Midterm elections often flip houses of Congress and the upcoming 2022 election has the potential to do so again. If that happens, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform will change parties, putting ranking member Representative James Comer into the chairmanship of the committee. Recently, GovExec correspondent and frequent GovExec Daily guest Courtney Bublé interviewed Representative Comer about what he thinks will come of the Oversight Committee, were he to become the chair.In...
Oct 06, 2022•23 min•Season 3Ep. 153
Software contracting in the federal government is very lucrative and a huge part of the government’s cybersecurity, but the import of knowing what is software is often underestimated. A software bill of materials, or SBOM, can represent an important first step in this side of software acquisition. Chris Riotta is a staff writer at FCW covering government procurement and technology policy. He joined the podcast to talk about the issues surrounding SBOMs. *** Follow GovExec on Twitter! https://twi...
Oct 05, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 152
Each fall, the Federal Benefits Open Season comes with premiums for health insurance under the different insurance programs available for federal employees. Feds will pay 8.7% more on their health insurance premiums. The Office of Personnel Management attributed the increase to the COVID-19 pandemic and volatility of health care costs connected to the coronavirus crisis. Erich Wagner covers the federal workforce for at GovExec. He joined the podcast to discuss the FEHBP premium increase and othe...
Oct 04, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 151
The effects of climate change are evident each, from floods in Asia to heat waves in Europe to a stronger hurricanes in United States. While governments have promised to act, financing within the private sector may be an underrated factor in the development of green tech and climate crisis mitigation. Bruce Usher is professor of professional practice and the Elizabeth B. Strickler ’86 and Mark T. Gallogly ’86 Faculty Director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School....
Oct 03, 2022•28 min•Season 3Ep. 150
Everyone knows that communication is as crucial as any other part of management. But listening is not a passive activity but rather a skill, strategy and a practice. It takes active work to listen effectively. Today's guest has an upcoming book on the ways everyone can become a better communicator by using active listening skills. Oscar Trimboli is a keynote speaker and the host of the podcast deep listening. He's also the author of the upcoming book, How to listen: Discover the Hidden Key to Be...
Sep 30, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 149
The national oceanic and research administration has lots of data and research on climate and the environment. With the climate crisis in full swing and an emphasis on the federal and local level, NOAA uses and shares this information with its partners to inform investments and resilience and to combat climate change. As part of Government Executives climate summit event recently, Route Fifty's senior editor Alisha Powell Gillis spoke with NOAA representatives about how they collaborate with loc...
Sep 29, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 148
Last week, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled a four part commitment to America plan, with the hop that it will explain to voters why they should vote republican in the up coming midterm election. The plan showcases what republicans feel should be prioritized and could potentially have an impact on federal employees if the republicans win the house. GovExec correspondent and frequent GovExec daily guest Courtney Buble has been covering the midterm elections and she join the show to br...
Sep 28, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 147
Women in leadership often face hurdles that Men do not. Depending on their intersectional identities, such as age and race leaders can face stereotypes in the work place as they try to manage. The book "Beyond leaning in" tackles these issues in a slightly different way. Told as a novel, the book leans on research, lived experience and narratives to explore the ways Women navigate organizational structures across identities. Melanie Ho is the author of Beyond leaning in, she joins the show to di...
Sep 27, 2022•20 min•Season 3Ep. 144
Preparing for one’s retirement brings up a lot of questions. Are you financially and emotionally prepared to transition into your post-work life? Have you set yourself up for the best possible time after you retire? What if I have to unretire? The answers are key to a good retirement for so many people. Joe Casey is an executive coach, Managing Partner of Retirement Wisdom, and host of The Retirement Wisdom Podcast. He’s also the author of the book Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 ...
Sep 26, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 143
The Biden Administration and Congress have pledged to combat the rapidly worsening climate crisis. The inflation reduction act was passed into law with plenty of provisions all over it that address environmental concerns. As part of Goverment Executives climate summit, Ross Gianfortune spoke with Vickie Patton, General counsel at the environmental defense fund and Michael Gerrad, Director and General counsel at the Saban center for climate change law. They'll share thier thoughts on what the inf...
