Government Executive - All Content

A familiar name returns to lead ICE amid renewed political pressure

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:35:12 -0400

Long-time federal immigration official David Venturella will lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency spearheading President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.

Venturella will replace outgoing ICE acting director Todd Lyons, who last month announced he would leave his position by May 31, the DHS official told States Newsroom on Wednesday. Venturella will also take on the role on an acting basis. ICE has been without a permanent, Senate-confirmed director since Trump first took office in 2017.

Venturella will oversee an agency that has come under intense congressional and public scrutiny after federal immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti led to a months-long shutdown of DHS after Democrats pushed for constraints on federal immigration officers. The shutdown ended last month and Republicans are moving forward with funding ICE and Customs and Border Protection for the next three years through a complex legislative process that does not require Democratic votes.

Venturella worked at DHS during the Obama administration, when he led the Secure Communities program in which local law enforcement shared fingerprints and booking information with federal immigration officials to identify immigrants in the country without legal authorization. The Obama administration eventually ended the program, but Trump revived it in 2017.

Venturella has also worked for the private prison company GEO, which earns billions in government contracts to detain immigrants across the country. He retired from GEO in 2023 after serving as the vice president of client relations.

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‘Sermonizing’ Easter email prompts USDA employees to sue agency

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:06:02 -0400

A group of Agriculture Department workers and the National Federation of Federal Employees union on Wednesday filed a lawsuit over an email to the agency’s workforce celebrating the Easter holiday sent by Secretary Brooke Rollins.

Specifically, the plaintiffs objected to language in the communication that assumes the recipient is Christian such as: “Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.”

“We work for the federal government, not a church. I just want to go to work and make my country better — I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency,” said plaintiff Ethan Roberts, an atheist and Agricultural Research Service employee based out of Illinois, in a press release statement. “When the secretary sends an email, I have to read it. And when those emails are telling me what to believe, they make me feel unwelcome in an agency I’ve dedicated ten years to.”

The lawsuit asks the courts to bar department officials from “continuing to send or otherwise communicate proselytizing Christian messages to USDA employees,” arguing that Rollins violated the First Amendment.

“Secretary Rollins’s practice and policy of subjecting agency employees to proselytizing messages conveys the expectation that USDA employees share in the secretary’s religious beliefs, even when doing so would betray an employee’s own beliefs,” the attorneys wrote. “It is exactly the sort of government-sponsored religious coercion, religious sermonizing and denominational preference that the Establishment Clause prohibits.”

The lawsuit notes that Rollins, at the start of her tenure, referenced God in agencywide emails in a non-denominational manner (e.g. May God continue to protect the United States of America and may His favor shine over all her land) and that the secretary has never sent any messages acknowledging non-Christian religious holidays.

Plaintiffs are represented by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State not-for-profit, Democracy Forward legal organization and Bryan Schwartz Law.

In response to the lawsuit, a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to Government Executive that: “While we do not comment on pending litigation, we will keep the plaintiffs in our prayers during this process.”

The Office of Personnel Management in 2025 issued guidance reiterating that federal employees can seek to "persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views” so long as they are “not harassing in nature.”

USDA is in the process of a reorganization that will relocate many employees away from the Washington, D.C., area.

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House GOP probes agency settlements with federal workers

Erich Wagner — Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Monday announced they would investigate the rate at which federal agencies settle cases involving allegations of prohibited personnel practices, implying they go easy on poor performing or misbehaving federal workers.

In a letter to Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., requested data on federal employment cases heard before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which investigates allegations of workplace discrimination, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which oversees union issues, the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistleblower retaliation and Hatch Act allegations, and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Comer argued that agencies’ success in defending employment actions before the MSPB is incongruous with their high acceptance of settlement agreements and suggested payouts stemming from those settlements are a waste of taxpayer money.

“In adverse action cases that are not dismissed at the MSPB, agencies opt to settle 68% of the time,” Comer wrote. “Among cases that proceed to decision, more than 80% of agency adverse action decisions are upheld, suggesting that agencies are frequently and inexplicably settling cases with taxpayer dollars that they would otherwise win. This raises the question of whether cases are being settled despite a high likelihood of government success on the merits, and, if so, whether systemic incentives are driving outcomes that prioritize short-term expediency over long-term accountability and savings for taxpayers.”

But Michael Fallings, managing partner at federal employment law firm Tully Rinckey, PLLC, said agency attorneys conduct the same analysis as private sector employers—and litigants in other court settings—when determining whether to settle a case.

“People and agencies settle for a multitude of reasons, but mainly: each side wants to prevent liability,” he said. “The government wants to avoid losing and having to perhaps pay even more money [than they would have under a settlement], and in each case it does an analysis of whether there is liability. And it’s the same for the employee: they don’t want to lose the case and be left with nothing. It’s a risk assessment, and it’s not just used in employment law.”

And if agencies were to abandon settlements and take every adverse action appeal before the MSPB or other adjudicatory body, the cost to taxpayers would increase, not decrease, he said.

“If there was an executive order or what-not preventing settlements of any MSPB appeals or similar cases, you’d see a much bigger expense utilized by the federal government in defending these claims,” Fallings said. “You’d have to pay to pull people out of their normal jobs to go to hearings, you’d have to produce all kinds of documents in a discovery process, and you have to pay the attorneys representing the agency. You’d easily expend as much, if not more, by trying to prevent a settlement from happening.”

Comer also argued that extensive use of settlements could serve to mask systemic issues of favoritism or other management malfeasance in cases where employees’ appeals were justified.

“While settlement may promote administrative efficiency, excessive reliance on it carries real costs: it forecloses the development of beneficial legal precedent, masks patterns of prohibited personnel practices, and allows agencies to manage recurring legal liability without addressing the underlying misconduct,” he wrote. “Congress cannot exercise meaningful oversight of the federal workforce when a supermajority of disputes are resolved through opaque, non-public agreements.”

