After long delay, Senate confirms GSA chief ...

The Senate overwhelmingly approved the nomination of Martha Johnson to lead the General Services Administration Feb. 4, giving the agency its first permanent leader since the resignation of Lurita Doan in 2008.

Obama tapped Johnson, GSA's chief of staff from 1996 through 2001, to lead the agency in April. After flying through the confirmation hearing in June, a full-Senate vote on her nomination was delayed by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. Bond placed a hold on her nomination last summer because he wanted assurances that the new administration would follow through on a $175 million plan to relocate tenants of a GSA-owned Bannister Federal Complex from suburban to downtown Kansas City, Mo. GSA had altered the plans for the downtown relocation, turning it from a lease to a federally owned and constructed project.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed for a cloture vote on Johnson's nomination last week following President Obama's thinly veiled State of the Union criticism of Bond for holding up a nomination to protect a "pet project."

... But new holds placed on other nominees

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has placed holds against several of President Obama's nominees in an effort to force presidential action on the Air Force refueling tanker and other matters.

An aide to Shelby confirmed that the holds had been imposed, but he did not identify the nominees.

Shelby is particularly upset about the refueling tanker because a tanker contract worth up to $35 billion was awarded to Northrop Grumman and Airbus last year, but later voided in a bid protest filed by Boeing. The Northrop tankers would have been assembled in Mobile, Ala.

In a written statement, Shelby said Air Force efforts to build new tankers have been stalled for nearly 10 years and "we still do not have a transparent and fair acquisition process."

Discrimination alleged at Air Marshal Service

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week called for the Homeland Security Department to investigate allegations of discrimination and retaliation at Federal Air Marshal Service field offices.

Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., said his office has received allegations that employees in the FAMS Cincinnati office recently have filed between seven and 15 discrimination complaints. Towns also said six Cincinnati air marshals have filed affidavits saying they were threatened with retaliation after they were asked to support one complainant. Supervisors also allegedly threatened to revoke the security clearances of three other marshals after they filed an equal employment opportunity complaint or testified in support of another complainant.

Towns also said his office received a photo of a white board allegedly on display in the FAMS Orlando, Fla., office that used slurs for gays, lesbians and minorities as part of a Jeopardy-type game.

"Taken together, these allegations paint a troubling picture of a service that is failing to respect important federal merit system principles," Towns said in a Feb. 2 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.Towns also asked Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner to investigate the allegations at the Orlando office.

Senator to OPM: Fix retirement systems

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., last week called the government's outdated retirement systems "scandalously wasteful" and "unacceptable." She told the Office of Personnel Management to make modernizing them a top priority this year.

"This cannot be a casual endeavor for your office," Mikulski said in a letter sent to OPM Director John Berry. "Promises made must be promises kept."

Mikulski said the roughly quarter-million federal employees and retirees she represents in Maryland are increasingly complaining about the time OPM takes to calculate retirement benefits and about OPM's derailed plans to fix the flawed system. She said retirees often receive smaller pensions than they are entitled to for several months while OPM calculates the correct benefit.

Mikulski also said some retirees have been overpaid and forced to repay the government, with interest.

OPM canceled its troubled retirement systems modernization contract with Hewitt Associates last year after its system failed numerous tests. Berry said in May that OPM would scale back its original plans, which included an online annuity calculator, and instead focus solely on modernizing the government's legacy paper-based system.

Union decries FPS budget freeze

The Obama administration's decision to freeze funding at the Federal Protective Service next year is "irresponsible," David Wright, head of the union representing FPS employees, said last week.

The Government Accountability Office has released at least four reports in the past three years detailing security lapses at federal buildings that FPS agents and contractors are charged with protecting. The reports document the impact of insufficient funding and manpower, said Wright, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 918.

The Homeland Security Department's budget would provide FPS with $1.1 billion and 1,225 full-time employees in 2011, unchanged from 2010.

House bill calls for cybersecurity research

Agencies would be required to develop cybersecurity research plans under a bill the House passed Feb. 4.

The bill's goal is "strengthening research partnerships among the federal government, the private sector, and colleges and universities, and supporting the transfer of promising technologies from researchers to the wider marketplace," said sponsor Rep. Daniel Lipin-ski, D-Ill.

The bill, HR 4061, would also reauthorize and expand the National Science Foundation's and National Institute of Standards and Technology's cybersecurity research programs, authorizing $959 million through fiscal 2014.