Sep 22, 2022•33 min•Season 5Ep. 619
The national midterm elections are fast approaching, with candidates campaigning for offices across the United States. The Election Assistance Commission, the federal elections clearinghouse, turns 20 this year during a midterm year and EAC chair Thomas Hicks says his group has been helping state and local governments prepare for the midterm elections using lessons learned from recent previous elections. Recently, GovExec correspondent and frequent GovExec Daily guest Courtney Bublé interviewed ...
Sep 21, 2022•20 min•Season 3Ep. 144
Once again, Congress is negotiating a short-term funding bill as the risk of a government shutdown looms. The Oct. 1 deadline is in less than two weeks, but lawmakers say that they have settled on a continuing resolution that would fund the government until mid-December,but they have yet to determine exactly which provisions will be in it. GovExec Senior Correspondent Eric Katz has been covering the spending bill negotiations . He joined the show to discuss the state of things in Congress as the...
Sep 20, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 140
The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2022 Retirement Confidence Survey found unmarried women workers and retirees have lower retirement confidence than their married counterparts and are more likely to have lower incomes and assets. In a recent issue brief headlined “The Perfect Storm — Factors Contributing to Lower Retirement Confidence Among Women Who Are Not Married” our guest today unpacks the data on women’s retirement confidence. Craig Copeland is Director of Wealth Benefits Research ...
Sep 19, 2022•13 min•Season 3Ep. 139
The professional civil service are the ones consistent and reliable application of the law and regulations throughout the federal government. Political interference – particularly through personnel rules like the scuttled Schedule F classification – can interfere with that fair application of rules. This week, multiple organizations representing thousands of feds lent their support to the Preventing a Patronage System Act, which brings forward rules prohibiting federal employee reclassification ...
Sep 16, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 138
According to new research from Eagle Hill Consulting, more than a third of government employees say they haven’t taken a vacation in the last 12 months . Expenses topped the reasons given for eschewing vacation time, with self-imposed pressure coming next. Frank Konkel is the Executive Editor of Govexec sibling site Nextgov. He has a story about the survey headlined “More Than 1 in 3 Government Employees Haven’t Taken a Vacation in Last Year, Survey Says.” He joined the podcast to talk about gov...
Sep 15, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 137
The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the ways that we look at office space. While many organizations have brought office workers back to physical locations, telework has become a fact of life for most of us in America. The federal government is no different, with agencies expanding telework since March 2020. The Government Accountability Office recently released a report on the state of federal office space, saying that the future will have to account for remote work and telework in the federal gov...
Sep 14, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 136
Ever since an Aug. 8 search warrant was exercised on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, the federal government’s classification process has been elevated into the national conversation. But, of course, most people who handle classified information – properly or not – are regular, non-former presidents. What happens to them? Lindy Kyzer is the editor of ClearanceJobs.com, a former Defense Department employee and a GovExec contributor. She has a post on our site right now headli...
Sep 13, 2022•18 min•Season 3Ep. 135
The American public has gotten a crash course in inflation over the last two years, but there are still a lot of questions about the state of the American economy. Inflation affects people’s wallets, but it also affects the national mood and it affects people’s long-term planning. Leah Hartman is the distinguished lecturer and chair of finance, accounting, and marketing at the Pompea College of Business at the University of New Haven. She previously served as the head of research at both The Del...
Sep 11, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 134
Federal employees know the word “bureaucracy” is often seen as derogatory in the popular imagination. It’s not about systems or rules, but rather a synonym for byzantine regulations that show no benefit to those experiencing them. But maybe bureaucracies, from private supply chain systems to the federal government, are necessary. Marina Nitze is a fellow at New America's New Practice Lab. Previously, she served as the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs under Pres...
Sep 09, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 133
Dr. Anthony Fauci announced recently that he will leave government this coming December. Though Fauci has done groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS, worked under eight presidential administration, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director has come into the common consciousness over the last two years as one of the faces of the pandemic response and a target for anti-vaccine activists, partisan bad actors and conspiracy theorists. Recently, GovExec correspondent Courtney Bublé...
