Government Executive - Authors - Rebecca Carroll

Around Government

Charles S. Clark, Rebecca Carroll, and Susan Fourney — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0500

The Disease Detectives

CDC’s intelligence officers were on the case even before the Ebola outbreak made headlines.

By Susan Fourney

Imagine having a job and not knowing where your next commute will take you or what will be expected of you when you get there, and if the work doesn’t get done right, people could lose their lives. No pressure.

In early November, Dr. Leisha Nolen was packing her bags for Sierra Leone, the epicenter of the largest Ebola outbreak in history. Nearly 5,000 people had died by then, and the work of containing the disease promised to stretch weeks, if not months, into the future.

Nolen, an epidemic intelligence officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tracks myriad public health mysteries. She has traveled to places like the Democratic Republic of Congo to hunt down monkey pox and Micronesia to investigate melioidosis. She made two trips to West Africa in recent weeks.

“You get there and do what’s needed. You never know what that will be. When I arrived I ended up doing a lot of policy work,” says Nolen, who helped the local ministry develop a universal plan for addressing the outbreak. Other assignments include data collection, lab work and training local health officials in contact tracing. “You’re literally working every day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.,” she adds.

As the situation worsened last spring, CDC put out a call for volunteers from across the agency to travel to West Africa. A core team of six to eight has grown to as many as 180. The Ebola outbreak signals only the third time in the agency’s history that it has cranked its Emergency Operations Center up to the highest activation status—Level 1. The other two times were post-Hurricane Katrina and during the 2009 outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus.

“It’s a horrible, horrible situation. But this is one of those times when you know why you’re there,” Nolen says. “Even doing something little is having some impact, and that’s really satisfying.”

Gone to Pot And the Dogs

Dogs are known for precision sniffing, which is why security and law enforcement agencies use them to find bombs and drugs. It’s also why federal scientists tasked with improving explosives and narcotics detection at airports and other checkpoints started studying dog noses and then 3-D printing what the National Institute of Standards and Technology calls “the first anatomically correct dog nose that realistically sniffs.”

The devices, modeled after a female Labrador retriever, expel strong air jets away from the nostrils the way real dogs do when exhaling. This helps pull in new smelly air “from impressive distances,” says NIST scientist Matthew Staymates. The process repeats up to five times a second.

NIST’s dog nose research started as a side project to track the movement of vapor—potentially carrying explosives or narcotics. “We built an artificial dog nose that sniffed like a real dog and began flow visualization experiments in our schlieren optical system,” Staymates says, referring to a device that can visually render variation in air temperature and density.

The researchers will soon print their best dog nose yet with the Connex500 3-D printer the agency bought in August for $228,977. The machine can print multiple substances, such as the hard and soft parts of the model nose, into one object.

The artificial noses aren’t used at security checkpoints. “This is strictly a research tool,” Staymates says.

-Rebecca Carroll

Feel Well, Work Well?

Consultant helps agencies align employees’ mood with the mission.

Managers worried about disengaged staffers have a new remedy on offer. The General Services Administration has booked the Ken Blanchard Companies—founded by the author of The One Minute Manager —to deliver Employee Work Passion Assessments to any agencies feeling the need.

Unveiled in October to several dozen federal employees at Washington’s City Club, the new tool updates Blanchard’s long-standing situational leadership development system with onsite coaching and employee surveys designed to dovetail with President Obama’s management agenda.

The federal government loses 19,000 work years annually due to sick days, according to the company’s literature, which cites 35 years’ experience with corporations like Nissan, Johnson & Johnson and Nike as well federal customers ranging from the CIA to the Marines to the Food and Drug Administration. Workshop surveys measuring 12 engagement factors—among them “task variety”—have shown retention increasing 17 percent, turnover cut by 28 percent and productivity rising 10 percent, the sales team noted.

In a nutshell, improving engagement means awakening employees to what they can gain from autonomy, according to the Blanchard group. “Motivation is a skill that can be taught and nurtured. But the new F-word in business and government is ‘feelings,’ ” said motivational speaker and author Susan Fowler, adding that too many employees are feeling insecure.

Disengagement, added Bob Freytag, a senior partner at Blanchard, comes from “worry about being judged and seeming needy, which keeps people from asking leaders for what they need and discussing goals.” An optimally motivating workplace offers employees a “sense of well-being aligned with the mission,” which promotes above-average work, discretionary effort and good citizenship, he said.

Blanchard licenses cost $60 per person annually for federal agencies with fewer than 25,000 employees and $45 for those with more.

- Charles S. Clark

Money to Burn

Agencies on average spend 4.9 times more in the fiscal year’s final week than they do in a typical week, according to a report examining 14.6 million federal contracts from 2004 to 2009. The last-minute spending surge was more modest at the Justice Department, which has special authority to roll over up to 4 percent of budget for information technology projects. The authors suggest allowing some rollover of excess funds into the next budget year would allow agencies to spend more wisely.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

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This One’s for You

Rebecca Carroll — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 08:00:00 -0400

Ashwin Vasan was drawn to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because he wanted to help improve a marketplace that touches nearly everyone’s life. What he found was an opportunity to change the way government provides information to citizens.

We’re in the midst of a shift in how agency websites and applications are conceived, says Vasan, chief information officer at CFPB. “Many people interact with their governments through digital channels, whether it’s a website or mobile,” he says. “But often, I think, government websites don’t seem really designed with end-users in mind.”

At CFPB and elsewhere, designers are thinking about why someone might be using a particular website or software application. For instance, CFPB has a suite of tools and Web apps to help people plan for the costs of higher education. “When we are thinking of a product, like Paying for College, we’re really trying to design it around an American consumer in that situation who needs to pay for college or pay a student loan,” Vasan says. “Whether they want to file a complaint, or ask a question about their finances, that’s the kind of approach we want to take.”

Vasan says agencies aren’t always going to know how people want to locate and visualize their data. One way to figure it out is to ask. Since CFPB launched Paying for College last year, it has made numerous improvements based on users’ habits and expectations, site analytics and feedback from people using the site.

User-centered design is all the rage in the private sector, especially at start-ups. “It’s something that government has started to do increasingly,” Vasan says. “Hopefully it will be more and more emblematic of what good government looks like.”

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Around Government

Charles S. Clark and Rebecca Carroll — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 01:00:00 -0500

The Next Big Shake

Installing an earthquake warning system before it’s too late.

When a magnitude-9 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan in March 2011, it triggered an automatic warning that stopped trains, alerted students to take shelter under their desks, paused sensitive manufacturing and allowed hazardous chemicals to be isolated seconds before the quake reached them. The United States will definitely install this type of earthquake early-warning system, according to Richard Allen, director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. The question is when.

“Rather than waiting until the next big quake galvanizes political action, I believe that we must build an alert system now,” Allen wrote in the journal Nature in October. Acknowledging that budgets are tight, Allen noted that the $120 million it would cost to build a West Coast system over five years is a great value when you consider that’s $2.44 apiece for the people of California, Oregon and Washington. “My morning coffee costs me $2.40,” he said.

Allen advocates developing public-private partnerships. In Japan, the government pays for the long-term operation of the geophysical networks to detect quakes and generate alerts, while the private sector delivers the alerts and provides support, Allen noted. He would also like to see partnerships within government among the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “If these three agencies were to come together to build and deploy an earthquake warning system, that would be a huge achievement,” Allen told Government Executive .