FBI sting yields bribery charges

The Justice Department last month arrested 22 executives and employees of military and law enforcement product manufacturers on charges they bribed foreign officials to sell their wares abroad.

The 22 defendants were indicted in December and arrested Jan. 18. The indictments and arrests are the single largest investigation and prosecution of individuals the department has executed under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The act prohibits any U.S.-based person or company from paying bribes to a foreign official to use his office to obtain work or other benefit.

The indicted individuals work for some of the biggest names in armaments manufacturing, some of which have federal government contracts. The companies with indicted employees and with federal contracts are: Als Technologies in Bull Shoals, Ark.; i-SHOT Inc. in Woodbridge, Va.; Protective Products International in Sunrise, Fla.; Highcom Security in San Francisco, Calif.; Smith and Wesson in Springfield, Mass.; Mushriqui Consulting in Upper Darby, Pa.; ArmorShield USA in Stearns, Ky.; and SRT Supply in St. Petersburg, Fla. According to the oversight group OMBWatch, these companies amassed approximately $200 million in government contracts over the last decade.

Justice alleges the defendants schemed to bribe a defense minister in an unnamed African nation. In the scheme, the defendants agreed to pay the official a 20 percent commission if the official helped them seal a $15 million deal to outfit the nation's presidential guard. Both the official and the deal were part of an FBI undercover sting operation.

Bill would restrict contract bundling

Leaders of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee want federal agencies to stop bundling contract requirements in ways that close out small businesses from government work.

Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu, D-La., and ranking member Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced a bill Feb. 4 that would place new restrictions on non-Defense agencies that intend to bundle contracts into a single procurement.

Bundling often shuts small business out of government competitions because it makes the project too large for small entities to handle.

The bill, the 2010 Small Business Contracting Improvement Act, would prohibit agencies from combining requirements for contracts worth more than $2 million unless the chief acquisition officer's research proves bundling would save the government money.

Savings on personnel and administrative costs alone would no longer justify bundling. Rather, agency procurement officials must demonstrate that the bundling would improve the quality of what is purchased and shorten delivery time.

War-zone pay standards still being crafted

An Obama administration proposal to standardize pay and benefits for federal civilians deployed to war zones is still being crafted and likely will be added into the 2011 budget proposal later, according to administration officials.

The incentive package is expected to set standard pay, overtime and medical benefits for employees who serve in combat zones. Deployed employees are compensated differently based on their agency, deployment status and personnel system, which critics say is unfair.

The Defense Department said in January that it was working on the proposals as part of the 2011 budget, but the incentive package was not included in the budget documents released last week.

SSA awards contracts for e-records

The Social Security Administration has awarded $17.4 million in contracts to 15 health care providers and networks to provide it electronic medical records.

The providers and networks, with patient authorization, will send SSA claims applicants' electronic medical records through the Nationwide Health Information Network, a Health and Human Services Department initiative for transmitting electronic medical records online. SSA will use the records to determine if citizens are eligible for disability benefits.

The contracts are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Budget would lift price caps on purchase of advanced technology vehicles

The Obama administration is proposing to lift the dollar cap on federal purchases of advanced technology vehicles so agencies can wean themselves off gas guzzlers.

A provision in the proposed fiscal 2011 budget unveiled last week would allow agencies to disregard price limits when purchasing commercially available vehicles that operate on emerging technologies — including electric, plug-in hybrid electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The plan, which requires congressional approval, would "allow us to further enhance our efforts to green the fleet," said Stephen Leeds, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, which manages the government's motor vehicle fleet.

The price cap, which dates to at least the 1940s, is designed to prevent agencies from purchasing luxury cars. The current cap is $13,197 for sedans and $13,631 for station wagons. The caps can be exceeded by $3,700 for law enforcement vehicles and by $4,000 for special heavy-duty vehicles such as buses and ambulances.

Existing law already allows the caps to be exceeded by up to 5 percent for electric and hybrid vehicles purchased to further research and testing of new technologies, but that exception doesn't apply to alternative fuel vehicles that are already sold commercially. For example, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt — a plug-in electric hybrid from General Motors that is scheduled to go on sale in November — is expected to retail for about $40,000.

While the government has made good progress in greening its fleet, lifting the price cap would allow agencies to purchase some fuel-efficient vehicles that otherwise could be off limits, Leeds said.