But Fallings said that doesn’t reflect the reality of settlement talks, which still usually require the agency rectify any underlying misbehavior.

“Settlements don’t just involve money,” he said. “If the claim or appeal involves a prohibited personnel practice, that mostly likely will be discussed and be resolved as part of the settlement. A settlement can’t make everything go away, but in my experience, if an agency’s counsel is aware of a PPP happening, they are taking action to remedy that.”

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$1 billion Secret Service funding boost plan draws scrutiny over limited details

Jennifer Shutt and Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Several Republican U.S. senators left a closed-door lunch with Secret Service Director Sean Curran on Tuesday saying they still have questions about how the agency would spend an additional $1 billion.

“I’ve asked for a lot more data,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine. “If there are needs for new training ranges, for example, that should have been in the president’s budget.”

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, tucked the significant increase into a larger immigration enforcement bill, leading to concerns from some of his GOP colleagues and criticism from Democrats the money will go toward construction of a White House ballroom.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said after the lunch meeting the additional funding is predominantly for regular Secret Service activities, not to support the creation of a new ballroom.

“The ballroom is being financed privately but the security associated with it represents about 20% of what this request was,” Thune said.

A breakdown of how the new funding would be used by Secret Service, obtained by States Newsroom, showed:

$220 million would go to “hardening” the East Wing Modernization Project with additional bulletproof glass, drone detection technologies and filtration systems designed to detect chemical or other contaminants.
$180 million would go toward construction of a “long overdue” White House visitor screening facility.
$175 million would bolster Secret Service training as well as its training facilities.
$175 million would help the agency “secure frequently visited venues facing heightened risk due to their public visibility and static nature.”
$150 million would go to the branch of the Secret Service that focuses on drones, aircraft incursions, biological threats and “other emerging threats through investments in state-of-the-art technologies.”
$100 million would go for “high-profile national events that require significant planning.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he wants the Secret Service to share more information.

“I think the bottom line is, people want to be supportive, right? They want security for the president, but they want more detail,” he said.

The $1 billion for the Secret Service would be in addition to the $1.17 billion Republicans approved for the agency in their “big, beautiful” law as well as the agency’s annual funding level.

The White House released its budget request in early April, asking lawmakers to approve $3.5 billion for the Secret Service in an annual funding bill, a $36 million increase.

Senators want more specifics

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, said he wants “more specifics” from the administration in addition to what lawmakers saw during the lunch.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he’s asked for more information from the Secret Service about its needs.

“They're trying to make it very clear that what they're talking about are the security improvements that should be included if we're making major reconstruction within the White House itself,” he said. “So I think as more of the information begins to come out, I think people are going to feel a lot more comfortable with what they're requesting.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he supported the additional Secret Service funding, arguing that security at the White House can be complex.

“I’m fine with that,” he said. “So long as it’s used for security purposes.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said she wanted to see a detailed breakdown of where the $1 billion would go before committing to supporting the move.

No details from Judiciary chair

Grassley, who included the line item for “security adjustments and upgrades” for the East Wing Modernization Project in his panel’s immigration enforcement bill, didn’t share details before the lunch about how he landed on the $1 billion figure.

“It was just kind of a consensus among all of us,” he said, later adding the agreement was among Senate GOP lawmakers, not with the White House.

Grassley said he didn’t expect to know before the end of the week whether the Secret Service funding would stay in the $72 billion package that is intended to fund immigration activities for the next three years.

The Judiciary Committee bill and one written by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will be combined in the coming days, would provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with $38.175 billion, Customs and Border Protection with $26.02 billion, the secretary of Homeland Security’s office with $5 billion and the Department of Justice with $1.457 billion.

GOP leaders in Congress hope to approve the bill next week, sending it to President Donald Trump before the Memorial Day weekend break.

Opportunity for Dems

Senate floor debate on the package includes a marathon amendment voting session that will give Democrats, or even Republicans, the chance to hold up-or-down votes on the additional spending.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, said Democrats “will certainly be able to put our colleagues on record” about the additional Secret Service funding.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats will “fight this bill tooth and nail.”

“We’ll offer amendments and we’ll force Republicans to vote again and again on one simple question — are you with working families or are you with Trump’s ballroom,” he said.

Thune said earlier in the day that Republicans “can’t have a lot of hiccups right now” and still send Trump the package before the president’s June 1 deadline.

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Hegseth rethinking Army reforms, cuts to aviation

Meghann Myers — Wed, 13 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

A year ago, Pete Hegseth handed the Army a to-do list that has reshaped the service’s capabilities and how it acquires new ones. But now he’s rethinking some of those changes.

That includes the makeup of the Army’s aviation assets, the defense secretary suggested Tuesday during a House Armed Services Committee defense panel hearing into the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion defense-budget request.

“I actually think it's something we're taking another look at,” he said in response to questioning from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., whose district includes the Sikorsky factory that makes UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

The Army’s portion of the Pentagon proposal would slash aircraft procurement, in line with efforts to phase out AH-64D Apaches and cut back on Black Hawk procurement as the service prepares to bring the MV-75 Cheyenne II online.

“Your department's budget request cuts over $5 billion from the industrial base in the aviation sector alone, effectively shutting down all current Army aviation platforms,” DeLauro said. “How did the department arrive at the conclusion that reducing procurement for these Army aviation platforms strengthens rather than weakens the aviation industrial base?”

While the Army requested less money for helicopters this year, leaders have said consistently that the Black Hawk will be in service for decades. So, too, will Apaches, though the Army wants to focus on the E variant.

“There are some very good things in the Army Transformation Initiative, and there are some things that we needed to get another look at,” Hegseth said. “And so I think you'll see a review of some of those things, and we’ll get back to you.”

Reduced funding means slowed production lines, though, at a time when Hegseth has been pushing to get the Defense Department on a “wartime footing,” including major investments in the defense industrial base.

