this plan, DeJoy said USPS will close annexes around the country “that add cost, transportation, and foster inefficient and ad-hoc operations.” Annexes are USPS facilities separate from post offices used for mail delivery functions, but may not offer full retail services to customers.

DeJoy said these changes to the USPS network and local operations will take years to accomplish, but said each plant and delivery unit included in this overhaul “will provide immediate, systemwide benefits.”

“This will transform the Postal Service, and I wish I could say it is ingenious. It is not — it is obvious. If you were building a Postal Service from scratch today, this is what you would do. The genius is unwinding what we are doing today to prepare for the future,” DeJoy said.

DeJoy said USPS has almost 19,000 facilities in its delivery network. In some areas, he said there are more than 40 locations within a 10-mile radius.

“This requires significant sorting of product at our plants, numerous underutilized truckloads, and diminishes the magnificence of our biggest competitive advantage — our mail carrier route structure,” he said.

DeJoy said USPS is analyzing its inventory of closed plants, and plans to modernize some of them to accommodate this strategy.

USPS, DeJoy said, is trying to get ahead of more than a decade in which the agency “significantly under-invested in its infrastructure.”

He said that prior to the 10-year reform plan, USPS was spending $1.7 billion a year on infrastructure, with much going toward replacing roofs on old buildings, but left little to invest in USPS plans, technology and equipment.

DeJoy previewed the agency’s facilities overhaul in an interview last month. During that interview, DeJoy said that USPS employees faced a “terrible operating environment” in old, dark facilities, and that upgrades were necessary to improve workforce morale.

“Let there be light, and I mean this literally,” DeJoy said during Monday’s keynote. “Let there be light inside postal plants, as this new environment will improve performance, lower cost, reduce stress and improve morale.”

DeJoy said USPS is also looking to gain efficiency in its competitive package business through increased automation, and by integrating the delivery of mail and package volume across its network, as mandated by recently signed postal reform legislation.

“It is not an expansion of a package network. It is an increase in the utilization of what we now do to deliver mail. In fact, we have the ability to use less transportation and fewer processing facilities and fewer delivery units, and greatly increase the movement of cubic volume, meaning mail and packages,” he said.

DeJoy said USPS moves “a whole lot of air” through an inefficient transportation network, and said the agency can reduce its costs by relying on less transportation and fewer processing facilities to deliver mail and packages.

While USPS has seen a significant increase in package revenue since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeJoy said the core of the 10-year reform plan is “saving our mail business,” building a package-centric business.

“I often hear that we are not doing enough about mail. I respectfully disagree. This plan is all about mail. The Postal Service is all about mail,” DeJoy said. “The fact of the matter is, we have failed to adequately adjust to declining mail revenue. We need time to restructure our costs and supplement our revenue stream to fulfill our primary mission of delivering mail.”

DeJoy said earlier this month that the mailing industry needs to prepare for USPS raising prices on its market-dominant mail products “at an uncomfortable rate,” until it reaches a point where the agency is on track to be self-sustaining in the long term.

During his keynote, however, he said these price increases will eventually level off once the agency’s financial condition improves.

“There will come a point in time when we have achieved our objectives of cost and service equilibrium. At that time, you will have both a vibrant Postal Service and affordable market-dominant prices, and it is only this equilibrium that works under the rules that Congress gave us,” DeJoy said.

While President Joe Biden recently signed the Postal Service Reform Act, which is expected to save USPS $107 billion in total, DeJoy said years of “inaction and obstruction” from Congress, regulators, management and others kept USPS from adapting to market trends over the years.

Had USPS reform legislation or greater pricing flexibility from its regulator happened sooner,  DeJoy said the agency’s financial condition might have grown so dire, and that the agency’s operations and infrastructure budget would not have been stretched so thin.

“All I can say is year after year, the Postal Service was allowed to be overwhelmed. And the consequence to our institution is significant,” he said.

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The Biden administration is looking to accelerate the pace of federal permitting and environmental reviews for thousands of infrastructure projects under the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The White House last week released a permitting action plan outlining ways agencies can ensure infrastructure spending projects remain on time and on budget.

At the center of this plan is the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, which serves as a coordinating body for infrastructure projects.

Christine Harada, the council’s executive director, said the council is charged with improving the predictability and outcomes of the federal environmental review and authorization process for infrastructure projects across 12 sectors.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law marks the largest investment in U.S. infrastructure since World War II. Spending will go toward roads, bridges, freight rail, ports, the electrical grid and internet infrastructure.

“That’s precisely the reason why you need a central coordinating body, because there are indeed a lot of moving pieces. These projects are extraordinarily complex,” Harada said.

An offshore wind project, for example, or a project involving multi-state electricity transmission lines requires a slew of environmental reviews and authorizations that need to go through federal, state, local and tribal government agencies.

“On the federal front, we work closely with these agencies to think through and develop the permitting timetable. So what are these specific authorities that the project needs to obtain, from which agencies, who are the actual specific folks at those agencies who going to be responsible for the project and pulling together the master Gantt chart, as I like to call it, so that we’re able to provide greater transparency and accountability and predictability,” Harada said.

A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates the schedule of a project.

The council also maintains Federal Permitting Dashboard on its website that tracks progress on projects funded through the spending bill.

