Federal Newscast

The number of so-called TSP millionaires is continuing to go up. As of October 1st, nearly 190,000 participants in the Thrift Savings Plan have accounts totaling over $1 million. That’s about 2.6 percent of all TSP accounts across the board. It also means roughly 19,000 more feds have crossed the million-dollar threshold in the last three months. Most TSP millionaires have spent decades inves...

Senate Democrats are charging the Department of Government Efficiency is putting federal data at risk at the Social Security Administration, the General Services Administration and the Office of Personnel Management. In a new report, Senator Gary Peters (D-MI), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says staff investigations and whistleblower accounts show how...

The White House is warning of the potential for spillover effects into the broader economy because of the government shutdown, now entering its second week. The White House's Council of Economic Advisers says calculations based on the number of federal employees and federal contractors not being paid imply that a month-long shutdown would reduce consumer spending by $30 billion. The CEA says&...

In today's Federal Newscast, federal employee unions are moving against an unprecedented actions during a government shutdown See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, the Thrift Savings Plan continues its run of month-over-month gains.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, the Trump administration is facing another lawsuit — this time, for telling agencies to conduct more reductions in force.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, with the government on the brink of a partial shutdown, one senator is pushing the Trump administration to be more transparent about what agency services will remain open should funding lapse. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In today's Federal Newscast, the White House is officially making AI one of its science and technology priorities.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The White House says the public will have to look at each individual agency to find out their plans for what would happen in a government shutdown. The Office of Management and Budget’s webpage which normally publishes shutdown contingency plans remained empty for months. But now, OMB says that agencies’ plans will only be available one by one, on each agency’s own website. Those contingency...

The National Guard has surpassed its recruiting goals for fiscal 2025. The Army and Air National Guard have enlisted nearly 50,000 new members this year, bringing total Guard end strength to more than 433,000. Senior leaders attributed this year’s success to initiatives such as the Future Soldier Preparatory Course and the new “Uncommon is Calling” marketing campaign for helping attract new member...

Agencies are bracing for a potential government shutdown, with less than a week left for Congress to reach a spending agreement. But so far, agencies have not released any public plans for what would happen in a shutdown. Agencies are supposed to release contingency plans, detailing which employees would keep working, and who would be furloughed. Currently, though, the White House’s website for li...

The Army is rolling out a new incentive to keep some of its most experienced technical experts in uniform. A warrant officer retention bonus will offer a “substantial financial incentive” to officers in critical specialties who commit to additional years of service. High-demand fields like cyber operations, aviation maintenance, signal and communications and special operations are identified as pr...

There is a push in Congress to expand the use of hazard pay for federal wildland firefighters. Utah Congresswoman Celeste Maloy has introduced a bill attempting to correct what she says is a gap in the benefit. Currently, wildland firefighters receive higher pay rates, called hazard pay, when fighting active fires. But hazard pay doesn’t apply to situations where firefighters are conducting prescr...

Yesterday’s Senate vote confirming nearly 50 of the president’s nominees included some big gains for the Army — filling most of that service’s senior political leadership posts all at once. Among those confirmed was Michael Obadal as the new under secretary of the Army, the service’s number-two civilian leadership position. The en-bloc vote also included confirmations for three Army assistant secr...

The departments of Interior and Agriculture say they are on track to combine their wildland firefighting forces into a single agency by January 2026. The announcement this week comes after President Trump ordered the two departments to consolidate their wildfire response efforts into a single agency: the U.S. Wildland Fire Service. An employee organization called the Grassroots Wildland Firefighte...

Congress is considering exempting some federal employees from losing their union protections. The version of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act that cleared the House would let DoD civilian workers keep their collective bargaining rights. The provision in the House’s NDAA comes in response to President Trump’s broad cancelation of collective bargaining earlier this year. The p...

A government watchdog found that the Department of Defense’s Transportation Command did not have sufficient and comprehensive data about its Global Household Goods contract, which was canceled in June. The Government Accountability Office found that TRANSCOM officials were aware of the contractor’s capability constraints, but had limited information and could not verify whether the company could h...

Nine Senate Democrats are calling on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to halt its use of a mobile facial recognition application. In a letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons, the lawmakers ask for more details on ICE’s Mobile Fortify app. The technology reportedly allows ICE to identify individuals they encounter on the streets using multiple federal databases. The Senate lawmakers say ICE sh...

Federal pay caps are contributing to ongoing recruitment and retention challenges in the Defense Department’s blue-collar workforce. A new report from the Government Accountability Office has found that multiple DoD installations are struggling to keep employees in the Federal Wage System, due to longstanding pay limitations set by Congress. GAO also pointed to evidence that the pay rates for...

The House passed its version of the 2026 defense policy bill, which includes a 3.8% pay bump for service members. House Republicans pushed the bill through largely without Democratic support after adding conservative provisions and blocking debates Democrats sought on issues like expanding the use of the military inside the country. House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith, wh...

The Pentagon has published the final acquisition rule implementing the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program. The rule, released in yesterday’s Federal Register will allow Defense Department procurements to include CMMC assessment requirements. The assessments are intended to ensure defense contractors are following cybersecurity standards for protecting controlled unclassified inform...

Federal employees, on average, are waiting longer to see their retirement applications processed. New data from the Office of Personnel Management for August shows it takes an average of 70 days to process a claim from a retiring fed. But if retirement claims are coming to OPM in less than 60 days, those cases take, on average, 45 days to complete. At the same time, OPM received more tha...

The Energy Department is being sued over its plan to purge old Freedom of Information Act requests. The nonprofit group American Oversight filed the suit in U.S. District Court last week. It challenges DOE’s effort to require individuals to re-confirm their interest in FOIA requests. In an August notice in the Federal Register, DOE announced that those with a FOIA request submitted prior to Octobe...

Federal employees at the Department of Health and Human Services are calling for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. A letter signed by more than 1,000 HHS workers warns that Kennedy’s actions this year have endangered the nation’s health. Most recently, Kennedy fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The employees say the secretary has also been s...

The House Homeland Security Committee wants to reauthorize and reform the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015. The law expires at the end of this month. On Wednesday, the committee passed a bill that would extend the law for another 10 years. It would also update the law to account for advances in artificial intelligence and require the Department of Homeland Security to improve its...