The Army, for its part, believes that foreign military sales will sustain production lines while the service finds the right mix of aircraft, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said on Tuesday.

“What we are trying to do is get out in advance of the number that we will have at total, as we start to bring on things like [Cheyenne II]—what does that ideal balance look like?” Driscoll told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing. “And so that's what you see reflected in the current budget.”

The Army appears to be reconsidering some of ATI’s other mandates as well. The service had planned to stop buying Humvees and transfer its remaining ones to the reserve component, but Driscoll suggested the vehicle may get new life.

“The Humvee has been an incredible asset for the U.S. Army for decades, and what we are not trying to say is that it will no longer have a role.”

The service is working to balance its missions with the newer infantry squad vehicle, experimenting with the possibility of an autonomous Humvee, Driscoll added.

“Humvee is going to be able to help us on the border. It's going to be able to help us with natural disasters. It's going to be able to help us in a lot of theaters, where it may still have a lot of relevance, even if it's not the one-stop solution anymore,” he said.

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DOT inspector general reviewing complaint against Sean Duffy over reality show

Eric Katz — Tue, 12 May 2026 17:17:04 -0400

A new reality show may have forced its star, Transportation Department Secretary Sean Duffy, to flout federal gift and travel rules, according to a complaint lodged by an ethics watchdog group this week.

Transportation’s inspector general should probe the cost of Duffy’s forthcoming YouTube show, The Great American Road Trip, to U.S. taxpayers, who approved the ethics arrangements, whether any sponsorship deals violate those arrangements and whether the secretary improperly accepted any gifts, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in a letter to the IG on Monday.

Duffy announced the production last week, saying he had filmed it with his family in bits and pieces over the course of seven months. A trailer showed Duffy, his wife and his nine children traveling to various parks, landmarks and historical sites around the country.

The show was not publicly funded and is produced entirely by The Great American Road Trip, Inc., but it has raised ethical concerns from observers who noted companies that Transportation regulates, such as Toyota, United Airlines, Enterprise, Royal Caribbean Group and Boeing, are major backers of that organization.

A presentation made public by Politico on Tuesday unveiled that The Great American Road Trip offered sponsorships to interested parties ranging from $100,000 for bronze-level packages to $1 million for platinum-level. While the show was produced by the outside group, the trailer was posted to Transportation’s official YouTube page and Duffy presented himself in his official capacity.

Federal officials are prohibited from accepting gifts from anyone who might have business before their agency, CREW noted, while travel regulations prohibit them from using government funds for any personal trips. CREW questioned whether Duffy received an ethics sign off for the show, he is personally benefiting from his official position, government funds were used to pay for other Transportation staff related to the show and other potential regulatory or statutory violations.

Ada Valaitis, a spokesperson for Transportation's inspector general, confirmed the office received the complaint and is currently reviewing it.

In a post on X, Duffy dismissed any concerns about his show, saying it was coming from the “radical, miserable left” who found the production “too wholesome,” “too patriotic” and “too joyful.” He said no taxpayer dollars were spent on the show or his family, that he and his family received no salary or royalties, it was filmed in one-to-two day production windows and that career ethics and budget officials reviewed and approved of his participation and travel.

Nathaniel Sizemore, a Transportation spokesperson, added The Great American Road Trip, Inc. paid for things like gas, car rentals, lodging and activities. Because he was also conducting official business on his trips for the show, the department paid for the secretary’s flights.

“Celebrating America’s 250th Anniversary is part of Secretary’s Duffy official duties and The Great American Road Trip is one aspect in support of those responsibilities,” Sizemore said. “On these brief stops, the secretary also often conducted additional visits like touring air traffic control towers and assessing port infrastructure.”

He added the department had no involvement in any sponsorship deals and such deals would have no impact on its regulatory decisions.

“The Great American Road Trip Inc is an independent organization,” Sizemore said. “How and who they accept donations from in furtherance of their mission to celebrate America’s 250th birthday is their decision.”

Donald Sherman, CREW’s president, said the department’s explanation was insufficient.

“The department has claimed that taxpayer funds were not used to pay for the trip, but Secretary Duffy has used government resources to promote the project,” Sherman said. “In addition, accepting travel from companies with business before DOT potentially implicates even more significant corruption and misconduct concerns.”

He added that “public trust requires” the inspector general to conduct an investigation, as it would “ensure integrity in the use of official resources and protection of public funds.”

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Watchdog recommends nearly 100 ways for agencies to save tens of billions

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 12 May 2026 16:31:29 -0400

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday released its annual report highlighting duplicative federal programs and opportunities to promote effectiveness and efficiency across agencies. Officials estimated that implementing their new and past open recommendations could save more than $100 billion.

Some of the new 97 recommendations for lawmakers and agencies include:

Officials should consolidate mission-support services (e.g. payroll and travel) among agencies, which GAO reported could save tens of millions of dollars over three years. Specifically, the watchdog recommended that the Office of Management and Budget and General Services Administration improve data collection with respect to the effectiveness of shared services.
The departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs should identify more opportunities to share healthcare resources, which could reduce fragmentation and also save tens of millions of dollars annually.
FBI should lead the creation of a government-wide anti-scam strategy to spur collaboration, as 13 different agencies work to prevent scams.

Investigators reported that, as of March, agencies had fully or partially addressed 1,662 (77%) of recommendations that GAO has made in these annual reports for the last 16 years, yielding about $774.3 billion in financial benefits. Officials acknowledged, however, that this is a “rough estimate based on a variety of sources that considered different time periods and used different data sources, assumptions and methodologies.”

