According to a Federal Register notice Tuesday, the $1.4 million committee will focus “exclusively on human performance,” providing guidance and insight on improving function, combating the physical, mental and emotional tolls of military service known collectively as “operator syndrome,” and preventing physical injuries and operational stress. 

“The Council will serve as a high-impact, low-cost mechanism for the [DoD] to secure the expertise of the nation’s foremost leaders at the nexus of warrior health and performance,” the announcement stated. 

The Pentagon established a Warfighter Performance Optimization division earlier this year within Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata’s office. It is intended to oversee and coordinate the individual services’ efforts to improve troops’ readiness and performance.

In May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed Tata to report on existing optimization initiatives across the services to create a department-wide performance optimization plan. 

Hegseth said he wanted to accelerate fielding technologies that will improve performance — such as wearable devices and other analytics tools — and focus on elevating “cognitive performance as a key to readiness.” 

“By building on and modernizing the principles of Total Force Fitness (TFF), WPO will deliver a unified operational approach to accelerate readiness, dominance, and peak performance across the Force. We will treat the Warfighter as a readiness capability, held to the same disciplined evaluation, maintenance, and optimization we demand of every asset that preserves combat power,” Hegseth wrote. 

The services have created their own approaches to health, fitness and human performance within the last several years. Army introduced its Holistic Health and Fitness initiative in 2020 to improve the health of the force and reduce the number of soldiers considered non-deployable because of chronic medical conditions. 

The Navy introduced its Human Performance Optimization program as a pilot in San Diego in February, providing training and education on nutrition, sleep, injury prevention and stress management.  

The Marine Corps has had a total fitness strategy since 2023 that combines wellness, fitness, mental health and data to improve the health of members, while the Air Force is building a new human performance optimization facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, which is designed to support Air Force Special Warfare airmen. 

The new advisory committee will have up to 20 members with expertise in an array of scientific and medical fields, including urology, endocrinology, nutrition, neurology, combat stress, orthopedics, preventive medicine, wearable technology or spiritual, psychiatric or psychological health, sleep medicine and human factors engineering.  

As with all federal advisory committees, volunteers are unpaid and only receive travel pay and per diem reimbursement when conducting council-related business. 

The announcement described the council as “an exceptionally cost-effective resource.” 

The newly formed group, the announcement stated, will provide information that helps the services create “lethal, operationally ready warriors prepared physically, psychologically, for successful large-scale, high kinetic, combat operations against peer adversaries who are imbued with the essential Warrior Ethos to win decisively,” the announcement stated.  

Shortly after Hegseth took office last year, he dismissed the members of roughly 40 Defense Department advisory boards and launched reviews to determine whether they supported his goal to “revive the warrior ethos” in the U.S. armed forces. 

The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services and the Defense Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Sexual Misconduct were among those terminated.

Hegseth has also created several new advisory boards since being sworn in, most recently, the Homeland Defense Board, announced Sept. 11, which he plans to chair. The board will provide guidance on military support for homeland security missions. 

The Congressional Military Range and Test Facility Caucus was formed with the purpose of highlighting the role military ranges and test facilities play in advancing research, technology development and test missions for the military, according to a Tuesday announcement.

“America’s military ranges and test facilities are where our nation’s warfighters get their edge, and I am proud to represent some of the most critical in the world,” Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., who launched the caucus, said in the release. 

“This caucus will ensure that Members of Congress understand what is at stake, fight for the resources these facilities need, and protect the missions that keep America ahead of our adversaries,” he continued.

The caucus was formed by Fong alongside co-chairs Reps. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., George Whitesides, D-Calif., and Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M. Other members include Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., Julia Brownley, D-Calif., and Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., per the statement.

The caucus news comes after the Army announced earlier this year that it is opening five of its test ranges to private industry, aiming to quicken the development and testing of drones, counter-drone systems, long-range fires and cheap interceptors. 

The Army isn’t the only service that eyed opening up its ranges to approved companies. Earlier this month, Air Force leaders said they were working with the Army to understand how they could also apply the concept.

Although the Air Force has yet to open any ranges, Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, the commander of the Air Force Test Center, said at an October Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies forum that in a previous posting he worked with officials and contractors to coordinate smaller-scale test range access for specific tests, which gave him insight into how opening the ranges to industry could work. 

