The Wrap: FISMA Troubles; Goodbye ACP?; Nominations Refresh

Welcome to The Wrap for Tuesday, January 9!

From the newsroom at MeriTalk, it’s the quickest read in Federal tech news. Here’s what you need to know today:

FISMA Troubles

How are Federal agencies doing in their implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA)? Not very well, according to a new US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. The report reveals that Federal agencies’ implementation of FISMA continued to be mostly ineffective in recent years. The background: FISMA requires Federal civilian agencies to comply with cybersecurity standards, but it has not been updated since 2014. To compile its report, GAO reviewed the 23 civilian Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 (CFO Act) agencies’ FISMA reports from 2017 to 2022, agency reported performance data, and OMB documentation and guidance. Although GAO found some improvement from 2021 to 2022, inspectors general (IG) of 15 of the 23 civilian agencies found the information security programs to be ineffective – just eight programs were found to be effective. GAO made two recommendations for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – the agency responsible for creating the FISMA metrics – to collaborate with its partners to enhance FISMA metrics that can lead to more effective programs and performance.

Goodbye ACP?

Millions of Americans could be without internet if Congress doesn’t act soon. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it plans to start winding down the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) – the nation’s largest broadband affordability program – this week unless the program receives additional funding from Congress. The White House recently made a supplemental funding request to Congress for $6 billion to help fund the ACP. However, the FCC is preparing for the worst. “With less than four months before the projected program end date and without any immediate additional funding, this week the commission expects to begin taking steps to start winding down the program to give households, providers, and other stakeholders sufficient time to prepare,” the FCC said in a Jan. 8 fact sheet. The FCC expects ACP funding to last through April 2024, but to run out completely in May. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is warning that without additional funding, millions of households will lose the ACP benefit that they use to afford internet service.

Nominations Refresh

President Biden this week hit the refresh button on dozens of nominations left over from 2023, including several for officials that may have big impacts on the Federal technology and workforce fronts within the Department of Defense (DoD) if their nominations are cleared by the U.S. Senate. The list of renominations released by the White House on Jan. 8 features a hefty share of ambassador and judicial picks from last year, but also several nominations of interest to the government tech community – particularly within the Pentagon. Nominations of note: The White House renominated Derek Chollet to be the undersecretary of defense for policy, Melissa Griffin Dalton to be the undersecretary of the Air Force, and Julie Su to be the secretary of labor.

Sounding the Chips Alarm

Remember the semiconductor supply chain shortages we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic? Lawmakers are working to avoid that. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, and the committee’s ranking member Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., urged Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a Jan. 5 letter to stem U.S. reliance on “foundational” semiconductors produced in China. Reps. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi want to know if Raimondo and United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai have sufficient authority to implement “component tariffs” on China’s legacy chips contained within finished products in order to counter that country’s move to flood U.S. markets. “Urgent action is needed to prevent the PRC from dominating foundational chips, which would give the PRC excessive leverage over the modern global economy,” the lawmakers wrote. Reps. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi asked for a briefing within 60 days.

Once again, let’s “call IT a day,” but we'll bring you more tomorrow. Until then, please check the MeriTalk breaking news website throughout the day for the latest on government IT people, process, and policy.

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