In the latest report, GAO also flagged past recommendations that remain unimplemented including:

Establishing an inventory of federal programs, which includes funding and performance information, to help identify duplication and overlap. The watchdog found in a March report that such an inventory created by OMB is missing statutorily required information.
Setting up a process to identify and remove ineligible family members from the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, which the watchdog said could save more than $1 billion over nine years. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in July 2025, included a requirement to fulfill such a recommendation, but the Office of Personnel Management hasn’t implemented it yet.
Improving the IRS’ enforcement efforts. Congressional Democrats in 2022 approved nearly $80 billion for the tax agency, in part, to enhance tax collections, but lawmakers since then have rescinded more than two-thirds of that funding.

The House Republican fiscal 2027 legislative branch appropriations bill would cut GAO’s funding by nearly 25%. Congress in fiscal 2026 held the watchdog’s funding level flat despite an attempt by the House GOP to halve it. The Trump administration has criticized GAO for issuing several findings that officials illegally withheld congressionally approved spending.

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‘It would be insane’ for spy agencies to not have AI model early access, lawmaker says

David DiMolfetta — Tue, 12 May 2026 15:40:39 -0400

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday it would be “insane” for U.S. intelligence agencies to not have early access to advanced artificial intelligence models that could be used for hacking and cyberdefense.

His remarks, delivered on a panel at Politico’s Security Summit, come as the Trump administration is reportedly considering a major AI executive order and debating whether the Commerce Department or intelligence community should oversee evaluations of AI models. They also come as President Donald Trump makes a planned trip to China this week, where he is expected to discuss AI matters with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“Making sure that, in particular, where our real computational brains are, the National Security Agency, making sure they have access to the most capable hacking tools … it would be insane not to do that, right?” he said.

The NSA, the spy community’s premiere hacking, codebreaking and foreign eavesdropping giant, has been testing Mythos, a major Anthropic model that’s been held back from full public release due to its substantial cyber capabilities, multiple people familiar with the matter said.

On Monday, The Washington Post reported the Trump administration is split over whether to give spy agencies or the Commerce Department dibs at evaluating models. Commerce officials are pushing back against a White House proposal to house an AI evaluation center within the intelligence community, according to the report.

Himes said the Commerce Department should also have a role to play in AI policy.

“Across the government, we should be looking at these capabilities,” he said, adding that “we ought to be cultivating — not damaging — our relationship with the producer of this remarkable new technology,” in a nod to the ongoing legal complaints Anthropic has lodged at the Defense Department, which deemed it a supply chain risk earlier this year after the company said it wouldn’t meet certain Pentagon demands.

Himes said he doesn’t think the legal spat between the DOD and Anthropic has set back the intelligence community in the near term, though “if this drags out, if [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth gets a bee in his bonnet about this and just decides to target because his ego is damaged … that will be a massive liability for United States national security.”

Officials are circulating draft policy documents with language clarifying the government’s ability to use private sector tech without outside stipulations, Nextgov/FCW reported last week. It’s not clear if the contracting language is part of a coming executive order or a separate policy initiative.

The ongoing discussions highlight how the Trump administration is closely examining cyber threats brought on by advanced AI models and is looking to take a more hands-on approach toward the AI sector, despite prior laissez-faire positions.

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Trump taps former FEMA official ousted after defending agency

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Tue, 12 May 2026 11:01:36 -0400

President Donald Trump on Monday nominated Cameron Hamilton to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a former acting chief who was fired in 2025 shortly after he told a congressional panel FEMA should continue to exist.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will likely schedule a hearing in the coming weeks for Hamilton to testify about his goals for the agency as part of the confirmation process.

The panel will then schedule a vote on whether to send his nomination to the floor, where Hamilton will need to secure approval from a majority of senators before he would become FEMA administrator.

Taking on that role will be no easy task, especially since Trump has spoken repeatedly during his second administration about reducing the size and scope of the agency.

“We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,” Trump said in June. “We're moving it back to the states so the governors can handle it. That's why they're governors. Now, if they can't handle it, they shouldn't be governor.”

The FEMA review council that Trump created to review the agency submitted its report last week recommending states shoulder more of the cost and responsibility of disaster relief.

Not ‘in the best interest’ to kill FEMA

The previous disconnect between Trump and Hamilton about whether FEMA should continue led to Hamilton being removed from his role leading the agency last year.

Hamilton testified before a House panel in May 2025 that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

“Having said that, I'm not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination, such as consequential as that, should be made,” he said at the time. “That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body on identifying the exact ways and methodologies in which what is prudent for federal investment, and what is not.”

One day later, he was ousted as the senior official performing the duties of the administrator at FEMA.

David Richardson has been the senior official performing the duties of FEMA administrator ever since. He was previously the assistant secretary of the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office at the Department of Homeland Security.

Podcast tell-all

Hamilton detailed his time leading FEMA on an episode of the “Disaster Tough” podcast that aired in September, saying he had developed a plan to address that the agency had “become too bureaucratic.”

“I was very clear and poignant that the cause of most of the problems in FEMA is because we keep putting too much crap in FEMA’s rucksack that never should have been there,” he said.

Hamilton then spoke about the Shelter and Services Program, which provides grant funding to organizations that help house, feed and assist migrants released by the Department of Homeland Security.

He argued that is not an “emergency management requirement” and that “FEMA has become a functional multi-tool.”

Housing was a “prime example” of where another federal department, like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, could take over some of the tasks that FEMA currently handles, he said.

“I said, we need to aggressively talk to HUD about them having a larger stakehold in that particular missions field because they are more uniquely suited,” he said.

But Hamilton insisted he was not supportive of plans to completely eliminate the agency.

“I was not hired to abolish FEMA. That was never a part of the conversation and that’s never something that I would have agreed with,” he said on the podcast. “And I was very clear, I wanted some reform. I wanted to cut wasteful spending. I wanted to downsize the agency. There's no denying that. And I think most of those things could be done wisely and properly.”

Any offloading of responsibilities from the federal government to states, he said, would include “a gradual phasing out.”

“We needed to give the states some time to see what that entails and to respond accordingly,” he said. “Not just, ‘Hey, the water is now shut off. You're on your own.’ That's not wise. That's not being a good partner.”