“I am happy to give up tomorrow’s coffee in exchange for a warning before the next big shake,” he wrote in Nature .

- Rebecca Carroll

Navigating Space Junk

In the popular 3-D movie Gravity , the drama begins when a cluster of exploded satellite debris orbiting Earth at extremely high speed collides with spacewalking astronauts and their shuttle. While the movie takes some license to tell a story, the danger of space junk is real. Scientists are tracking more than half a million pieces of debris orbiting the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500 miles per hour, according to NASA. That’s “fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft,” the space agency says.

Space junk has been orbiting Earth for as long as humans have been leaving it around.

By 1963, scientists had cataloged a total of 616 manmade objects in space, though many had already fallen back to Earth and a few had landed on the moon or veered off into orbits around the sun by that time. Alert to the potential dangers of a littered lower orbit, scientists were already calling for better cataloging and observations, and predicted 2013 levels of space junk with amazing accuracy.

- Rebecca Carroll

Open Office, Open Mind?

GSA’s vision for shared, collaborative workspace could create productivity challenges for some.

Rolling out an initiative to reduce federal real estate, the General Services Administration in September showcased its headquarters renovation, built around an open office environment. But promoting savings and collaboration through desk sharing, telecommuting and mobile devices isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

The idea is falling flat with some Government Executive readers. “This looks good on the surface, and certainly from the bean counters’ perspective,” says one online commenter. “The message is that the employees are just interchangeable parts in the machine, that the employer can use an employee’s home as an extension of the workplace (shifting cost from the government to the employee without compensation).”

With as many as a quarter of businesses taking the open-office plunge, according to one survey, the arrangement is the hottest trend in the American workplace, says Blake Zalcberg, chief executive officer of OFM Inc., an office furniture manufacturer based in Holly Springs, N.C. “But a resounding number of customers I talk to say it’s great for some, but not for all,” he says. “The company looking at morale or for efficiency in dollars in creating space needs to strike a balance for the company as a whole.”

Many new technology firms, for example, welcome hoteling for colleagues who can “grab their laptop, move around and meet with 600 people on a whim,” Zalcberg says. But some workers are less extroverted than others, plus there’s the noise factor, he adds.

Similar warnings come from Lawrence Fitzpatrick, president of Computech, a software firm in Bethesda, Md. “The bullpen setting interrupts the deep concentration required to develop systems,” he says. “Unfortunately, the impact of decisions such as forcing types of workers who suffer lost productivity in a bullpen environment isn’t felt for one to three years, on someone else’s watch.”

- Charles S. Clark

Turns Out T. Rex Is Nonessential

A funny thing happened to Tyrannosaurus rex on the way to Washington—the government shut down. The 38-foot, 7-ton fossil has been on display at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies, where Jack Horner is curator of paleontology. The Army Corps of Engineers inked a deal to loan the T. rex to the Smithsonian, but furloughs pushed the move from October to April. But after 60 million years, what’s a few months?

Smithsonian/Museum of the Rockies

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It Takes a Government

Rebecca Carroll — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 16:01:39 -0400

The Veterans Affairs Department doesn’t do its work alone or in a vacuum, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki explained (over and over) to lawmakers seeking to fund his department before they open the rest of the government.

Shinseki warned that he would be unable to make Nov. 1 payments to millions of veterans and their families without additional funding. But, he told a House VA Committee hearing Wednesday, even those payments aren’t just about his department.

“In order to make those claims decisions, I link into the IRS, Social Security, the Department of Education, Small Business,” he said. “I don’t do that independently.”

To provide veterans services, Shinseki said, VA regularly works with the Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor and Treasury departments -- to list a few.

“Frankly, it is this collaboration amongst and across the government that allows us to be effective,” he said. “I would say what is best for veterans and for all of us right now is a budget for the entire government. Let us get back to work.”

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Around Government

Rebecca Carroll, Susan Fourney, and Eric Katz — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 01:00:00 -0400

Films About War

Iraq War veteran Michael Chan pursued two dreams—the military and movies.

By Susan Fourney

High on the list of risky career moves are fighting wars and making movies, and Michael Chan took a chance on both. The 27-year-old Iraq War veteran, who served two tours with the Marines in Fallujah, was honored at the 2013 GI Film Festival in May. The nonprofit’s annual showcase highlights films about military service and veterans issues.

Chan’s award-winning documentary, Choice, is based on his wrenching decision to enlist in the military as a teen. “I wanted to do something bigger with my life,” says Chan, who was raised in New York’s Lower East Side. After the nearby World Trade Center towers fell to terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, he found himself on the doorstep of a Marine Corps recruiting office. Knowing his family would not approve, he enlisted on his 18th birthday.

In Fallujah, Chan filmed parodies with his digital camera to take the edge off. He made his comrades laugh. “At that point I knew I wanted to tell stories,” he says.

Breaking into the movie business hasn’t been easy for Chan. “My first year back home I was rejected from every film school you could possibly name,” he says. Finally, he was accepted to the University of Southern California, where he received a degree in 2012. Chan now is a production assistant on the upcoming movie Thor: The Dark World at Marvel, where he was paired with a mentor through American Corporate Partners, a nonprofit that helps vets gain a foothold in their field.

Chan also is working on a full-length script that he hopes will help counter the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder. “This is the type of story I want to tell” he says. “Whether it’s good or not is for people to judge when it comes out.”

Tracking Tech Talent

The push is on to attract skilled professionals to science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical jobs at federal agencies. In 2012, 28 percent of federal workers were in STEMM fields, compared with 25 percent a decade earlier.

The Furlough Five-Miler

Federal employees are sequestering their own exercise.

Defense Department employees Beth Flores and Christel Fonzo-Eberhard organized a fun run to help their colleagues stay positive during what they call a “really bad period.” Civilian workers could give up as much as 20 percent of their pay thanks to furloughs required by budget cuts. The Furlough Five-Mile Fun Run—from the Pentagon to the Capitol—took place on July 12, the department’s first furlough day.

Unbeknownst to the 50 participants, the finish line was at the four-mile marker, where a banner read: “This is what 80 percent looks like.” The shortened work window, in this case, was meant as a welcome relief.

“They tell you to ‘Do the best you can four days a week, and oh, by the way, you’re getting a pay cut,’” says Fonzo-Eberhard. “So that starts to have a really serious impact on morale.”

Other event plans include a charity outing, possibly with the Wounded Warrior Project. “By doing something like this, you really get to take some ownership over your fate and not feel like a pawn,” she adds. “And that was really the goal.”

- Eric Katz

Weeding Out Waste

David Walker takes his federal efficiency campaign to Capitol Hill.

David Walker, the former comptroller general, has spent the past five years heading nonprofits focused on tackling the fiscal crisis and streamlining government. With bills introduced in Congress, his latest project, the Government Transformation Initiative, has moved closer to its goal of creating a bipartisan commission to eliminate wasteful programs.

GE: What motivated you to take on the Government Transformation Initiative?

