The Wrap: No ‘Political’ CIOs; VA EHRM’s ‘Impossible’ Deadline; DoD Replicator Remains Priority
Welcome to The Wrap for Tuesday, February 25!
From the newsroom at MeriTalk, it’s the quickest read in Federal tech news. Here’s what you need to know today:
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No ‘Political’ CIOs
House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking member Gerry Connolly, D-Va., demanded today in a?letter?to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that OPM rescind its memo issued earlier this month that redesignated Federal agency chief information officer (CIO) positions because of their perceived political impact. The Feb. 4 OPM?memo?called for redesignating CIO positions reserved for “career” roles as “general,” opening them up to be filled by career, noncareer, and political appointees. In doing so, OPM said the Trump administration is recognizing that agency tech chiefs have “policy-determining capabilities across a range of controversial political topics.” According to Rep. Connolly, OPM’s memo marks “yet another attempt to use partisan political attacks to sideline and marginalize career professionals in the government under the guise of promoting government efficiency.” He continued, “better government technology management is an unalloyed good for the American people and repeated bipartisan action shows that this issue transcends party division,” and added, “CIOs should not consider political winds but rather focus solely on robust engineering principles and effective technology choices.”
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VA EHRM’s ‘Impossible’ Deadline
Officials from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), US Government Accountability Office (GAO), and VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) told lawmakers on Monday afternoon that it will be "impossible" to complete the VA’s Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program on its current timeline. Deployment of the EHRM system has been in reset mode since 2023 while VA and its vendor Oracle Cerner work bugs out of the system, and VA plans to resume deployments in 2026. Members of the House VA Technology Modernization Subcommittee at a hearing late Monday questioned the contract’s accelerated deployment schedule given the program’s?troubled rollout. “We need to see the master schedule. How do we get from where we are now to where it is that they want to be?” asked David Case, the acting inspector general at the VA OIG. The VA currently does not have an up-to-date schedule for the EHRM rollout. However, Acting Program Executive Director of the EHRM Integration Office Neil Evans said the VA is committed to developing an updated implementation schedule and cost estimate for site deployments. Yet, when asked by subcommittee Chairman Tom Barrett, R-Mich., if there is any possibility of the VA completing the remaining site deployments by May 2028 when the current contract for EHRM program is set to expire, Evans simply responded, “No.” Added Carol Harris, a director of information technology and cybersecurity at GAO and witness at the hearing, “If they deploy in 2026 to Michigan, and that’s a huge if … you still have two years remaining on that contract with 160 sites. It’s impossible.”
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DoD Replicator Remains Priority
While the Trump administration plans to reshuffle funding priorities at the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and eliminate “unnecessary” programs, President Trump’s nominee for the Pentagon’s second-highest civilian position, Steve Feinberg, assured lawmakers today that advancing autonomous capabilities would remain a top priority if he is confirmed – suggesting that the agency’s Replicator initiative may be on a safer funding track. In his nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Feinberg did not explicitly endorse the initiative but emphasized that autonomous technologies, like those being pursued by Replicator, are vital to the U.S. military’s ability to deter foreign adversaries in the near term. “We need to develop autonomy – autonomy in significant numbers, with a centralized command,” Feinberg told lawmakers. The?Replicator?initiative, overseen by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) , aims to deploy thousands of autonomous systems across multiple domains to warfighters by August 2025, as part of the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China’s rapid military buildup. Simultaneously, the department is advancing Replicator Two,?announced?in September 2024, which focuses on scaling up the deployment of existing counter-drone systems. In his prepared testimony for today’s hearing, Feinberg said, “I believe the department must utilize all of the authorities available to acquire capabilities to meet the most pressing and urgent needs, to include the capabilities being accelerated through Replicator.”
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Cyber Safety Review Board Comeback?
Troy Edgar, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told lawmakers today that he backs the administration’s decision to disband the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), but added that the board will be reinstated “at the right time.” DHS dismissed the members of the CSRB, along with all other members on advisory committees within the department, on the first day of the Trump administration. During Edgar’s nomination hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked the nominee whether he thought disbanding the CSRB “was a good idea” amid its review of the China-sponsored Salt Typhoon hacks. “I didn’t make the decision to do it, but I think it was a great idea,” Edgar responded. “I think that CISA has overstepped its boundaries and authorities. I think it needs to be reeled in, and it starts with that steering committee. I think they need to be reconstituted.” Sen. Kim further pressed Edgar on who is currently conducting the investigation into Salt Typhoon, to which the nominee replied “CISA.” Edgar added that the CSRB “will be reconstituted at the right time, but as an organization that continues with its priorities.”
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