‘I wanted to choke some people’

Hamilton also discussed what happened before and after he testified in front of a House subcommittee a year ago, including that he was polygraphed in March.

“One of the more difficult things for me to deal with was when my character was being attacked, and when I was being accused of being a liar and a leaker, and I was polygraphed for it,” he said. “DHS requested that I be polygraphed. And they said in their statement, you know, my character, judgment, my stability, my ethics were all in question.”

Asked by the podcast host if he wanted to put on his “Navy SEAL hat” when that was happening, Hamilton responded: “I wanted to choke some people, that's for sure.”

Hamilton said he knew that he was about to be fired and that on the day he testified before Congress, officials “notified my security that my access was eliminated. So before the testimony, I knew it was coming, and I knew it was coming weeks in advance.”

Later in the episode, Hamilton said he knew he would be asked during the hearing about Trump’s comments regarding FEMA and spoke with former FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor to work through how best to answer the question.

The two then “came to the agreement” that Hamilton would say “it's not in the best interest of the American people.”

“I cannot get behind this position that abolishing FEMA is the answer,” he said. “There are so many things that we can do before we go that extreme and put the American people at what I believe to be extreme risk unnecessarily.”

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Federal discipline was never supposed to be punitive. The MSPB appeal framework reflects that

Justin Schnitzer — Tue, 12 May 2026 06:00:00 -0400

There is a legal principle embedded in the federal disciplinary system that most federal employees never hear about, and that most federal managers are not taught, even though it is the single most important concept for understanding how the Merit Systems Protection Board evaluates adverse actions.

Federal discipline is supposed to be rehabilitative, not punitive.

This is not an attorney's argument or an advocacy position. It is the doctrinal foundation of the Douglas factors framework established in Douglas v. Veterans Administration, 5 MSPR 280 (1981), which remains the controlling standard for penalty review in MSPB cases forty-five years later. The Board's twelve-factor analysis is built on a core question: not "how bad was this," but "does this person have the potential to be rehabilitated into a productive federal employee."

That distinction matters for both managers and employees, and it is worth examining carefully against the current backdrop. For readers who want the structural framework before reading the analysis, this MSPB appeal walkthrough covers how the Douglas factors function within the broader appeal process.

What the Douglas framework actually asks

When an MSPB administrative judge reviews whether a penalty is proportionate, the twelve Douglas factors build a profile of the employee, not just the offense. They include the nature and seriousness of the conduct, the employee's job level, their past disciplinary record, their length of service and prior performance, the potential for rehabilitation, and the existence of mitigating circumstances such as unusual job tensions, personal difficulties, or provocation.

Factor 10, potential for rehabilitation, is where cases are often decided. An employee who accepts responsibility for the conduct, demonstrates understanding of why it was wrong, and shows concrete steps toward not repeating it is signaling rehabilitation. An employee who denies, deflects, or makes false statements during the investigation is signaling the opposite, and that signal carries significant weight with administrative judges.

This framework also requires agencies to impose consistent penalties. Douglas Factor 6 asks whether the penalty is consistent with penalties the agency has imposed on similarly-situated employees for similar conduct. Douglas Factor 7 asks whether the penalty is consistent with the agency's published table of penalties. Agencies that deviate from their own established penalty ranges are required to justify that deviation, and recent precedent has opened more discretion for judges to mitigate feds' punishments, reinforcing the proportionality review.

What the current caseload reflects

The MSPB received 20,335 initial appeals in fiscal year 2025, approximately four times its normal annual volume, according to the Board's Annual Performance Report published April 3, 2026. The surge was driven largely by probationary terminations and reduction-in-force actions. Of the 9,050 cases processed at the regional and field office level in FY 2025, only 55.8 percent were resolved within 120 days.

That caseload volume does not change the legal framework. The Douglas factors review applies regardless of the number of cases on the docket. What it does change is the practical context in which managers and HR professionals are operating. Adverse actions issued at volume, without individualized Douglas factors analysis, without consistency review, without consideration of rehabilitation potential, create appeals that are more likely to generate either Board reversals or settlements on unfavorable terms.

Settlement rates have been declining for years. It has been becoming rarer for federal agencies and employees to resolve adverse action disputes through settlement, and the FY 2025 data confirms the trend has continued. The legal test for penalty proportionality is not relaxed because the agency is processing a large number of actions simultaneously. Administrative judges apply the same framework to mass actions that they apply to individual ones.

The reply stage as the first checkpoint

For employees facing proposed adverse actions, the procedural structure gives them a meaningful opportunity to engage the Douglas framework before the case reaches the Board. Under 5 U.S.C. § 7513(b), employees have the right to reply in writing and orally to the deciding official before the final action is taken. An effective reply frames the employee's conduct in the rehabilitative context, demonstrating accountability, context, and a clear case for proportionality under the Douglas factors. In my practice, that framing gives the deciding official a substantive basis for reducing or withdrawing the proposed action.

What federal managers should understand

Managers who initiate proposed adverse actions under the assumption that the Board will simply defer to the agency's judgment are operating on outdated assumptions. The Federal Circuit affirmed 91 percent of MSPB decisions reviewed on the merits in FY 2025, which means the Board's decisions are robust to appellate review. But the Board will apply the Douglas factors to whatever the agency proposes, and penalties that are disproportionate, inconsistent with established tables, or unsupported by evidence of the employee's rehabilitation potential are subject to mitigation. The MSPB has long advocated nontraditional approaches to discipline for precisely this reason.

The most defensible adverse action from the agency's perspective is one that can demonstrate, against each applicable Douglas factor, that the penalty selected is proportionate, consistent, and based on individualized assessment. That standard is more demanding than simply documenting the misconduct.

The rehabilitative framework is not an idealistic legal theory. It is the law that governs whether the penalty your agency imposed will survive review.