The company said Oct. 14 that the expansion will help the plant reach record production levels and deliver components to final-assembly sites, including Camden, Arkansas and Troy, Alabama.

The project expands the plant’s manufacturing footprint to more than 735,000 square feet. The expansion adds 100,000 square feet of new space and converts 85,000 square feet of office space into factory floor space for automated, high-precision machining.

Nearly 800 production employees work at the plant, which produced 250,000 parts in 2025. Lockheed said it has added more than 30 high-precision machines in recent months and expects to install nearly 100 additional machines by the end of 2026.

Lockheed also said Hadrian, a California-based manufacturing startup, will install 24 automated machines at the Grand Prairie facility to produce missile parts. Lockheed employees will operate the equipment, which is expected to be up and running by early 2027. The project follows a memorandum of understanding the two companies signed in December 2025.

“The warfighter can’t wait on peacetime timelines,” Hadrian CEO Chris Power said in the release. “Rebuilding the Arsenal of Freedom at the scale America needs will take partnerships that combine expertise and speed, and this is what that looks like.”

The buildout supports a series of framework agreements the Defense Department has signed with Lockheed since January, designed to boost missile production and lead to long-term contracts. The first aims to increase PAC-3 MSE production from about 600 to roughly 2,000 interceptors per year over seven years.

The Army followed with a $4.7 billion contract in April, then converted it in July into a seven-year production contract worth about $58.6 billion in total.

A separate THAAD framework, signed in January, led to a June contract from the Missile Defense Agency worth more than $35 billion to quadruple interceptor production. Lockheed and the Pentagon announced similar agreements for the Precision Strike Missile on March 25 and for the AIM-260 on Sept. 17.

“Lockheed Martin has brought together commercial speed and combat-proven performance because America needs both,” said Jim Taiclet, Lockheed’s chairman, president and CEO. “By combining advanced technology with the expertise of our American workforce, we’re transforming manufacturing to deliver critical munitions at speed and scale.”

“This expansion is more than just a new facility; it is a stronger supply chain and a more resilient industrial base,” said Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment.

The Grand Prairie investment is part of Lockheed’s plan to spend $8 billion to $9 billion through 2030 to increase munitions production and modernize or expand more than 20 U.S. facilities. The company said it plans to create 6,000 jobs nationwide, including 2,000 in Texas.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., visited the Middle East this week on a Congressional Delegation trip, speaking with Gulf region leaders and visiting American facilities to assess damage done by the Iran war. Murphy was denied access to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, which had suffered damage from drone strikes during the conflict.

“They are using every tool they can, including withholding information about damages, slow walking the pace of reports about casualties and denying us access to see the damage as part of a campaign of cover-up, so as to mask the true cost of the war,” Murphy told reporters on Thursday.

The “unprecedented” base denial prepared Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Defense Appropriations Committee, in the coming days to draft language that would explicitly require the Department of Defense to grant members of Congress access to military bases overseas under all circumstances if needed.

“I don’t have any illusions that that’s going to pass between now and the end of the year, but I think that’ll be a really important part of the discussion around an appropriations bill next year and the defense authorization bill,” he said during the press call.

Prior to his trip, Murphy requested access to the base through a letter and direct appeal to U.S. Central Command leadership. But he was denied access even as the Department of State supported his trip to the region, with the Defense Department saying it was due to previously imposed travel restrictions.

“Senator Murphy’s office was informed before his trip to the Middle East that he would not receive Department of War support to access Al Udeid Air Base, consistent with the Secretary of War’s directive on travel restrictions in the region ordered on March 3, 2026,” a senior Defense Department official told Military Times on Thursday.

“That decision was communicated in advance by the Office of the Secretary of War for Legislative Affairs,” the official continued. “The Department applies the Secretary’s guidance evenly.”

In early March, the State and Defense departments issued travel guidance, calling on Americans to depart areas in the region and updating its travel advisory to recommend against visiting certain countries, including Qatar.

“It is absolutely ordinary for members of Congress to travel to areas of conflict and get to talk directly to the military leaders and the soldiers that are involved in the conflict and see for ourselves the damage that has been done to our bases and equipment,” Murphy said, highlighting how during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars he was able to visit operating bases.