Sep 08, 2022•17 min•Season 3Ep. 132
The professional competitive civil service is often under attack, with many criticizing the federal workforce as just paper pushers or members of a nefarious “Deep State.” But, the import of the professional civil service is often underrated and all one needs to do is look at the era just before the 19th century Pendleton Act was passed to codify the competitive civil service. Tom Shoop is editor at large and the former executive vice president and editor in chief at GovExec Media. He has a post...
Sep 07, 2022•22 min•Season 3Ep. 131
We see the evidence of the climate crisis in many ways, from flooding in Pakistan to the droughts and wildfires in the American west. Congress and the Biden administration have promised to enact and administer policy to combat it, but the need for action is great. As part of Government Executive’s Climate Summit event recently, GovExec Daily host Ross Gianfortune spoke to Samantha Medlock, Senior Counsel with the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. In this episode, you'll hear their co...
Sep 06, 2022•26 min•Season 3Ep. 130
Recently, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. Department of Education will cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for non-Pell Grant recipients. The announcement was a culmination of a campaign promise, though the news caused the websites of loan providers and a federal agency to crash in response to an influx of web traffic. Ben Kaufman is the Director of Research & Investigations at the Student Borrower Protection Center. Prior to joining SBPC, ...
Sep 02, 2022•24 min•Season 129Ep. 3
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control announced new guidelines regarding COVID-19 safety rules. According to the White House’s Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, agencies can now pause asking or requiring current or potential federal employees to provide information about their vaccination status. Stephanie Rapp-Tully is a partner and federal employment attorney with Tully Rinckey PLLC’s Washington, D.C. office. She joined the podcast to talk about how the new CDC guidelines will ...
Sep 01, 2022•15 min•Season 3Ep. 128
In September of last year, President Joe Biden put forward Executive Order 14042, which put in place a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors. Last week, however, a court partially lifted the ban, prompting the administration to pivot its message to contractors. Courtney Bublé is a reporter at GovExec. She joined the podcast to discuss the contractor vaccine mandate and the court decision. *** Follow GovExec on Twitter! https://twitter.com/govexec
Aug 31, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 127
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring 100,000 new cases each week in the U.S. and the disease has taken the lives of more than one million Americans. Earlier this month, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that her agency must pivot much of its pandemic strategy and learn from the many mistakes it has made in the past few years. Dr. Julie Swann is the department head and A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor of the Fitts Department of ...
Aug 30, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 126
The recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act has provisions in it to hire tens of thousands of new IRS employees over the next decade. Supporters of the plan have called the surge necessary to restore the IRS after massive cuts over the last decade and to crack down on high-earning tax cheats and the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would raise more than $200 billion in tax revenue, or a net of $124 billion. Opponents have warned of burdensome tax audits for Americans as IRS staffs up. Di...
Aug 29, 2022•14 min•Season 3Ep. 125
In January 2016 , a group of far-right militia members invaded the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters in eastern Oregon. The group occupied the site for nearly six weeks before law enforcement made arrests. The entire ordeal is the subject of a GovExec post headlined “That Time Armed Militants Occupied a Federal Building (Not the Capitol).” Tom Shoop is editor at large and the former executive vice president and editor in chief at GovExec Media. He joined the podcast to discuss his po...
Aug 25, 2022•25 min•Season 3Ep. 124
Voice of America broadcasts in dozens of languages to millions of people worldwide. As an arm of American diplomacy and as a journalistic enterprise, VOA has to thread a very complex and specific needle that most agencies – and news organizations – can sidestep. As journalists covering the American role in global politics, the war in Ukraine and other global instability, VOA staffers worldwide have a difficult and often dangerous job. Recently, GovExec correspondent and frequent GovExec Daily gu...
Aug 24, 2022•23 min•Season 3Ep. 123
Death data in the United States are collected and maintained by state vital records offices, but the information is needed for federal agencies like the Social Security Administration to identify eligible individual survivor benefits and prevent improper payments to dead people. According to a recent report from the National Academy of Public Administration, agencies are still fighting over this data. Natalie Alms is a staff writer at FCW covering federal technology policy, service delivery, cus...
Aug 23, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 122