Walker: I was motivated by my 15 years of federal government experience, where I saw what worked and did not work . . . I believe there is a need for a Government Transformation Commission that would make specific and actionable recommendations to the Congress relating to the organization and operations of government . . . No matter what you believe the size and scope of the federal government should be, it should do its work in an economical, efficient and effective manner. There is a lot of room for improvement.

GE: Is management reform sexy enough to win attention from Congress?

Walker: It is virtually certain that the Senate and House will not be able to reach agreement on a budget . . . A Government Transformation Commission combined with biennial budgeting and much more substantive “No Budget: No Pay” legislation would be positive steps that could resonate with the public.

GE: Does corporate funding bias the initiative toward fiscal austerity?

Walker: GTI is not about austerity, it is all about efficiency and effectiveness. A Government Transformation Commission would make recommendations that result in cost savings. It could also make recommendations to invest more in areas that are effective.

Daring Deliveries

You need a little extra spring in your step to deliver mail to the houses around Wisconsin’s Lake Geneva. A practice dating back more than a century involves jumping off and back on a moving passenger boat to drop mail at some 70 piers. Lake Geneva Cruise Line has been hiring summer workers to uphold this tradition for more than 50 years. The U.S. Postal Service pays the cruise line $1 a year to make the deliveries.

- Rebecca Carroll

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Contractors Question New Rules on Hiring Veterans, People With Disabilities

Rebecca Carroll — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 18:04:24 -0400

Two rules set new goals for federal contractors on hiring veterans and people with disabilities will increase paperwork and costs for companies that do business with the government -- but by how much depends on who you ask.

A commercial construction contractors group has charged the rules will cost companies nearly $6 billion a year in compliance costs, a figure the government strongly disputes.

Under one of the new rules, federal contractors must set benchmarks for veteran hiring either at the the national level of 8 percent or based on their own analysis of the best available data, as part of an update to the 1974 Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act. This rule increases record-keeping mandates and clarifies job listing and subcontractor requirements, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs said.

Under another rule, contractors also must strive to fill 7 percent of each job group in their workforces with qualified people with disabilities. This rule, which updates the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, also sets new recruiting, training and record-keeping requirements similar to those aiming to protect women and minorities in the workplace.

While the goals are laudable, Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, which advocates for federal contractors, had concerns about their implementation. He said the first rule fails to fully address true barriers to hiring veterans -- getting employees with appropriate experience levels and meeting other workforce requirements. With regard to the second rule, he said, applying the disability hiring goal to all job groups “may exponentially raise the challenge of compliance.”

“I understand some of the rationale behind it,” he said. “You don’t want people with disabilities slotted to only menial or nonprofessional work.” But, he added, it can be a real challenge to find find qualified disabled applicants in all job categories, which he said is uncharted territory for federal regulations.

Stephen E. Sandherr, CEO of Associated General Contractors of America, was sharper in expressing opposition to the regulations.

“These rules will force federal contractors to spend an estimated $6 billion a year to produce reams of new paperwork proving they are doing what the federal government already knows they are doing,” he said in a statement posted to his group’s website.

OFCCP Director Patricia Shiu rejected that figure, saying the disability hiring rule is expected to cost between $349 million and $659 million, and the veteran rule to run between $177 million and $483 million.

“That means that on the highest end of these estimates, the two rules will cost up to $1.1 billion in the first year of implementation,” Shiu said in a statement emailed to Government Executive. “The cost per establishment comes out to a max of $4,550 per establishment for the first year.”

In a statement accompanying OFCCP's announcement of the new rules, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said, "In a competitive job market, employers need access to the best possible employees.These rules make it easier for employers to tap into a large, diverse pool of qualified candidates."

The rules are scheduled to take effect 180 days after they appear in the Federal Register, which should happen “shortly,” OFCCP said.

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Feds See Jobs Decline While Overall US Job Creation Holds Steady, Gallup Says

Rebecca Carroll — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 12:25:14 -0400

While job creation held steady throughout most of the country in July, federal employees reported sharply deteriorating conditions, according to Gallup’s Job Creation Index.

Forty-two percent of federal workers said their employer was letting people go, up from 34 percent in February and 37 percent in June, Gallup found. Only 25 percent reported their agency was hiring in July.

Gallup said sequestration was the likely culprit. “Although these automatic spending cuts went into effect in early March,” the polling company said, “it is possible that the pace of furloughs and layoffs increased in July as federal agencies moved to implement the staffing component of budget cuts.”

The index held steady for nongovernment workers and state and local government workers, who reported little change in hiring at their workplaces, Gallup said. The index scored overall U.S. job creation at +21 in July, compared to +22 in June.

Deterioration in the federal government jobs scene came from feelings that agencies are letting people go coupled with a lack of hiring. “However, when comparing today's figures with the pre-sequestration figure from the start of this year, reported layoffs (up 6 percentage points since January) have risen more than hiring (down 1 point) has declined,” Gallup said.

While layoffs, or reductions in force, are rare in federal government, even amid sequestration budget cuts, "letting people go" -- as the survey words it -- might include retirements and jobs vacated through voluntary separation incentives.

Gallup's index is based on employed Americans' estimates of their companies' hiring and firing practices. Gallup includes the jobs questions in daily tracking surveys of 1,000 people reached by cellphone and landlines. The company computes the index on daily and weekly bases.

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Around Government

Rebecca Carroll, Eric Katz, and Kedar Pavgi — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 01:00:00 -0500

The Midas Touch

High-tech arm helps veteran amputees regain fine motor skills.

New technology reminiscent of the robotics in the iconic Star Wars movies is coming to life through the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Since 2006, DARPA has conducted research at the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments to develop products that link severed nerves with prosthetic limbs, allowing greater mobility for service members who’ve lost a hand or arm to combat injuries.

One of these inventions is the DEKA Arm, an $18.4 million project of DEKA Research and Development Corp. in New Hampshire, which develops devices for people with disabilities. The DEKA Arm was featured in a recent New York Times profile of Cpl. Sebastian Gallegos, an Army veteran who lost his arm in an explosion in Afghanistan. Using the device, which can simulate the functionality of a human hand, Gallego was able to make rudimentary movements.

DEKA has filed a request with the Food and Drug Administration to make the arm commercially available. But even after the technology hits the market, a major obstacle will be price. According to a study from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, neuroprosthetic arms cost nearly $150,000 apiece, and many insurance providers cap coverage at one-tenth that amount. Other prosthetics can be purchased at a fraction of the cost, but they don’t offer the same sophisticated features.

The price tag is expected to come down as the product is mass produced and the technology advances. And when that happens, the hope is it will significantly improve daily tasks for thousands of veterans affected by debilitating injuries.

- Kedar Pavgi

What Color Is Your Job?

Even though most green jobs are in the private sector, it might make sense to call government a deeper shade of green because a higher percentage of public sector jobs are environmentally friendly, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. The study used a Bureau of Labor Statistics definition of green that accounts for how specific jobs affect the environment based on what they do and how they do it.EPI found that federal jobs are greenest of all compared to state and local government and the private sector.

-Rebecca Carroll

Fantasy Island

There are lots of ideas for how to deal with the nation’s problems, but Robert Allen Hamlett offers a unique perspective. For example, the former FBI prosecutor suggests putting felons with a “serious criminal history” on an island, left to their own devices.