Justin Schnitzer founded The Law Office of Justin Schnitzer, a Washington, D.C. federal employment law practice focused on MSPB appeals, federal EEOC matters, and adverse action defense. His analysis of federal workforce policy has appeared in Forbes, US News & World Report, NBC News, Newsweek, and the ABA Journal.

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Army small business office pulls the plug on LinkedIn posts

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:41:16 -0400

In an era when government leaders routinely use social media to make significant policy announcements, the decision by the Army Office of Small Business Programs to pull the plug on its LinkedIn feed seems counterintuitive.

The LinkedIn page for the office has 25,000 followers and the office has used it to make a wide range of announcements.

The page contains small business questions about CMMC, links to register for events and promotions of programs such as the mentor-protégé portal. All of that is just in the last two weeks.

But in a post Wednesday, the office said that it will no longer actively update its LinkedIn social media account.

“Moving forward, all announcements, resources, and opportunities will be posted exclusively on our official website,” the organization wrote.

Instead, the office directs small businesses to visit its website for the latest news and information.

Commenters expressed dismay.

“This doesn’t make sense as LinkedIn is the social connectivity for the [Defense Industrial Base. ALL the other [Department of Defense] offices have pages to follow and stay connected,” wrote one person.

To prove that point, directly below his comment, the Army Pathway for Innovation and Technology posted an invitation to follow their LinkedIn page for the latest news and updates on their programs.

The Army PIT manages Small Business Innovation Research grants, among other programs to get leading edge technologies into the hands of operators.

Other comments lamented the Army’s decision.

“How unfortunate for the American small business community,” wrote one.

“This is a big loss. This page brings a lot of awareness and information to the [small business] community,” another commenter said.

One commenter was very succinct in his comment, which likely reflects the thoughts of many. “Why?”

Why, indeed.

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The Army wants to reinvent how it feeds soldiers in the field

Nick Wakeman — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:32:13 -0400

The Army wants to reinvent the field ration and is looking to the alternative protein industry for ideas.

In a source sought notice posted Monday, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command is asking for information on alternative proteins that can have a long shelf-life and be palatable.

The Army has several objectives including enhancing food supply chain resilience, enabling biomanufacturing foodstuffs in combat-forward environments, and providing tailored, high-quality nutrition.

The notice mentions specific technologies the Army is interested in such as “fermentation, precision fermentation, or other novel biomanufacturing methods.” One goal is lightweight and nutrient-dense rations that can lower logistical burdens and physical payload.

The Army also wants to hear from respondents who can conduct consumer research such as focus groups, sensory panels, and field testing to evaluate acceptability and consumption within a military population.

For all the talk in the notice about alternative proteins and “meat-alternative products,” the Army is not interested in laboratory-grown meats or insect protein.

The notice mentions that the Army wants ideas for biomanufacturing food in forward-deployed areas, which would shorten the supply chain.

Domestic sourcing is a requirement and must comply with the Berry Amendment, which requires that the Defense Department give preference to U.S.-made products. For forward-deployed biomanufacturing, the ingredients would need to be sourced from the U.S.

The Army has a very tight turnaround time for concept papers, which are due Friday.

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Anthropic, Code for America pilot AI tools for SNAP eligibility support

Kaitlyn Levinson — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:26:20 -0400

The civic tech nonprofit Code for America is partnering with artificial intelligence company Anthropic to develop tools aimed at helping caseworkers enhance public benefits administration across the nation.

The organizations are working together to develop an AI-enabled solution to improve the accuracy and timeliness of benefits service delivery under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Jana Rhyu, vice president of product at Code for America, announced Friday at a summit hosted by the organization in Chicago last week.

The SNAP Policy Navigator tool is built on federal regulations, state manual selections, official policy directives and other documents to help caseworkers “quickly and accurately get an answer to [a] very specific policy question” when they are working with clients, said Michael Lai, who leads state and local government AI at Anthropic.

The tool leverages Anthropic’s Claude chatbot and is built on a model context protocol to ensure a secure two-way connection between data sources and AI applications, Rhyu said. A caseworker can input a simple, policy-based question, such as how a client’s change in income or a new federal policy could impact their benefits, and the tool outputs an up-to-date response in plain language with cited sources and suggested next steps.

The user “gets clarity on policy, not a decision on overall eligibility. The decision stays with [them],” she said.

The announcement comes as state and local public benefit agencies scramble to comply with rule changes to the federal food assistance program made last July under President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” The law subjects participants to expanded work requirements, shifts administrative costs to states based on their SNAP payment error rates, and requires that the Thrifty Food Plan — the model used to calculate the lowest-cost nutritional meal for a family of four — be cost-neutral to changes in food prices.

Since its passage, SNAP participation has declined by more than 3 million people across 36 states as of January, and further reductions are expected once the new rules are fully implemented, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Policy is constantly changing, and the complexities of policy implementation are immense, which places an even bigger burden on the caseworkers,” Rhyu said.

That’s why it’s critical for resources like the SNAP Policy Navigator tool to help reduce caseworkers’ administrative burden of sifting through and trying to apply intricate policies to individual cases, she said.

Indeed, the complex rules regarding eligibility and exemptions present common barriers to benefits access and having to explain those to residents who depend on the timely and accurate delivery of public assistance to meet their everyday needs only adds to it, Lai said.

Such challenges are exacerbated by funding uncertainty, workforce shortages and increasing caseloads that many states and localities are grappling with across the U.S.

He pointed to one former caseworker who described their job as “an email inbox that's always full, where each one requires care and attention, but you're constantly getting interrupted as you try to work through the never ending inbox of people to help.”

In addition to the SNAP Policy Navigator, Code for America and Anthropic will develop a suite of Claude-based tools to further assist benefit workers with answering policy questions, reviewing eligibility documents and drafting communications to benefit recipients, Code for America leaders said in an announcement last week.