He argued that since Congress decides funding and authorization for war, it is necessary to see the consequences, but he was unable to visit Al Udeid or have a briefing on the war with American military officials while in the region.

On the same day the travel advisory was issued in March, the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was hit ​by two Iranians drones, resulting in building damage and a fire. Murphy said that the drones impacted multiple floors of the embassy and part of the space is now “uninhabitable” with permanent damage.

The U.S. previously announced in 2023 plans to build a new embassy compound in Riyadh, which Murphy attributes the lack of repairs to.

Even though no injuries or casualties were reported from the strike, Murphy said that if the attack happened during the day it would have killed many Americans.

“[Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth is determined to hide the cost and the consequences of this war from the American public, and it is absolutely outrageous that I and Republican senators are being denied the ability to see the damage for ourselves,” he said.

Clooney said in a New York Times opinion piece that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race as well as any control in Congress with him as the nominee.

“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private,” wrote Clooney. He’s hosted several high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers, including for Biden last month.

Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month, saying the process would be “messy” but “wake up” voters in the party’s favor, mentioning Vice President Kamala Harris and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California among those from who the country should now hear.

Focusing much of his piece around Biden’s age, Clooney noted differences he saw in the 81-year-old president during their recent Los Angeles event compared to years past.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Last month, Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage for a fundraiser that took in a record $30 million-plus for Biden, in hopes of energizing would-be supporters for a White House contest they said may rank among the most consequential in U.S. history.

Luminaries from the entertainment world have increasingly lined up to help Biden’s campaign. Leading up to the fundraiser, Clooney’s name appeared on numerous fundraising missives from the campaign, which he called “the fight of our lives.”

Representatives for Clooney did not immediately return a message seeking comment on insight into his decision, when precisely he had made it or how recently he had spoken with Biden.

Biden has refused to end his reelection bid after his weak debate performance against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 27.

___

Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina. She can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

A spokesperson for Social Security said in a statement to Federal Times on Tuesday that after a broad sweep of water fixtures, some came back with elevated levels, which is not unusual given testing experts have told the General Services Administration that roughly half of the water samples they take come back positive.

Upon retesting, only “a small subset” of water sources in the main campus building indicated elevated levels, according to the official. Impacted fixtures have been removed, and the spokesman said employees have been notified. Officials also said they’ve flushed the system, which helps disrupt any film that have developed over water sources and stops the growth of any naturally present Legionella.

Legionella is a naturally occuring bacteria that is found in both freshwater and in plumbing, and it poses little risk when present in low numbers. It’s when the bacteria grows and is inhaled, or much less commonly drunk, that it can cause health issues, including a potentially fatal pneumonia-like sickness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say most healthy people exposed to Legionella don’t fall ill. Still, Legionnaires’ disease, caused by the similarly named bacteria, is the most commonly reported waterborne illness in the U.S., affecting between 52,000 and 70,000 people each year.

“According to the CDC, Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever — which is related [to Legionella] — remain rare, but the number of cases reported has grown over the past 20 years,” according to a blog post from GSA. “This year we are testing for Legionella, as well as things like heavy metals, across many buildings.”

Last year, GSA sent out a memo to agencies urging swift action to prevent Legionella contamination in federally owned and operating offices after it became aware of six buildings in across the country that tested positive for the bacteria. GSA said at the time that less densely populated offices post-pandemic may be contributing to water stagnation, which allows the bacteria to thrive.

Two months after those reports, GSA issued an order in November 2023 establishing national requirements and industry standards for testing the presence of Legionella, when none had existed before. This initiative likely means more positive results will be recorded simply because more tests are being conducted.

On June 13, a similar discovery was made in the water sources of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services building near Baltimore. The same bacteria, Legionella, was found when testing new plumbing fixtures, and the building was closed, according to The Washington Post.

Last summer, the Rosa Parks Federal Building in Detroit was also closed after testing exposed Legionella in the building’s cooling towers and drinking water. That building houses employees from several agencies, including the IRS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The sailor, who has not been identified, searched the name “Joseph Biden” in Military Health System Genesis, the armed service’s health record database, and a co-worker reported it as a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPPA, according to a Navy official.