“The island is a very low cost to the hardworking American taxpayers who choose to obey the laws,” he writes in his book Wake Up America (AuthorHouse, 2012). Hamlett calls on Americans to demand such changes.

“Eventually the bubble’s gonna burst,” he says. “I’d like to see my grandkids owning their own home, having a job, working toward a retirement.”

To Hamlett, it all comes down to spending more wisely.

“Everyone’s proud that we were the first to the moon, but what did we get, a trophy?” he asks. “We certainly didn’t cure cancer.”

-Eric Katz

Cash for Clunkers

The Postal Service hopes perks for recycling electronics will draw more paying customers.

Facing declining revenues and record deficits, the U.S. Postal Service is turning to innovative ideas for getting back in the black.

One such idea is the Recycle Through USPS program, which allows customers to dispose of their old cellphones, iPods and other electronics in exchange for cash. After receiving a quote online, participants can mail their used devices to MaxBack, an electronics buyback program, which will cover the cost of shipping.

The Postal Service recently redoubled its efforts on the initiative, creating envelopes for the exchanges in partnership with MaxBack, displaying promotional materials at more post offices and revamping the program’s Web presence on USPS.com to attract customers.

The program, USPS officials say, combines the agency’s commitment to social responsibility with its desire to get back to fiscal solvency.

“What we’re looking at . . . is recovering these devices to maximize their value and limit any potential harm to the environment,” says Dan Barrett, the Postal Service’s manager of new business opportunities. “And also we’re looking at it as a way to increase shipping revenues. We’re doing what we do best, and that is deliver packages.”

Barrett calls the recycling program a launching pad for other retail partnerships and says the Postal Service could expand the concept to other promotions, such as charity donations and leftover prescription drug returns.

The Postal Service is cutting its infrastructure, buying out employees and implementing programs like Recycle Through USPS as it awaits congressional action on a comprehensive overhaul of the agency. USPS is losing $25 million per day, according to
agency estimates.

- Eric Katz

Clarification: This story was updated to reflect shipping costs are subsidized by the U.S. Postal Service's corporate partner MaxBack.

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Feds scheduled to work Wednesday should show up, OPM says

Rebecca Carroll — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 18:04:00 -0500

This story has been updated.

Federal employees scheduled to work on Wednesday should report as planned, even if Congress is unable to avert automatic, across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

The threat of sequestration still loomed Tuesday, after key House Republicans rejected a plan crafted overnight and approved overwhelmingly by the Senate that would, among other things, postpone sequestration for two months. It was unclear if the House would pass the legislation or if the Senate would accept an amended package before Wednesday, when sequestration was set to take hold under the 2011 Budget Control Act.

As a result, by Tuesday evening, the possibility remained that sequestration would go into effect, even if only for several hours or days while Congress tweaked a temporary fix.

OPM’s recent guidance specifically addresses these cuts. “Under sequestration, agencies would still have funds available after Jan. 2, but the overall funding for the remainder of the fiscal year would be reduced,” OPM said. “This means that agencies will not be executing any immediate personnel actions, such as furloughs, on Jan. 2. If furloughs or other personnel actions prove to be necessary, agencies will provide affected employees the requisite advance notice.”

OPM has distinguished administrative furloughs from emergency furloughs, which take place immediately in the event of a government shutdown. If sequestration were to take effect and hold long enough for furloughs to become necesseary, most employees must be provided at least 30 days notice of an administrative furlough scheduled to last 22 workdays or less, and at least 60 days notice of one lasting longer than that.

The Obama administration has said it will be up to agencies to determine if and where cuts would be necessary and that unions covering federal employees would get more information about possible furloughs before they occur. Under any type of furlough, employees are not allowed to work without pay unless voluntary services are permitted by law in their case.

The Office of Management and Budget said earlier in December that furloughs would be a last resort under sequestration.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union President, urged lawmakers on Tuesday to avoid the automatic cuts. “Federal employees have just ended a very difficult year in which they faced potential government shutdowns and constant attacks on their pay and benefits, and a pay freeze extending more than two years,” she said. “With sequestration employees could be subject to furloughs even as the American public looks toward them for services citizens count on. Our country, and our federal workforce, deserve better than this continued uncertainty.”

J. David Cox Sr., national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, also was cautious about the plan approved by the Senate to delay sequestration.

“AFGE members are very concerned about the use of additional agency funding cuts in order to pay for the delay of the sequester,” he said. “Before they look any further at unpaid furloughs or other cuts to critical agency programs, OMB should sharply reduce the amount taxpayers provide to federal contractors for excessive salaries for their top executives.”

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OPM issues furlough guidance

Rebecca Carroll — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:17:49 -0500

The Office of Personnel Management on Thursday posted new guidance for federal agencies and employees about administrative furloughs, which it describes as planned and typically non-emergency events.

The guidance, dated December 2012, comes days before automatic, across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration are slated to kick in if Congress cannot agree on an alternative. The Office of Management and Budget last week said furloughs would not happen immediately if sequestration takes effect on Jan. 2, 2013, but instead departments would have to consider furloughs as part of a longer-term plan if the cuts remain.

In keeping with that non-emergency timeframe, the document issued Thursday, first reported by The Washington Post, describes a process in which an “agency has sufficient time to reduce spending and give adequate notice to employees of its specific furlough plan.”

Agencies are responsible for determining which employees will be affected based on budget and mission priorities, OPM said. If the agency plans to administratively furlough employees for more than 30 days, it must provide 60 days notice.

The document detailed administrative furlough policy, distinguishing it from emergency furlough policy, which would apply in the event of a government shutdown.

This type of administrative furlough “is a planned event by an agency which is designed to absorb reductions necessitated by downsizing, reduced funding, lack of work, or any other budget situation other than a lapse in appropriations,” the document said. “An example of when such a furlough may be necessary is when, as a result of Congressional budget decisions, an agency is required to absorb additional reductions over the course of a fiscal year.”

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Around Government

Rebecca Carroll, Eric Katz, and Kedar Pavgi — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 01:00:00 -0400

A Road Well-Traveled

Brenda Wells is the master of the long commute.

Her daily five-hour sojourn to and from the State Department involves a drive, a ride on a commuter train, two subway lines and a bus. In May, Wells, won WTOP Radio’s inaugural Commuter Idle contest for having the worst commute in Washington. Later she was honored for her dedication to her work during a surprise visit with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Wells is an officer at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she assigns security agents to embassies and consulates around the world. Her 50-mile morning commute starts at 4 a.m. in Sparrows Point, Md., and she arrives at her desk in Foggy Bottom around 6:40 a.m.

So, what drives her to continue the daily haul?

“The main motivation is my children. That’s my No. 1 charging point,” says Wells, a single mother of three. She also credits the support network at her office for helping her manage her busy schedule.

“My boss is very supportive and flexible, and having that type of workplace with someone who respects you and your work ethic is very gratifying,” Wells says. Another huge benefit, she adds, are telework policies that allow her to work from home one day a week.

For feds struggling to get to work, Wells suggests using commute time to recharge and take care of personal matters. It’s critical, she says, “just having that balance—saving the work for when you get into the office.”

Kedar Pavgi

Just Say It

Rules and legislation aim to compel federal employees to write clearly, but across the pond, the appeal for good writing in government is getting personal.