“The information contained there is largely the same. That is, what are all the environmental reviews and authorizations required for that particular project? When did the project start or for particular activities? When do we estimate it’s going to end? It also has subcategory milestones. So, for example, if it’s the midst of the [National Environmental Policy Act] process, when do we think the draft is going to be released? When is the record of decision going to be released?” Harada said.

Congress first created the council in 2015 through the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. That legislation, however, called for the council to disband this year.

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, however, includes language that makes the council a permanent federal entity.

The council includes 13 agency members, which include the Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development departments.

Council members also include the representatives from the Army, Environmental Protection Agency, the chairs of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, as well as the Office of Management and Budget and the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Through the greater cross-agency collaboration, the administration expects the council and its members will be able to avoid and resolve potential conflicts and bottlenecks before they emerge.

Harada said agencies, for example, need to be on the same page when it comes to interagency challenges, such as mitigating a project’s impact on endangered species.

“We all want to make sure that we are doing what’s right for the environment and for protecting the species as appropriate. There are certain locations for which that species absolutely needs in order to be able to survive. Frequently for those kinds of situations, it’s a relatively black-and-white case,” Harada said. “But there are also situations where it’s kind of in the shades of gray. So there are certainly parts of the map that are absolutely off-limits. Some parts might be a little bit more hashed-out, if you will. So in that particular case,  trying to make the call with the scientists to make sure that we’re doing the right thing is frequently what we’re called to do.”

The permitting plan also seeks to advance the administration’s diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility goals.

Harada said including disadvantaged, underserved or overburdened communities early in the conversation is essential to delivering infrastructure projects on time.

“Voicing your concerns is how you end up refining the project plan and the project design itself, so that in the end, it’s a better design,” she said.

Aside from putting thousands of infrastructure projects in motion, Harada said the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has led to a hiring surge in and out of government.

“We need archaeologists, we need biologists. We need scientists and engineers, project planners, financial types in order to do the permitting and siting process. These are all the skill sets that are involved throughout that environmental reviews and authorizations that a project needs to take on,” she said. “So in that regard, that means that there are there’s a tremendous need for folks across both private and public sector to be able to help answer those kinds of questions.”

Malicious actors have found that they can manipulate these digitized systems with the possibility of damaging water infrastructure or even changing the way it’s treated to introduce harmful chemicals.

This was almost the case in February 2021, when attackers used remote access software to increase levels of sodium hydroxide at a public water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida. Thankfully, the plan was thwarted by a plant operator who caught the intrusion in just a few minutes. But that won’t always be the case.

The issue has global implications as well. In Ukraine, critical infrastructure is at risk from an attack by Russia or its allies. In fact, in a recent Harvard Business Review article, MIT Sloan Director of Cybersecurity Stuart Madnick said that given the interdependence of critical infrastructure sectors, “aggressive attack would likely knock down many sectors at the same time, magnifying the impact.”

Last year the U.S. government assessed that an increasing number of both countries and non-state actors have the capability to damage physical and digital critical infrastructure. Gartner predicted in a report that by 2025, cyber attackers will have weaponized OT environments to the point where they could successfully harm or kill humans. Attacks on OT are not only becoming more common but are also evolving from process disruptions like cutting power to a water treatment plant to compromising OT in ways that can do a lot more physical damage like cutting off water access to a population or changing processes to affect the safety of drinking water.

Since IT and OT networks are becoming increasingly interconnected, virtually any point of access or OT device can be targeted to attempt to gain entry to the IT network. And while attacks on OT systems were once limited to specialized and advanced threat actors, prepackaged capabilities are increasingly easy to buy – or even to rent — on the Dark Web.

Beyond that, many OT and IoT devices lack strong security and cannot be upgraded or patched, forcing organizations to be nimble and adopt methods such as virtual patching of such headless devices.

This could spell disaster for the federal government if they don’t deploy cyber tactics to combat risks in the vast, interconnected network of buildings and smart infrastructure.

That includes the use of deception technology to help agencies discover intruders and impede their movement. Deception technology is a strategy to attract cyber criminals away from an agency’s true assets and divert them to a decoy or trap. Using a layer of digital decoys and honeypots, deception technology helps conceal sensitive and critical assets behind a fabricated surface, which confuses and slows attackers while revealing their presence on the network.

Decoys mimic legitimate servers, applications and data so that the intruder is tricked into believing that they have successfully infiltrated and gained access to the enterprise’s most important assets when in reality they have not.

Studies also suggest that an agency can deploy deception technology selectively rather than universally and still reap much of the benefit, much as the presence of a home security sign affects whether a would-be burglar decides to break in and how they proceed, even if the home doesn’t actually have an alarm system.

A connected federal government that includes smart buildings and integrated IT-OT that makes it easier to deliver citizen services will be transformational. But with that transformation comes a host of security issues that need to be addressed every step of the way. These buildings don’t just hold public and personal information, they will also be filled with interconnected OT systems that, if manipulated, can cause damage stretching from data loss to putting lives at risk. The General Services Administration must take this into account as it plans and begins to execute on connecting federal buildings with smart technology.

Jim Richberg is public sector field chief information security officer at Fortinet.