Scott Flanders, who will assume the permanent CIO position Sunday, is charged with managing and employing technology to enhance “information access and strengthen agency performance,” the NRC’s release states. Additionally, Flanders’s office is also charged with overseeing cyber and information security, data management, artificial intelligence and more.

Flanders “has risen through the ranks at the NRC over many years and has been an outstanding member of the senior executive service since 2004,” Raymond Furstenau, NRC’s acting executive director for operations, said in the release. “His experience with the government’s use of information technology and his deep understanding of the NRC mission will help the agency navigate the challenges of the future.”

As deputy CIO, Flanders “planned, directed and oversaw resources” to ensure IT and information management systems’ delivery to support the agency’s goals and priorities, the NRC said. 

Flanders joined the NRC in 1991 as a reactor engineer intern, and later served in the agency’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards’ Division of Site Safety and Environmental Analysis and in the Office of New Reactors as the director, according to CIO.gov. Additionally, he served as the deputy director of the Division of Waste Management and Environment Review in the ONMSS.

Flanders takes over as NRC’s permanent IT chief  amid an internal push on artificial intelligence. A staff letter sent earlier this month recommended the agency follow an AI framework that outlines AI governance, hiring new talent, upskilling existing workers, maturing the commission’s data management program and allocating resources to support AI integration into IT infrastructure.

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During a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing Wednesday, Office of Personnel Management Director Rob Shriver responded to mostly Republican concerns about federal telework policies by citing the practice’s usefulness with the cybersecurity workforce in advancing agency missions. 

“If we were to require cybersecurity professionals to come into the office five days a week, I think we wouldn’t be able to recruit the kind of workforce that we need,” Shriver said. “I think agencies need to keep working here to make sure they’re getting it right, that those arrangements are driving good performance.”

Shriver’s comments come weeks after Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., introduced legislation that would require federal workers to spend 60% of their time in their offices. And a bill introduced last month from Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, would call on agencies to collect telework data and boost monitoring of how the practice impacts performance metrics. 

In his witness statement, Shriver pointed to OPM’s efforts to assist and support agencies in retaining and attracting cyber talent within the federal government. He also shared that the agency supports the Tech to Gov initiative and “is helping to connect aspiring tech talent with federal employment opportunities to bolster agency cyber and emerging tech programs.”

Those efforts follow White House moves to relax education requirements for some cybersecurity contracting jobs, shift to skill-based hiring and diversify the cybersecurity workforce.

Matt Bracken contributed to this story.

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The Technical Advisory Group, part of a broader effort to engage stakeholders and support FedRAMP processes related to delivering emerging technology solutions to assist agencies, will inform decision-making on the technical, strategic and operational direction of the government-wide compliance program, according to a GSA press release. 

“This group will help make FedRAMP a smarter and more technology-forward operation that better meets its goals of making it safe and easy for federal agencies to take full advantage of cloud services,” Eric Mill, GSA’s executive director for cloud strategy in Technology Transformation Services, said in the statement. 

Members of the inaugural group are: Laura Beaufort, technical lead with the Federal Election Commission; Paul Hirsch, technical lead with TTS; Michael Boyce, director of DHS’s AI Corps; Elizabeth Schweinsberg, senior technical adviser at CMS; Grant Dasher, architecture branch chief in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Office of the Technical Director; Nicole Thompson, cybersecurity engineer with the Department of Defense’s Defense Digital Service; and Brian Turnau, cloud authorization program manager with GSA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Laura Gerhardt, director of technology modernization and data in the Office of Management and Budget, said in a statement that “the TAG is well-positioned to provide valuable insights into streamlining processes, enhancing security postures and adapting to novel technology implementations so that agencies can leverage the full potential of FedRAMP.” 

GSA released a new roadmap for modernization efforts through the FedRAMP program in March and has since revealed a slew of other FedRAMP-related announcements.

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In the report, NRC staff recommended an AI framework for the agency to follow, which outlines approaches for AI governance, hiring new talent, upskilling existing workers, maturing the commission’s data management program and allocating resources to support AI integration into IT infrastructure. 

Additionally, NRC staff recommended that the agency invest in “foundational tools” by acquiring gen AI-based services and integrating AI in the NRC’s system for document access and management’s cognitive search technology.

“To effectively implement AI solutions, the NRC will need to develop a framework to deploy AI at the agency,” the report states. “As part of this effort, the NRC will continue to strengthen its many partnerships to stay current with the evolving state of AI. To achieve the promise of AI, leadership engagement will be essential.”

The report pushed for a collaborative approach to furthering the NRC’s use of the technology, pointing to the Chief AI Officers Council, the Responsible AI Officers Council, and other individual agency partnerships as being “essential to the agency’s response to the rapidly changing AI landscape.”

The NRC’s AI team — designated to lead this review by the agency’s executive director for operations — reported working closely with internal data scientists and subject matter experts to consider possible AI uses. Staff reviewed 61 AI use cases and identified 36 that align with tools that have AI capabilities, while the other 25 could “be addressed using non-AI solutions.”