Self-described “grammar fascist” Alan Duncan, a member of Britain’s Parliament and a minister of state for international development, links jargon-free language to reasoned thinking. An internal memo obtained by The Telegraph notes the minister of state “would prefer that we did not ‘leverage’ or ‘mainstream’ anything, and whereas he is happy for economies to grow, he does not like it when we ‘grow economies.’ ”

And according to The Mail on Sunday, a memo to the staff of the British transport secretary said, “Do not put in too many adverbs . . . avoid phrases like ‘strongly opposed’ and just say ‘opposed.’ ”

The push for clear prose in the U.S. government is more about effectively communicating, says Annetta Cheek, chairwoman of the Center for Plain Language. “We can see situations where you might want to talk or write in a

vernacular style,” she says. “We wouldn’t want the plain language movement to be identified with a sort of

grammar-Nazi approach.”

Rebecca Carroll

Trading Spaces

“We have a sacred trust with those who wear the uniform of the United States of America,” President Obama said shortly after taking office in 2009. “It’s a commitment that begins at enlistment and it must never end.”

For many Army veterans and reservists, that commitment will be honored in the great outdoors.

In August, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Army Reserve Chief Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Talley signed an agreement to promote jobs in the nation’s parks and open spaces for soldiers awaiting deployment or returning home.

The initiative is part of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative, launched in 2010 to promote conservation and involve local communities in managing public lands. The agreement will allow Interior to leverage the talents of reservists and veterans for that mission.

“Soldiers are well-trained in a variety of skills critical to maintaining not only the strength and agility of the United States Army, but also the strength and capabilities of DOI,” Salazar and Talley wrote in their agreement.

Ally Rogers of the Army Reserve Employer Partnership Office says these skills can lead to a variety of jobs. “For as many unique jobs as the Department of the Interior has, the military has a soldier qualified to fill the vacancy,” she says.

The program also will provide recreational and volunteer opportunities for soldiers and their families, including wounded warrior programs.

Eric Katz

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Around Government

Charles S. Clark, Amelia Gruber, Rebecca Carroll, and Eric Katz — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Conventional Wisdom

Red state, blue state, what the Hatch Act rules state.

By Charles S. Clark

It’s convention time. As Democrats gather in Charlotte, N.C., and Republicans in Tampa, Fla., this summer, federal employees hankering to make the scene might wish to remind themselves of the rules under the Hatch Act.

As spelled out in guidelines prepared by the Office of Special Counsel, federal employees may attend national or state party conventions. But only those in the category of “less restricted employee” may serve as a delegate, alternate or proxy at the gathering. Those who qualify as “further restricted employees” may attend only as a spectator; they may not be a delegate or proxy or address the convention to promote or oppose any candidate.

Further restricted employees are defined by agency and other criteria under the law, but generally are intelligence and law enforcement officials—except presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate—along with administrative judges and career members of the Senior Executive Service.

OSC staff attorneys can recall only one recent case in which these restrictions were challenged. Privacy requirements prevent them from divulging details, but the case involved a further restricted employee who served as a delegate to a state convention and passed out campaign literature. State conventions, OSC confirms, are not legally distinct from the quadrennial national confabs. Enjoy!

Peace Out, Hiring Managers

When you can’t hire many, it’s especially important to hire right. If you’re looking for patient problem-solvers who know their way around flip charts, then Molly Mattessich recommends returned Peace Corps volunteers. She lists 10 reasons to hire former volunteer feds with international experience, touting, among other things, their inclination to keep staff retreat costs down. “We’ll pass on the $16 muffins,” she wrote on the website of the National Peace Corps Association, a nonprofit organization that supports former volunteers. “Thanks to our modest Peace Corps living allowances, we’ve learned our way around a budget—and will respect yours.” Mattessich, who served in Mali and is NPCA’s manager of online initiatives, says Peace Corps volunteers can talk to anyone—whether they’re a village chief, a ministry official or a cranky vendor. She also notes Peace Corps alums’ ability to spice up an office potluck: “peanut stew, papusas, pad Thai . . . Congratulations! Your office gathering just got more interesting.”

- Rebecca Carroll

Dressed,to Impress

Just a few weeks after Time magazine got people talking about its May 21 cover showing a woman breast-feeding her nearly 4-year-old son, the support group Mom2Mom sparked its own version of the debate by posting photos of servicewomen breast-feeding in uniform. “I hope it encourages other women to know they can breast-feed whether they’re active duty, guard or civilian,” Air National Guard member Terran Echegoyen-McCabe, one of the women in the pictures, told MSNBC. The practice falls in a gray area—there is no Air Force policy specifically banning it, but service members should be “mindful of their dress and appearance and present a professional image at all times while in uniform,” a spokeswoman for the service told Yahoo Shine! That standard might vary, but according to the website Military Spouse Central, actions that can be considered inappropriate while in uniform include:

■ Holding hands

■ Eating, drinking or
talking on a cellphone
while walking

■ Letting your nonmilitary
spouse wear part of
your uniform

■ Smoking

■ Chewing gum

■ Carrying an umbrella

- Amelia Gruber

Busts Set New Highs

U.S. Coast Guard exceeds largest monthly marijuana haul in 10 years.

Records are meant to be broken, and in May, the U.S. Coast Guard did just that. The record: the most marijuana confiscated in one month. Breaking a decade-old mark, Coasties seized 11,800 pounds of the illegal substance—roughly the weight of a full-grown killer whale—en route to the U.S. coast.

The haul was a result of better intelligence information as well as closer ties with law enforcement agencies and resources across government and with international partners, officials say.

“It’s about understanding the enemies and putting assets where you need them,” says Cmdr. Chris O’Neil, who also attributes the achievement to the “ability to partner with other agencies to expand our reach . . . it’s a matter of leveraging relationships.”

In 2011, the Coast Guard intercepted and confiscated 180,000 pounds of cocaine valued at $2.2 billion, four times the total seized on land by U.S. law enforcement agencies. Halfway through 2012, the service is far outpacing last year’s total.

In June, the Coast Guard partnered with the U.S. and Colombian navies to bust an attempted transport of nearly 5,000 pounds of cocaine off the coast
of Colombia.

- Eric Katz

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Bill to limit conference and travel costs wouldn’t actually save money

Rebecca Carroll — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:10:00 -0400

Legislation to cap agency conference costs and limit travel would not actually save money, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.

The 2012 General Services Administration Act (H.R. 4631) was introduced in April by Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., after details surfaced about extravagant spending on a 2010 GSA conference in Las Vegas.

The bill would limit agencies’ non-military travel budgets to 70 percent of 2010 levels and require quarterly reports on all conference-related travel. Under the legislation, agencies would be prohibited from spending more than $500,000 on a single conference -- the 2010 event cost GSA $820,000. Departments also would have to post to their websites presentation materials from conferences federal employees attend.

CBO determined the extra reporting requirements and attempts to avoid travel would create new costs. “The legislation would likely shift spending on travel to other categories, such as telecommunications and computer technologies,” the estimate said. CBO expected “that such a limitation on travel expenditures would not result in significantly less total spending by federal agencies.”

