The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

Under current law, Members convicted of certain corruption offenses can forfeit their pensions, while other serious misconduct is treated differently. A bipartisan bill aims to close those gaps by including violent crimes and sexual misconduct involving staff. Supporters say the goal is accountability, not punishment by press release. Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, who co‑sponsored the bill, joins...

Federal News Network has been reporting on the fallout from EPA’s decision to discipline employees who signed a declaration of dissent. Now, we’re turning to how that call was made, despite internal warnings about legal risk. It highlights a familiar tension across government: what happens to career expertise when agency leaders choose another path. Here to discuss his reporting on this issue is K...

In Washington, a vote doesn’t always mean resolution. In some of the biggest congressional fights, decisions can leave everyone bruised, with new conflicts already taking shape. WTOP Capitol Hill Correspondent Mitchell Miller joins us with a look at what Congress has settled and what it hasn’t. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/priva...

New essay questions on many federal job applications asking candidates how they would advance the Trump administration’s policies, are optional, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Unions challenging the questions in a lawsuit say many job applicants can’t skip over the essays and can’t submit their applications without answering them. The questions are appearing on a growing number o...

The Department of the Navy is one the biggest users of the Defense Department’s Gen AI.mil platform. The Navy designated the generative artificial intelligence tool as an enterprise service in just five days after evaluating it. It also told all employees to use it for controlled unclassified information and Impact Level 5 (IL5) data by April 30 or yesterday. But just giving sailors, marines and c...

Coming up today on The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton A court ruling protected the Institute for Museum and Library Services, but the fight isn’t over Markets have felt shaky for months, but the returns tell a very different story How shared experience plays a role in helping people reset under sustained stress See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https...

A federal court has blocked administrative efforts to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services. But the administration’s latest budget proposal would eliminate its funding anyway, putting legal clarity and budget reality on different tracks. Joining me to walk through what the ruling does, what it doesn’t, and what happens next is President of the American Libraries Association, Sam...

Markets have been noisy for months. But when you look past daily swings, many TSP funds are firmly in positive territory, highlighting the gap between headline volatility and how markets actually price information. Certified Financial Planner Art Stein is here to help explain the disconnect and how investors should respond. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Not...

Sustained stress is a reality for many veterans, first responders and federal employees. New data from the Veteran Tickets Foundation looks at how shared live experiences help people reset and reconnect, particularly when formal systems move slowly or unevenly. Federal News Network's Eric White caught up with Chief Strategy Officer for Veteran Tickets Foundation, Steve Weintraub, to get more insig...

GAO has flagged fraud risks in federally funded, state‑administered programs for years, from weak data sharing to inconsistent controls. Many of those vulnerabilities persist, not because agencies lack awareness, but because of how responsibility, capacity, and oversight are structured. We’ll talk about what prevents known risks from turning into management change with Seto Bagdoyan, director of f...

GAO has flagged fraud risks in federally funded, state‑administered programs for years, from weak data sharing to inconsistent controls. Many of those vulnerabilities persist, not because agencies lack awareness, but because of how responsibility, capacity, and oversight are structured. We’ll talk about what prevents known risks from turning into management change with Seto Bagdoyan, director of f...

A new report is shedding light on how Department of Government Efficiency staffers gained access to sensitive Treasury Department payment systems last year. The Government Accountability Office found Treasury gave DOGE staffers access to data without following IT security rules. Privacy watchdog groups say GAO’s report may be the tip of the iceberg on DOGE’s access to sensitive government data. Fo...

The Army’s newest AI project ARIA, or the Rapid Implementation of Artificial Intelligence initiative, is organized around three lines of effort that Army leaders say will ultimately merge into one. For more, Federal News Network’s Anastasia Obis spoke with Deputy Under Secretary of the Army David Fitzgerald, who breaks down those efforts in part two of the conversation we began on Tuesday.  S...

Coming up today on The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton Extreme weather is forcing federal agencies to rethink who bears the risk when long‑term cleanup work is overwhelmed Cutting contracts can promise quick savings, the harder question is where the cost actually lands For families with loved ones behind bars, missing information often means carrying risks they can’t see or control See Privacy Pol...

As natural disasters grow more frequent and intense, new EPA Inspector General findings suggest some federal facility Superfund cleanups may fail when conditions overwhelm existing remedies; pushing environmental and health risks into surrounding communities. We’ll discuss what that means for EPA staff, partner agencies and prevention planning before disasters strike, with Erin Barnes‑Weaver, depu...

A recent review of IRS contract cancellations found hundreds of millions of dollars in potential savings, but far less clarity about how those decisions shifted impact onto service delivery and workloads. The findings raise questions about how agencies assess who absorbs the risk when decisions are made quickly. I'm joined by LaToya George from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration...

Families of incarcerated people depend on timely, accurate information to make decisions about safety, health and contact, but when that information is missing, the risk shifts directly onto them. Those gaps raise a larger question about why transparency for prison families hasn’t been treated as a core government responsibility. Here to share that impact is Heather Pirtle, president and founder o...

Top Treasury officials are telling Congress that the IRS pulled off a remarkable feat, carrying out a busier-than-usual filing season with a much smaller workforce. But the Trump administration is still pursuing further workforce and budget cuts for the IRS next year. Officials overseeing the IRS say the agency’s long-anticipated investments in technology are paying off and its adoption of artific...

From bartender to elevator mechanic and meat cutter to wood worker, more than 100 federal job titles are about to be swept into broader workforce categories. The Office of Personnel Management is undertaking a new effort to trim down the 600-plus federal job series that exist across government. This first round of consolidation will impact about 5,000 federal employees. Here with more, Federal New...

Coming up today on the Federal Drive with Terry Gerton Some of the federal government’s most trusted public data tools aren’t being maintained the way they once were Good policy still depends on numbers the public can trust and on systems built to sustain them Fraud doesn’t always slip through the cracks, sometimes it walks straight through the front door of a federal program See Privacy Policy at...

An analysis from USAFacts finds that many of the government’s most important public datasets are no longer being updated or maintained as expected. The findings underscore how staffing, continuity and organizational attention shape whether federal data remains usable at all. Here to break down what’s changing and why is Richard Coffin, chief of research and advocacy at USAFacts. See Privacy Policy...

Economic indicators are meant to bring clarity to decision‑making across government and the economy. But the systems that produce those numbers are operating under growing strain, from volatility to skepticism to capacity limits. A new cross‑institution effort aims to strengthen how federal data are produced and protected over time. We’ll discuss that work with John Sabelhaus, Senior Fellow in eco...

The Army recently launched a new initiative aimed at rapidly delivering artificial intelligence tools to soldiers. Dubbed Project ARIA, short for Army Rapid Implementation of Artificial Intelligence; the effort will initially focus on three areas, including automating the Army’s planning, programming, budgeting, and execution, or PPBE, process, building a “model armory” and improving supply chain...

A new acquisition structure has been taking shape within the Army. It shifts the focus away from managing individual programs and toward overseeing portfolios of capabilities. Senior leaders now known as portfolio acquisition executives oversee capability areas, while the offices responsible for individual programs have been rebranded from program executive offices to capability program executives...

Coming up today on the Federal Drive with Terry Gerton Unpaid bills at DHS are testing how long critical homeland security missions can hold Modernizing preparedness law means asking whether long‑standing systems are built to last over time Around the world, governments are adapting to sustained pressure and not waiting for stability to return See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Ca...