The nuclear industry currently uses AI to “change its approach to some nonregulated activities and has expressed interest in using AI for NRC-regulated activities,” per the report, adding that the NRC is investing in AI research to identify where AI could build foundational knowledge across the agency, while still meeting its mission. 

Staff reported that the broad approach to AI research is “preparing the agency to use AI to increase staff knowledge and experience for future regulatory reviews and oversight.”

The NRC’s congressional budget justification for fiscal year 2025 carved out over $4 million for AI-related funds.

Correction: This story was updated May 13, 2024, to indicate that the nuclear industry, not the NRC, is using AI to alter its approach on some nonregulated activities.

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The Federal Secure Cloud Advisory Committee will tap Lawrence Hale as the new committee chair effective May 15. Hale, who serves as deputy assistant commissioner within the Office of Information Technology Category Management for GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, will act as a liaison for the group and as its designated federal officer, as well as serving as a spokesperson for committee work products. 

“The inaugural committee has provided great value and insight over the past year to help ensure secure adoption of cloud computing products and services across agencies,” GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said in a press release. “We are grateful to all our committee members for bringing their wealth of cloud expertise to help the committee continue equipping agencies with what they need to address ever-evolving threats in order to securely deliver for the American people.”

Two vacant FSCAC seats will be filled by Josh Krueger, chief information security officer for Project Hosts, and Kayla Underkoffler, lead security technologist at HackerOne. Carlton Harris, senior vice president of End to End Solutions, will also join the committee, serving a full three-year term.

Michael Vacirca, a senior engineering manager at Google who has served one year on the council, was reappointed to a full term.

The committee’s inaugural appointments were made last year, with Ann Lewis, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services, serving as chair.

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The National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent a memo to departments and agencies Wednesday morning “to ensure their cyber infrastructure is compliant with” a May 2021 cybersecurity executive order on improving U.S. agencies’ cyber defense, a National Security Council spokesperson said in an emailed statement. 

The spokesperson added that the administration has been focused on strengthening cybersecurity in the “nation’s most critical sectors since day one, and will continue to work to secure our cyber defenses.” CNN was the first to report news of the memo.

The executive order outlined specific steps agencies were to take to improve sharing of threat information, modernize cybersecurity, and bolster the security of the software supply chain. It also outlined the establishment of a cyber safety review board and improvements for government responses to cyber vulnerabilities and incidents.

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Back in May, the FBI created a national database to track incidents of swatting, according to NBC. The idea is that police departments will collaborate with other law enforcement agencies. Before this summer, there was no nationwide government approach to tracking the problem.

“In response to the national call on swatting, the FBI initiated the Virtual Command Center (VCC) known as the National Common Operation Picture (NCOP). The NCOP-VCC is a collaborative effort between the FBI and law enforcement partners to track and create a real-time picture of swatting incidents,” a spokesperson for the FBI told FedScoop. “Established in May 2023, this initiative is open to any law enforcement agencies and fusion centers who wish to participate in tracking and sharing swatting information in respective jurisdictions.”

There’s been mounting pressure on the agency to address the issue. In April, Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer shared that $10 million of the federal budget should be designated for a “cyberswat” team at the FBI dedicated to fighting swatting calls. At the time, he also called for a better system for tracking the incidents of these calls across the country.

“They don’t do it now,” the senator said in April. “When you can track a crime, you can find out what’s happened. How many were from overseas? How many occurred here? How many used this language? How many used that language? Maybe this is one person. Maybe it’s a whole lot of people. We just don’t know yet.”

FedScoop has to Senator Schumer’s office for comment.

Editor’s Note: This piece was updated at 1:43 PM ET to include a comment from the FBI.

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The proposed program is called the Track Three Pilot Program and would allow “micro entity” applicants — that status is governed by federal rules — to take a 30-month period before paying search or examination fees, provided they meet certain requirements. Applicants could also receive a “obtain a pre-examination search report” before paying an examination fee.

“The USPTO recognizes that under-resourced applicants may need a low-cost option with minimal requirements to allow them additional time for commercialization efforts and to ascertain the value of their inventions,” explained Katherine Vidal, the undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property and the director USPTO  in a post shared to the Federal Register on Friday. 

The pre-examination search report option that the office is considering could involve artificial intelligence. Recently, USPTO incorporated an AI-enhanced tool —which was trained on past patent data —  that allows examiners to analyze how similar an application is to previously-filed domestic and foreign patent documents. Now, the office is considering whether the search results produced by that AI system should be included in a pre-examination report.

The goal, the federal register post said, is “to provide applicants with additional information as they consider potential commercialization and the value of their invention.”

The move comes as the office looks to use AI to accelerate the patent application process. The comment period closes on July 25. 

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One way to get this? Bring back the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), they said.