CBO said implementing the bill would have no significant effect on the federal budget, adding that any change in costs resulting from the legislation would be determined by future appropriation acts.

Walsh’s office did not respond before publication to requests for comment. In late June, after the bill passed out of committee, the congressman said his legislation targeted a culture of waste and abuse in Washington. “The government should be setting an example of fiscal responsibility instead of lavishly spending taxpayer money,” Walsh said at that time.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who supported the bill in committee, said Congress’ intent is for federal agencies to economize on travel expenses and not spend the money on other programs. “The bill directs agencies to reduce travel spending by 30 percent, so savings certainly are expected,” he said after the CBO estimate, adding that the “one GSA conference and the actions of a few do not and should not reflect poorly on our dedicated federal workforce.”

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Calling all federal employees with great waste-cutting ideas

Rebecca Carroll — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:05:10 -0400

The White House is accepting submissions for the fourth annual Securing Americans Value and Efficiency award, a competition for federal employees with new ideas for cutting waste and saving taxpayer dollars.

Previous SAVE participants have suggested a NASA “lending library" to avoid duplicative purchases of expensive tools, providing U.S. code online instead of in printed books and avoiding unnecessary travel. The past three competitions have drawn more than 75,000 entries from government employees nationwide, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

“Already, we’ve begun to see how those ideas can make a difference,” Controller Danny Werfel said Tuesday in a blog post. “The president’s last three budgets included approximately 60 SAVE Award ideas that are helping to save millions.”

Submissions are due by July 24. “Everyone else: stay tuned,” Werfel said. “In the next few months, we’ll be looking to you to help pick this year’s winner!”

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A third of Americans say massive federal layoffs would help economy, poll finds

Rebecca Carroll — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 10:36:55 -0400

new poll from Rasmussen.

The survey asked 1,000 respondents about a scenario in which the government lays off 100,000 federal workers to reduce government spending. Thirty-two percent said such a move would be good for the economy, 47 percent said it would be bad for the economy, 10 percent said it would have no impact and 10 percent were not sure.

Past Rasmussen polls have suggested Americans think government workers work less and earn more than private sector employees.

In the current survey, conducted by telephone on June 12 and 13, only the last question was about federal workers. The other seven questions dealt with compensation and skill -- asking, for instance, if a more educated employee or a more productive one should be paid more and if Ivy League graduates are better workers.

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Order aims to protect troops from predatory school recruiters

Rebecca Carroll — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:03:00 -0400

An executive order signed by President Obama on Friday seeks to protect troops and veterans from “aggressive and deceptive” academic recruiters.

The order cites examples of institutions targeting veterans with serious brain injuries and emotional vulnerabilities without providing academic support and counseling. Vets have been encouraged to take out costly loans instead of federal student loans by -- sometimes for-profit -- institutions that fail to disclose their own, often lacking, merits.

Speaking to troops at Fort Stewart in Hinesville, Ga., Obama said the order “will make life a whole lot more secure for you and your families and our veterans -- and a whole lot tougher for those who try to prey on you.”

The initiative requires colleges that recruit military service members, veterans and their families to provide clear information about their qualifications as academic institutions and their financial aid offerings. “You’ll be able to get a simple fact sheet called ‘Know Before You Owe,’” Obama said.

Obama also said the initiative will require schools to offer more counseling and to accommodate active-duty students who have to move because of a deployment or reassignment.

It also requires the Defense Department to set stricter rules on how educational institutions can gain access to military installations to keep away recruiters from unqualified and deceptive schools.

“We’re going to bring an end to the aggressive -- and sometimes dishonest -- recruiting that takes place,” Obama said.

New rules will also apply to online recruiting practices and establish a complaint system for current students or recruitment targets. “Currently, when military and veteran students feel that their school has acted fraudulently, they have no centralized system to file complaints,” a White House announcement said.

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Government settles century-old tribal claims for $1 billion

Rebecca Carroll — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:48:00 -0400

The federal government has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle lawsuits filed by 41 tribes alleging mismanagement of money and natural resources held in trust, the Interior and Justice departments announced Thursday.

The agreement resolves century-old disputes and ends years of protracted litigation. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the $1.023 billion deal “strengthens the government-to-government relationship with tribal nations, helps restore a positive working relationship with Indian country leaders and empowers American Indian communities.”

Interior manages nearly 56 million acres of tribal land, including more than 100,000 leases for housing, timber harvesting, farming, grazing, oil and gas extraction, and other uses, according to a press release. The department also manages some 2,500 tribal trust accounts.

Tribes suing over mismanagement of the trust land and accounts began requesting expedited settlement discussions in 2009.

The government won final approval in 2011 for a $3.4 billion settlement of an unrelated class action lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, which also alleged Interior mismanaged tribal land and assets. But that suit was brought by individuals, not tribes.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the deal announced Thursday resolves claims that “for far too long have been a source of conflict between Indian tribes and the United States.” He said the settlements fairly and honorably address the tribes’ historical grievances.

The tribes will be compensated from the congressionally appropriated Judgment Fund -- which pays settlements against the U.S. government -- and have agreed to dismiss and not relodge their claims, the Interior release said.

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Around Government

Caitlin Fairchild and Rebecca Carroll — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:01:00 -0500

Women in the war zone test the Pentagon’s combat policy.

By Caitlin Fairchild

A hot-button issue at the 2011 Veterans Forum hosted by California State University, Los Angeles was the role of women in war zones. Long excluded from combat units, female service members are increasingly on the front lines. A screening of the documentary

Lioness at the forum pointed up the challenges for an all-female search team in Iraq.

The 2008 film followed five women detailed to Lioness, the first program in U.S. history to send women into direct ground combat. Usually serving as Army mechanics, supply clerks and engineers, they embarked on a new mission—
defusing tension with Iraqi civilians. But whenever violence broke out, the women fought alongside Marine combat units.

Critics say the current policy excluding women from combat units is particularly dangerous, because they don’t receive the same training as their male counterparts on the front lines. This may soon change, however. Last spring, a Pentagon commission recommended that the Defense Department end the exclusion policy, and the Congressional Research Service issued a report in November to aid Congress as it takes up the issue.

But for the search team, the pressing challenges aren’t here in Washington, but back in the war zone. “When I got home I wanted to go back,” said Capt. Anastasia Breslow, a member of the Lioness team. “It was great to be home; I appreciated everything so much more. But everyday life seemed so average, and there was still more work to be done over there.”

Why Do We Need Government Again?

As some Republican presidential candidates have called for the elimination of as many federal agencies as they can remember, former President Bill Clinton weighs in with a defense of Uncle Sam in his new book, Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy (Knopf, 2011).

In the third chapter—headlined “Why We Need Government”—he provides a list of federal functions today, including national defense, assistance to those who cannot support themselves, and economic oversight and development.

“I think the role of government is to give people the tools and create the conditions to make the most of our lives,” Clinton writes. “Government should empower us to do things we need or want to do that we can only do together by pooling our resources and spending them in large enough amounts to achieve the desired objectives.”

- Rebecca Carroll

Valentine Vets

Donors provide weddings with all the trimmings for military couples.