Presidential healthcare is provided by the military’s White House Medical Unit, and presidents receive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service launched an investigation upon learning of the sailor’s action, and that probe concluded on April 24.

A Navy official told Military Times the sailor was administratively disciplined for the act and was assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, at the time.

The official declined to share the sailor’s rank or the nature of the discipline.

“At no time was the president’s personal information compromised,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. “The record that the sailor inappropriately accessed was not the electronic health record of the President of the United States.”

Ryder added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was notified of the attempted breach when the Navy became aware of the sailor’s actions.

Pentagon disclosure of the sailor’s effort to access Biden’s medical records come as questions circulate about the president’s mental acuity and fitness to run for re-election, particularly after the 81-year-old’s seemingly confused and muddled performance at a debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump last month.

Asked Tuesday if Austin ever questioned Biden’s decision-making abilities as commander-in-chief due to potential health conditions, Ryder answered with a quick “no.”

“We have had that discussion with the secretary in terms of monitoring all the coverage that’s out there these days,” Ryder said. “The secretary has full confidence in the president’s leadership as he has had from day one.”

The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives. The liberal justices were in dissent.

Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court’s ruling. The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.”

The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren’t crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Roberts wrote that the decision does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron decision.

But in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the assurance rings hollow. “The majority is sanguine; I am not so much,” she wrote.

Kagan called the latest decision “yet another example of the Court’s resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary.”

The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.

Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen’s appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.

The court’s conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration’s initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.

The justices hadn’t invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.

“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.

They were in Friday’s majority, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kagan in dissent.

Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges applied it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the court said Friday, adopting the opponents arguments.

Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.

Defending the rulings that upheld the fees, President Joe Biden’s administration said that overturning the Chevron decision would produce a “convulsive shock” to the legal system.

Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.

“The Supreme Court is pushing the nation into uncharted waters as it seizes it seizes power from our elected branches of government to advance its deregulatory agenda,” Sambhav Sankar, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said after the ruling. “The conservative justices are aggressively reshaping the foundations of our government so that the President and Congress have less power to protect the public, and corporations have more power to challenge regulations in search of profits. This ruling threatens the legitimacy of hundreds of regulations that keep us safe, protect our homes and environment, and create a level playing field for businesses to compete on.”

Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.

The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.

In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.

The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.

Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They are relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including even workers themselves. In a move that alarms some, they are preparing to publish the findings online.

With a $100,000 grant from the influential Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.

“We need to understand who these people are and what they do,” said Jones, a former Capitol Hill aide to Republican senators.

The concept of compiling and publicizing a list of government employees shows the lengths that Trump’s allies are willing to go to ensure that nothing or no one will block his plans in a potential second term. Jones’ Project Sovereignty 2025 comes as Heritage’s own Project 2025 is laying the groundwork, with policies, proposals and personnel ready day one of a possible new White House.

The effort, which is focused on top career government officials who are not appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare to the “red scare” of midcentury McCarthyism.

Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the language being thrown around — the Heritage Foundation’s announcement praised the group for ferreting out “anti-American bad actors” — is “so shocking.”

Civil servants are often former military personnel and all are required to take an oath to the Constitution to work for the federal government, not a loyalty test to any one president in the White House, she and others said.

“It just seems as though their goal is to try to menace federal employees and sow fear,” said Simon, whose union is backing President Joe Biden for re-election.

As Trump, who has been convicted of felony charges in a hush-money case and is under a four-count federal indictment accusing him of working to overturn the 2020 election, faces a likely rematch with Biden this fall, far-right conservatives have vowed to take a wrecking ball to what they call the deep-state bureaucracy.

The Trump campaign has said repeatedly that outside groups do not speak for the former president who alone is setting his policy priorities.

Conservatives view the federal workforce as overstepping its role to become a power center that can drive or thwart a president’s agenda. Particularly during the Trump administration, government officials came under attack from both the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as his own Cabinet often raised objections to some of the former president’s more singular or even unlawful proposals.

While Jones’ group won’t necessarily be recommending whether to fire or reassign any of the federal workers it lists, the work aligns with Heritage’s far-reaching Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative administration.