“Its time to bring back the Office of Technology Assessment,” Congressman Vic Fazio, who represented California’s third district from 1979 through 1999, said during his prepared remarks. “I think we’ve all been embarrassed by the way Congress fails to understand technology. OTA needs to come back in some form.”

The defunct OTA, which provided members and committees with objective, forward-looking reports on the impacts of science and technology developments, was established in 1972 then defunded and shuttered in 1995.

Other witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing also decried the lack of tech savvy in Congress. “The House should modernize technology and improve the effectiveness of government,” said Tim Roemer, who represented Indiana’s third district until 2003 and was an ambassador to India. “We can’t have staff and members that don’t know how Google and Facebook and WhatsApp and different huge companies operate today.”

Interest in reviving OTA gathered some momentum in the 2020 appropriations process this week as well. A draft of the legislative branch’s spending bill is proposing $6 million in funding to get the office up and running again. How this purse will fare moving forward remains to be seen — past efforts to revive the office have thus far fallen flat.

Wednesday’s hearing was the Modernization Committee’s third since it was established in January, and the second hearing focused on what can be learned from the lessons of the past. In keeping with the committee’s broad mandate, the hearing got into a bunch of other House improvement wish-list items including designing a more productive legislative calendar, better staff pay, bipartisanship and restoring public trust in the institution.

“If we want people to respect this institution, we must begin by respecting this institution,” said Congressman Reid Ribble, who represented Wisconsin’s eighth district from 2011 to 2017.

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Because task orders under the CDM program are centrally funded by the Office of Management and Budget to provide basic continuous monitoring capabilities for all CFO Act agencies, CDM mirrors the business case behind a centralized, governmentwide IT modernization fund in that the federal government could invest in capabilities that each could benefit dozens of agencies, said Jim Piche of the General Services Administration during a panel hosted Wednesday by the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.

“The CDM program is actually a pilot of that investment fund where we’re getting a centralized appropriation to leapfrog every agency’s technology to the next level of CDM, whether it be hardware, software management, role and authentication, HSPD-12, or any kind of FISMA reporting,” said Piche, senior director for the homeland sector in the GSA’s FEDSIM, the office leading the CDM program procurement. “There’s this core investment that is being centrally funded through OMB.”

A centralized, governmentwide IT modernization fund has been championed by U.S. CIO Tony Scott and proposed in legislation by Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, that is known as the Modernizing Government Technology Act. The Treasury Department would house the fund and the GSA would administer it at the discretion of a board. The bill passed the House last year before stalling in the Senate due to a steep cost estimate from congressional budget analysts.

While money from that fund could be given to individual agencies for modernization needs, it could also be used for “the development, operation, and procurement of information technology products, services, and acquisition vehicles for use by agencies to improve Governmentwide efficiency and cybersecurity,” the bill reads.

DHS is currently in the phase of working with agencies to implement the second phase of the program, particularly credentials and authentication management, which it calls CRED. GSA recently awarded a single contract for the CRED portion of phase 2 to integrator CGI, who brought in Centrify and SailPoint to provide base-level continuous monitoring services around credentialing.

“The whole program is centered around leveraging funding that’s already in place for agencies to start to upgrade their controls around cyber-identity,” said Jeremy Grant, a managing director with the Chertoff Group and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s former identity management buff.

Doing so, the federal government is able to “achieve incredible bang for the buck,” Piche said, “rather than distributing the funding to all the agencies and diluting the capability of what industry is providing to government.”

The beauty of the way CDM has been funded and procured, panelists explained, is that beyond the initial capabilities DHS helps provide through the task orders, agencies have the ownership to expand upon them as they wish. Rather than dictating federal agencies’ full path to cybersecurity competency, CDM is more of a nudge in the right direction.

The companies under the CDM task orders can provide much more than what DHS has asked them to do, said Ross Foard a CDM phase 2 engineer at DHS.

“We asked for a limited set of capabilities that we wanted with these products, and these products do much more than we asked for under the CDM capabilities,” Foard said.

DHS will provide a period of operations and maintenance under the program before leaving the agencies with the licenses to operate the tools on their own. At that point, he said, “You are able to as an agency do other things with these products that you have license to do.”

Paula Wells, vice president with CGI, said the integrator chose to partner with SailPoint and Centrify “for their broad capabilities,” despite the CRED task order’s “very narrow focus.”

During the initial implementation phase, she said, the challenge is “going to be walking that line between these great tools and great capabilities but the constraints of our task order is to deliver these very specific capabilities.”

“Once you own it, you can turn on all these other great functions,” Wells explained.

The future of CDM really lays in the hands of the agencies, Piche said.

Though the first three phases of CDM are centrally appropriated “and DHS is providing the candy store of ‘look at all these great and wonderful things you can do,’ they are only tasked with providing and delivering the base, core capabilities,” he explained.

“So while DHS will continue to be the technical leader and the technical policy guide in where agencies are going with CDM, OMB is committed to putting CDM funding in the agencies’ hands [after that],” Piche said.

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