Weddings can be elaborate, expensive affairs that are carefully planned often for more than a year. But in Ontario, Calif., 10 military couples didn’t have to pay a dime or lift a finger to tie the knot. Operation Cupid provided all-expenses-paid ceremonies for the couples, who hailed from all the military branches. The service members were either returning from or deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

From gowns and tuxes to flowers and limousines, local business owners donated everything needed for the nuptials. In late October 2011, the couples walked in a mile-long parade along with veterans groups and military marching bands as the town cheered and pilots flew overhead in antique World War II fighter planes. Then they gathered for a ceremony and reception for 600 people at the Hilton Ontario Airport Hotel.

The idea began with local journalist Bill Anthony and Ryan Orr, founder of Operation Community Cares—a nonprofit organization to support the troops. “I was shocked to find out how many military personnel couldn’t get married,” Anthony said. “Some have run to courthouses to get married before being redeployed, so in case they died in action their spouses would at least get some benefits.”

- Caitlin Fairchild

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Federal salaries see worst growth in a decade, analysis finds

Rebecca Carroll — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

USA Today analysis.

The sluggish salaries, held down by a pay freeze and tight budgets, did not exceed inflation, the paper noted.

The average federal worker made $75,296 during that period, plus $28,323 in benefits, such as health care and retirement packages, the analysis found, adding that the government workforce has higher average education levels than the private sector and includes more professionals and specialists.

Fiscal 2011 was the first full budget year since President Obama canceled automatic cost-of-living pay increases for two years, the paper noted.

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Teleworking Through Irene

Rebecca Carroll — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:19:03 -0400

Hurricane Irene could be the first major test of new federal telework policies that were required to be in place by June, according to the latest Wired Workplace post from Nextgov's Brittany Ballenstedt.

"Some agencies, most notably the Patent and Trademark Office, have their acts together when it comes to allowing employees to telework during emergency situations," Ballenstedt writes. Most, however, do not.

Read the whole post.

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One Giant Leap

Rebecca Carroll — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

NASA must look beyond the earthly demands of deficit cutting and politics to chart its course.

For NASA, reaching for the stars is imperative, even when government money is hard to come by, political debate is fierce and sharp policy changes are frequent. And despite Washington's fits and starts, the agency has to plan years into the future-that's the nature of scientific research.

Fifty years after President Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon, the space agency is at a crossroads. NASA is preparing to retire its final shuttle this summer, with no immediate plan to replace the agency's only human space flight program. Amid so much uncertainty-and soul searching for the agency-NASA scientists still need working plans.

Many of NASA's science goals come out of 10-year surveys, which are based on submissions from the broader science community and seek to establish consensus on research priorities. "I believe that a decadal timeline was selected because, for many grand challenges in science, a decade is kind of a minimal amount of time you have to look at to begin to derive some kind of answers," says Elizabeth Cantwell, a National Academies board member, who recently co-chaired such a report for NASA.

Presidential terms, however, span eight years at most, Congress changes every two years, and the budget is up for consideration every year. These faster cycles can strain any long-term government project, but especially science programs that require methodical continuity.

'Guided by Science'

Did Mars or Venus ever host watery environments that could support life? If so, did life emerge there? How did our largest planets and their satellite systems come together?

Wild Ride: A NASA timeline.

These are among the most important questions for NASA's planetary sciences division to consider throughout the next 10 years, according to a new report on priorities for the planetary sciences, which scientists have been touring the country to discuss this spring. Designed specifically to guide NASA policies and programs, the survey was conducted by the National Research Council, which considered 199 white papers submitted by the scientific community as well as issues raised at more than a dozen scholarly town hall meetings.

"What we do must be first and foremost guided by science," Steve Squyres, a Cornell University astronomer who chaired the survey, told a planetary science conference in March.

"This is an extraordinary thing," he said. "It's an instance where a federal agency looks to its constituents, to our community, for actionable advice on what they ought to do."

Although the report was based on input from the scientific community, the completed product has to be sold back to those same scientists-the goal of many town hall meetings this spring. Next, the whole package has to be sold to Washington-every year. Squyres asked the scientists at the conference in March, especially those in the districts of lawmakers with appropriations clout, to lobby. "The most important thing that we as a community can try to do is to influence the budget process for the NASA planetary science division," he said. "That means interacting with our congressmen and our senators."

Paul Hertz, chief scientist of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, notes that the science mission doesn't stand alone. "Of course national priorities get added on to the decadal priorities," he says, noting that in 2004, President George W. Bush "adopted a new vision for space exploration, which changed the priorities for NASA and the allocation of money, and of course over the last year or two, things have changed a lot."

Indeed, making long-range plans in a politically shifty environment is no easy task. That point was even more evident in another 10-year study the National Research Council recently conducted for the life and physical sciences research program in NASA's Exploration Directorate. The program deals with science focused on the properties of space and zero-gravity, including their effects on human health.

Unlike most of the 10-year science studies that NASA and the National Science Foundation request, Congress called for this one, and the National Research Council was asked specifically not to consider costs in determining priorities.

"It was a pretty tall hill to climb to put together an integrated portfolio without considering budget in an environment where policy was changing frequently," says Cantwell, the survey's co-chairwoman, who is also director of mission development for engineering at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Getting There

Laying out priorities for a decade with uncertain prospects for human space travel also was a challenge. The report, starkly titled "Recapturing a Future for Space Exploration," was written as NASA was winding down its space shuttle program. The last shuttle mission is scheduled to launch at the end of June, bringing to a close three decades of operations and 135 missions. After the shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth, NASA will not for the foreseeable future have a vehicle to carry its astronauts to space.

NASA had been developing vehicles under its Constellation program to support Bush's vision for post-shuttle space exploration initially to the moon as a stepping stone to Mars. In 2010, President Obama called for the cancellation of Constellation, deeming the program too expensive and too far behind schedule. Legal and political knots held Constellation in limbo for months before it officially closed down this year.

The cancellation was a major shift. More than $13 billion had been spent on Constellation, as of April. (If dollars were years, that would be about the age of the universe.) The program also represented the agency's nearest-term human space flight plans.

NASA's 2012 budget calls for money to invest in flight systems that would take humans beyond low-Earth orbit, including a deep space capsule and heavy lift rocket, and research to enable the long journeys. But near-term goals are scant in the budget request. Obama is recommending a slight increase for exploration, but much of it is slated to go toward partnerships with the commercial space industry to get cargo and crew to the international space station-part of the president's controversial push to privatize more of NASA's work.

"This budget requires us to live within our means so we can invest in our future," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said when the 2012 request was released. "It maintains our commitment to human spaceflight and provides for strong programs to continue the outstanding science, aeronautics research and education needed to win the future."

Obama insisted last year that he is "100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future." He acknowledged a "sense that folks in Washington-driven less by vision than politics-have for years neglected NASA's mission and undermined the work of the professionals who fulfill it." And he observed that NASA's budget "has risen and fallen with the political winds."

The exploration study notes that NASA's life and physical sciences program already was under pressure. In 1996, its budget was about $500 million, but in 2010, it was only $150 million, according to a draft of the report.

"Researchers must have a reasonable level of confidence in the sustainability of research funding if they are expected to direct their laboratories, staff and students on research relevant to space exploration," the draft says. It stresses the need for a coherent research plan that is given appropriate resources. "This is especially noteworthy in light of the frequent and large postponements that NASA's exploration-related goals have experienced over the past several decades."