“We know that caseworkers are really overburdened in general, but especially at this moment with HR 1 as well, and so AI shouldn't be used for AI’s sake,” Lai said. “We want it ultimately to be helping in this human way and trying to make benefits administration more efficient, more accurate and more human centered.”

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The number of feds in tax debt spiked during the pandemic

Eric Katz — Mon, 11 May 2026 17:03:01 -0400

The rate of federal employees who fail to pay their taxes on time has grown in recent years, according to a new audit, though the Internal Revenue Service is hopeful it can soon shrink the figure.

The federal workforce still overwhelmingly pays its taxes on time, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found in a new report, though the delinquency rate has grown from 4.9% in 2021 to 6.9% in 2024. There were 215,000 federal workers who had outstanding tax bills as of 2024, a 45% jump from 2021. They collectively owed $2.1 billion, up from $1.5 billion three years prior.

IRS officials attributed much of the increase to a pause of various collection efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The IRS began a phased-in resumption of the levy program in August 2024 and anticipates that the delinquency rates will decrease in the coming years,” the inspector general said.

Still, the auditors implored IRS to do a better job ensuring federal employees pay their taxes on time. IRS is prohibited from sharing its list of non-compliant feds with other agencies, a ban the IG suggested the Treasury Department lobby Congress to change.

“If taxpayers (i.e., non-federal employees) are aware that federal employees are not timely satisfying their tax obligations, it may impact their willingness to comply with their own tax matters,” the IG said.

The watchdog noted that Treasury has an obligation to hold employees accountable for tax noncompliance and its rate for such workers is just 2.4%.

IRS and Treasury last year collaborated to mail 427,000 notices to federal employees and retirees delinquent on their taxes, which led to nearly 65,000 of those individuals making at least some payment on their tax bills. Agency officials said that was a one-time initiative and it would not be sending additional notices.

The tax agency in 1993 launched a program to specifically track and identify federal workers who fall behind on their tax bills. The number of employees working on that program dropped in half last year as part of IRS’ overall effort to shrink its workforce. Still, the agency said it has introduced additional enforcement of delinquent federal workers and is now prioritizing that population in its collection activity two days per week instead of one day per quarter.

As of 2024, there were 572,000 combined federal employees retirees who were not up to date on their taxes. That figure jumped by 43% since 2021 despite the overall population slightly declining. They owe $6.3 billion in taxes, a 32% increase.

About 50,000 current employees failed to file a tax return for multiple years. More than 1,000 employees are delinquent on their taxes for at least six years. The IG said it referred the 122 federal workers who were at least eight years behind to IRS’ Criminal Investigations division.

Federal employee advocates have noted over the years that the civil servants maintain a delinquency rate far lower than that of the U.S. population.

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‘This will cost lives’: Researchers slam Trump cuts to addiction programs and staffing

Sean Michael Newhouse — Mon, 11 May 2026 16:03:39 -0400

The Trump administration has prioritized combating addiction in the U.S., but a coalition of scientists and research organizations argue in a new report that the president’s efforts to shrink the size of the civil service and otherwise reorganize agencies are undermining that objective.

“The fact is that we've never seen this kind of dismantling of key components of a scientific field, especially a field that is crucial to the health of all segments of the U.S. population,” said Thomas Babor, a professor emeritus of public health and contributor to the report, during a webinar on May 7.

In particular, the Addiction Science Defense Network criticized staff cuts and grant terminations at the National Institutes of Health, specifically the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Elizabeth Ginexi, a report contributor and former NIH official who left the agency last year due to a separation incentive, also emphasized that new research is being slowed; ASDN’s analysis found that funding for new NIAAA and NIDA grants in fiscal 2025 was at its lowest point since 2000.

“These awards are the studies that will produce knowledge three, five or 10 years from now,” she said during the webinar. “When this pipeline shrinks this sharply, the effects will compound for decades.”

ASDN also found that the number of new NIAAA and NIDA grants that include the word “gender” decreased from more than 60 in 2024 to about 20 in 2025, which is the lowest level in 25 years. The researchers attributed this to the Trump administration targeting studies that include words associated with diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Sex and gender are not political categories in addiction science, they are clinical ones,” Ginexi said. “They shape how people metabolize substances, whether they seek treatment and whether they respond to it. Erasing the word doesn't make the science go away. It just means we stop doing it, and this will cost lives.”

The report also covers a January incident in which the Trump administration canceled $1.9 billion across more than 2,500 grants from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Officials, however, walked those cuts back shortly thereafter.

Still, Robert Vincent, former associate administrator for Alcohol Prevention and Treatment Policy at SAMHSA, lamented during the webinar that nearly two-thirds of the agency’s workforce has been pushed out under Trump. Other reports have found that more than half of staffers have separated.

ASDN noted that many programs to monitor addiction have been scaled back or outright eliminated — including SAMHSA’s Drug Abuse Warning Network, which collected information nationally on hospital visits related to substance use trends. DAWN’s webpage reports that officials stopped collecting that data “as part of a broader effort to align agency activities with agency and administration priorities.”

Vincent warned that weakening data collection with respect to addiction will make it more difficult for researchers and lawmakers to determine where to prioritize funding in the future.

“Programs are being cut and the data to justify restoring them is being dismantled or has integrity problems,” he said. “All of this is happening simultaneously. You cannot appropriate what you cannot justify. You can't justify what you cannot measure.”

Taken as a whole, Babor said that the Trump administration’s cuts have created a climate of fear in the scientific community. As an example, he pointed out that not every researcher who contributed to ASDN’s report was listed.

“Several other contributors asked to have their names withheld from this list because they feared retribution as current or future grant recipients,” he said at the top of the webinar. “I have been an NIH grant recipient on and off for over 50 years, and I have never encountered a situation until now where scientists had to fear that their contributions to a scientific policy document like this would jeopardize their chances of future funding with the federal government.”

A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department said that officials "remain committed to directing resources toward urgent challenges that address addiction research."