Heritage’s Project 2025 proposes reviving the Trump “Schedule F” policy that would try to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, which could enable mass dismissals – although a new Biden administration rule seeks to make that more difficult. The Heritage project is working to recruit and train a new generation to come to Washington to fill government jobs.

In announcing the $100,000 “Innovation Award” last month, Heritage said it would support American Accountability Foundation’s “investigative researchers, in-depth reports, and educational efforts to alert Congress, a conservative administration, and the American people to the presence of anti-American bad actors burrowed into the administrative state and ensure appropriate action is taken.”

Heritage President Kevin Roberts said in a statement the “weaponization of the federal government” has been possible only because of the “deep state of entrenched Leftist bureaucrats.” He said he was proud to support the work of American Accountability Foundation workers “in their fight to hold our government accountable and drain it of bad actors.”

The federal government employs about 2.2 million people. That includes those in the Washington, D,C, area but also workers who the unions say many Americans know as friends or neighbors in communities across the country.

About 4,000 positions in the government are considered political appointees who routinely change from one presidential administration to the next, but most are career professionals — from landscapers at Veterans Administration cemeteries to economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The public list-making conjures for some the era of Joseph McCarthy, the former senator who conducted grueling hearings into suspected communist sympathizers during the Cold War. They were orchestrated by a top staffer, Roy Cohn, who went on to become a confidant of a younger Trump.

‘Alarming trend’

Skye Perryman, CEO of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, said it’s all deeply disturbing, and reminiscent of “the darker parts of American history.”

“This is part of the overall, highly concerning and alarming trend,” she said.

Publicly naming government workers is an “intimidation tactic to try to chill the work of these civil servants,” she said, and part of a broader “retribution agenda” under way this election.

“They’re seeking to undermine our democracy, they’re seeking to undermine the way that our government works for people,” she said.

Jones, from his desk overlooking rickhouses storing barrels in the “Bourbon Capitol” of Bardstown, scoffed at comparisons to McCarthyism as “nonsense.”

He’s a former staffer to former Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina conservative Republican who went on to lead Heritage and now helms the Conservative Policy Institute, where American Accountability Foundation has a mailing address. Jones also worked for Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and provided opposition research for Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential bid.

With six researchers, Jones’ team is operating remotely across the country, poring over the information about federal workers within Homeland Security, State Department and other agencies that deal with immigration and border issues.

Their focus is on the highest ranks of the civil servants — so-called GS-13, GS-14, and GS-15 employees and those in senior executive positions who could put up roadblocks to Trump’s plans for tighter borders and more deportations.

“I think it’s important to the next administration to understand who those people are,” he said.

He dismissed the risks that could be involved in publicly posting the names, salary information and other details of federal workers who have some level of privacy, or the idea that his group’s work could be putting employees’ livelihoods in jeopardy.

“You don’t get to make policy and then say, ‘Hey don’t scrutinize me,”’ he said.

“Gut check’

He acknowledges some of the work is often a “gut check” or “instinct” about which federal employees would be suspected of trying to block a conservative agenda.

“We’re looking at, ‘Are there wrong people on the bus right now that are, you know, openly hostile to efforts to secure the southern border?”’

His own group came under scrutiny as it first probed Biden nominees.

Biden had repealed Trump’s Schedule F executive order in January 2021, but a Government Accountability Office report in 2022 found that agencies believed it could be reinstated by a future administration.

Since then, the Biden administration issued a new rule that would make it harder to fire workers. A new administration could direct the Office of Personnel Management to undo the new regulation, but the process would take time and be open to legal challenges.

The highly anticipated Right to IVF Act, championed by Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, would’ve also expanded access to various reproductive treatments for service members, veterans and others in the private sector.

The legislation needed 60 votes to advance, and failed in a vote of 48-47. Among Republicans, only Sen. Susan Collins, Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, voted yes.

“I don’t have it in me to beat around the bush today,” Duckworth said following the vote. “I am angry — really, really angry. If Republicans actually cared as much about protecting IVF as they do protecting Donald Trump’s poll numbers, tis would have been a simple ‘yes’ vote.”

The bill aimed to establish what Democratic senators called a “statutory right” to reproductive care, especially against conservative attempts to block abortion post-Roe and related ethical questions about the personhood rights of embryos used in fertilization procedures. It mashes together four bills introduced before by Democrats, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Washington Sen. Patty Murray and Virginia Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine.