Whims of Washington

NASA is no stranger to the whims of Washington. The first major shift in policy occurred shortly after President Eisenhower left office.

Historians describe Eisenhower as a reluctant father of the U.S. space agency. The Soviet Union's successful launch of sputnik in October 1957 forced his hand, and NASA opened for business one year later. Eisenhower was more interested in a robotics-based space program, with a focus on spy satellites, historians say. He allocated the agency only about 0.5 percent of the federal budget-its lowest funding share, until recently.

If sputnik was a driving force in the creation of NASA, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin likely drove the timing of Kennedy's moon speech. Gagarin became the first human in space after successfully orbiting Earth in mid-April 1961. A month and a half later, Kennedy asked Congress to fund a project to land a man on the moon "before the end of the decade"-the Apollo program.

"That was the first time when a new administration came in and sharply changed the direction for space policy from a previous administration," says Howard McCurdy, an American University professor and author of several books about NASA, referring to the fledgling agency's first presidential transition. "President Kennedy originally contemplated setting the landing-on-the-moon deadline in 1968, to avoid a change of administration." McCurdy says the end of the decade was chosen with the "general presumption that the next president would not cancel a program so close to its completion."

Eisenhower continued to believe the mission was a waste of money: "Spending $40 billion in a race for national prestige is nuts," the former president was quoted saying in a 1963 Popular Science magazine article. Putting a man on the moon actually cost $25.4 billion, according to figures NASA gave Congress in 1973. That's still no small number, especially at the time. NASA's budget grew to nearly 4 percent of the entire government budget in the mid-1960s-its all-time high-enabling the space program to put a man on the moon in 1969, within the deadline.

Kennedy actually started to step back from his ambitious plan, reaching out to the Soviets before his assassination. "In a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity-in the field of space-there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space," he told the United Nations General Assembly in September 1963. "I include among these possibilities a joint expedition to the moon."

McCurdy questions whether the United States would have made it to the moon by the end of the decade if the president had not been assassinated. "When Kennedy realized how much it would cost to go to the moon, he looked for an exit strategy," he says.

Nearly every administration has tweaked or outright changed the NASA of its predecessor, and Congress has been quick to throw in its own 2 cents. Obama's break with Bush on NASA policy was severe, but not without precedent, and the decrease in the NASA budget-as a percentage of the entire federal budget-follows a trend rather than sets a new direction.

Lawrence Livermore's Cantwell notes the deleterious effect policy shifts can have on science, especially for longer-term programs, such as a Mars mission. "If research starts every few years, when a president is so inclined, and then it ends, it will always be 30 years out," she says. "Science needs some continuity of thought in order to move forward."

McCurdy is doubtful of such continuity: "The long-range vision of returning to the moon and going to Mars-that overlaps four or five presidential administrations, providing ample opportunities to delay and change the plan," he says.

Looking Up

Roger Launius, space history curator at the Air and Space Museum and formerly NASA's chief historian, is more of an optimist. "I think we set priorities all the time, and they-generally speaking-are maintained over the long haul," he says, noting that the Apollo mission lasted until NASA scientists determined after six piloted moon landings it was not a sustainable program. The space shuttle program has spanned a remarkable eight presidential administrations, far exceeding its predicted life.

Launius argues that 10-year surveys can help scientists make their case to politicians. "They serve as a rallying point for the community engaged in this stuff to make sure that they don't twist in the wind when there's a new Congress or panel in the White House."

The astronomy division of NASA's science directorate has been using the surveys for nearly 50 years to prioritize popular and successful projects, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Other science divisions began using them more recently. The planetary science survey that went on tour this spring, for instance, was the second such report.

NASA's Hertz says the previous planetary sciences study predicted the priorities in that field that developed during the past 10 years. "Almost everything we did came from the priorities in the decadal survey," he says.

"From my view, the place where we didn't do everything within the decadal survey has to do with the things that required more money than we had available," Hertz says. "But that's not priorities. Priorities are different than budgets."

Launius suggests lawmakers have been the thorn for the agency's productivity:

"Where NASA's had the most trouble has been when Congress has placed on it certain restrictions that it's had to adhere to," he says, such as when lawmakers stipulate money must be spent within a particular year. NASA is generally permitted two years to spend appropriated money, and freedom to spend in unequal sums is important for contracting purposes, according to Launius.

American University's McCurdy says the problem is in the process. "If we're looking for solutions, the gremlin in this story is the annual appropriation," he says. "Congress basically reviews every space program every year." McCurdy thinks bonds might be a better way to fund NASA.

Launius dismisses existential concerns about NASA. "It is asked to do far too many things with far less money than is required," he says of the agency, but he notes there is no opposing force in the way there is for other parts of government that do science-based work, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. "Even when there are serious campaigns to do wholesale changes, most of them don't come to pass," he says.

Science priorities don't change very quickly, according to Hertz. "They don't have anything to do with administrations, or how the economy is doing, or what the budget is, or which party is in power, or when the next election is," he says. "Now, we as a government agency have to execute a program for the American people. We have to plan on timescales that are shorter than a decade, and so we have to do our planning more frequently."

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77,000 feds earn more than their governors, report finds

Rebecca Carroll — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

More than 77,000 federal workers earned more than the governors of their states in 2009, according to a new report.

The research found 18,351 federal medical officers earned more than their governors -- the most common occupation to out-earn states' top government executives. More than 5,000 air traffic controllers, 4,346 attorneys, 16 outdoor recreation planners and one interior designer also earned more than the governors of their respective states, the report said.

The Congressional Research Service report, requested by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., based its comparison on 2009 federal salary data from the Office of Personnel Management and 2009 salaries of governors from the Council of State Governments. The research is dated May 6 and was first reported Tuesday by The Washington Times.

The report did not examine salaries of employees in the Office of the Vice President, White House, CIA, U.S. Postal Service or a handful of other government agencies.

Governor salaries ranged between $70,000 in Maine and $212,179 in California in 2009, according to the report, which noted that California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger waived his payment while in office. The governors of Virginia and New Jersey tied for fifth highest salaries in 2009 at $175,000; in Virginia, 606 feds earned more than that figure.

Colorado had the most federal employees -- 10,875 -- with salaries higher than the state's governor, who earned $90,000 in 2009. Maryland placed second, with 7,283 feds earning more than Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley's salary of $150,000 -- including 2,266 medical officers, 51 employees in human resources, and 30 employees in information and arts. Delaware had the fewest number of federal employees -- 37 -- earning more than the governor, the report found.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, pointed to proposed legislation that would cap at $200,000 federal reimbursement for contractor salaries.

"The government's paying $700,000 and more for contractor salaries, and Sen. Coburn worries about the pay of physicians who care for wounded soldiers?" Beth Moten, AFGE's legislative and political director, asked in an emailed statement.

In an emailed response to Government Executive, Coburn said no one would disagree that federal employees should be paid adequately. "We can all agree on the importance of paying highly specialized doctors to care for wounded soldiers and veterans, or skilled engineers for their services," he said. "However, when our nation is over $14 trillion in debt and American families are struggling to make ends meet, this report begs for an explanation of why interior designers, recreation planners and other public employees are enjoying higher salaries than state governors."

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