“I have significant reservations about the bill’s overly broad mandates for insurers to pay for treatment costs – but I want to be clear on my support for a family’s right to access IVF,” wrote Murkowski on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In vitro fertilization, in particular, is a common procedure used by families who struggle to conceive, but it is also very expensive and insurance coverage of it varies widely. The Right to IVF Act wants to set a baseline coverage mandate for it and other forms of artificial reproductive technology, including artificial insemination and procedures that handle embryos, eggs or sperm. It would also give OPM authority to define what other services might fall under the definition of ART.

In addition, the bill would ensure service members have the opportunity to preserve sperm or eggs prior to deploying to a combat zone or a hazardous duty assignment, or after injury or illness. For veterans, it would authorize fertility treatment and counseling, ensure continuity of fertility care after a change of station, provide access to use of surrogates, and streamline eligibility for these benefits.

In March, the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs lifted health care restrictions on IVF for same-sex or unmarried individuals.

For feds, many FEHB providers do cover artificial reproductive procedures, thanks to recent requirements set by the Office of Personnel Management. OPM has said it encouraged carriers to go beyond minimum coverage and, to date, 24 carriers have done so.

However, this bill would have made expanded coverage a standard across all plans, given some that include ART are not open to everyone.

Ahead of the vote, the White House put out a statement strongly supporting the Senate bill. OPM declined to comment on the legislation.

“The Senate squandered a chance to give many federal employees the insurance coverage they need to express their families,” said Stacey Young, president of DOJ Gen, in a statement. “But OPM can bring badly needed help for plan year 2025 without Congress by mandating that plans cover IVF medications and treatments. This administration has positioned itself as a supporter of IVF; this is a perfect opportunity to show that.”

Though for years the topic of infertility felt taboo, doctors and health care advocates have said it’s a fairly common condition. According to the World Health Organization, one in six people worldwide experience infertility, and it can affect men and women.

Election year

Democrats were hoping Thursday’s vote would be a successful rallying point on the highly contentious issue of reproductive health care that is currently being fought over by the federal government, Supreme Court and state legislatures. With it being an election year, it’s particularly in their interest to appeal to the large share of single-issue voters backing abortion rights, which has increased, according to recent polls.

On Capitol Hill, there’s been a lot of back and forth on the issue, particularly over ethical concerns raised by any embryos discarded or unused during collection for IVF.

Still, some House Republicans voiced their support for IVF in a February resolution, which is not a law but expresses the sentiments or official position of the chamber. Senate Republicans also blocked a measure in February to expand access to IVF, calling it an overreach with “poison pill” riders.

“After clamoring to get on the record in support of IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, Senate Republicans had a chance to prove that claimed support by simply getting out of the way of our efforts to pass my bill that would protect IVF access nationwide — and they blocked it,” said Sen. Duckworth in February. The military veteran had both her children through IVF.

In another legislative volley just this week, Senate Democrats torpedoed a Republican bill that would cut off Medicaid funding to states that prohibit IVF, arguing that doesn’t go far enough.

An on June 11, Republicans tanked a Rules Committee record vote led by Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly to amend the 2025 defense bill in furtherance of IVF coverage.

In a post on X, the congressman pointed out that Republicans will have access to IVF coverage themselves next year. That’s because of a D.C. law effective Jan. 1, 2025, that says “a health insurer offering a large group health benefit plan shall provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility, including in vitro fertilization.”

The Affordable Care Act requires members of Congress and staff to get insurance via the D.C. exchange, which will become subject to the new law.

“Because those plans will now be required to cover IVF, members of Congress next year will have access to IVF coverage that the FEHB program does not currently mandate,” a spokesperson said.

In a statement including signatures from all Republican Senators, lawmakers said before Thursday’s vote that they “strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF.”

“Senate Democrats have embraced a Summer of Scare Tactics—a partisan campaign of false fearmongering intended to mislead and confuse the American people,” the statement read.

Some signatories have pointed out that IVF is currently legal and available in all 50 states, and that their bill, the IVF Protection Act, is the “only one” that safeguards access, according to a statement from Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.