"The Biden administration prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people. This administration is directing taxpayer dollars toward evidence-based research practices that deliver measurable results, with a focus on continuity of funding, operational stability and strong data to support addiction services and research," they said in a statement to Government Executive. "Both SAMHSA and NIH continue to attract and recruit the best and brightest to deliver meaningful breakthroughs and improve outcomes. Assertions of instability in programs are inaccurate and misrepresent ongoing efforts to ensure responsible stewardship of resources."

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CBP backs off border wall construction plans in Big Bend National Park

Ayden Runnels, The Texas Tribune — Sun, 10 May 2026 13:30:51 -0400

Plans to build portions of the border wall in Big Bend National Park are off after bipartisan backlash over the proposed construction, a top U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official told the Washington Examiner.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said the Trump administration was no longer planning to construct the wall within the national park following pushback from residents, the Examiner reported this week.

“Big Bend National Park has some just, like, unbelievably huge granite cliffs. It would be kind of silly to put like a 30-foot border wall on top of a 90-foot granite cliff,” Scott said in an interview with the Examiner. “So what we’re trying to convey is that we are going to have meaningful border security in that entire area.”

Scott's comments only referenced the national park and did not detail whether CBP's withdrawal from wall construction also included the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park or private property in the region.

CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about updated plans.

Instead of a wall, federal officials will pave roads along the border in the national park and make use of drones and other digital surveillance equipment, Scott said. News of the cancellation comes after weeks of upheaval in Texas as elected officials from both political parties and residents asserted that construction in the park would be a waste of resources.

In February, Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas, including Big Bend National Park.

Then in early April, an interactive map on the CBP website showed the agency planned to instead install “virtual wall” technology in the region that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border. CBP officials took down the map in late April, and it is not currently available on the agency’s website.

Local residents near Big Bend sued the Trump administration in mid-April, arguing that federal officials waived the regulations illegally in pursuit of the construction project.

Funds acquired through the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” President Donald Trump’s key spending package, direct CBP to construct a multifaceted barrier system, or a “Smart Wall,” across the southern border with Mexico. The proposed barriers would include bollard walls and patrol roads, as well as surveillance technology and floating buoys placed in the Rio Grande.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.

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Pentagon will ‘never again’ rely on a single AI provider, official says

Alexandra Kelley — Fri, 08 May 2026 16:27:35 -0400

Leadership at the Pentagon reiterated the agency’s commitment to diversifying its artificial intelligence service providers, with Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael taking the stage Thursday at an event in Washington, D.C., to stress that his department is never being “single-threaded with any one model.”

Speaking during the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo event, Michael said that the recent deals between eight leading AI developers and the Department of Defense are both a private sector statement of support for working with the government, as well as a step towards the Pentagon’s goal to diversify its tech stack with different providers.

“We were single-threaded on one vendor, one AI vendor at the Department of War, and to integrate into classified systems is not just putting your software on a public cloud and having it work,” Michael said, referring to his agency’s contract with Anthropic. “These are sophisticated, protective systems that take a lot of work to integrate on, so it wasn't like I could just turn on a few other models that easily. But never again we’ll be single-threaded with any one model.”

Michael continued to say that the new deals with Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Reflection, Oracle and SpaceX are “a statement by the biggest tech companies in the world who are involved in the AI space … and have them say, ‘We support the Department of War, we support the U.S. government, and we support the… armed services for all lawful use cases.”

Michael’s comments come in the midst of an ongoing dispute between Anthropic and the Department of Defense following the company’s refusal to have its technology used in operations involving autonomous weaponry and American surveillance.

The fallout of that dispute resulted in the Pentagon designating Anthropic a supply chain risk and the White House ordering agencies to begin removing the company's products from their tech stacks. A judge put a hold on those actions in late March pending ongoing litigation over the government’s actions.

The release of Anthropic’s advanced cybersecurity-focused model, Mythos Preview, changed the discussion. Access to Mythos and its advanced capabilities for detecting cybersecurity flaws is tantalizing for the U.S. government, prompting internal drafts of policy plans that would enable some agencies to use Anthropic’s cutting-edge model.

Michael said that the advent of Mythos signals the forthcoming evolution of cyber-capable AI models.

“The Mythos moment is really a cyber moment, and it's: ‘How is the U.S. government going to deal with cyber?’” Michael said.

Major tech companies are responding to Michael’s drive to diversify the Pentagon’s vendor portfolio. Rand Waldron, the vice president of the Global Government Sector for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, told Nextgov/FCW that Defense officials are asking cloud service providers like Oracle to prioritize interconnectedness in the effort to avoid vendor lock-in.

“From what I can see, the Department of War has some very savvy people who … don't want to go all in on one [model] because then six months later, they may need to go all in on another,” Waldron said.

He explained that there will likely be models that are more finely-tuned to particular use cases, such as code generation, data analytics, supply chain management or targeting in warfighter operations. One model from a single provider may not effectively serve each of these workflows.

“I don't believe that all those different use cases will end up being the exact same model at any given time,” Waldron said.

The Pentagon’s desire to expand the service offerings available for its workforce has precedent. Waldron said that DOD and the intelligence community have laid the foundation for a flexible approach to AI services acquisition, citing the creation of the Commercial Cloud Enterprise and Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contracting vehicles as the blueprints for future contracting structure.

“It's not like they're trying to replace Anthropic with another model provider,” Waldron said. “They want to replace Anthropic with four model providers.”

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A USDA cow scientist won an award for helping dairy farmers produce more milk. He’s worried about the future of government research under Trump

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 08 May 2026 16:17:14 -0400

Paul VanRaden grew up on a dairy farm, and his first job was to collect data about cows and send it to the federal government.

Over his 37-year career at the Agriculture Department, he analyzed data that farmers provided to researchers, just like he did as a teenager, in order to determine which of their cows had the best genetics to maximize milk production.

“My first and really only job for my entire career was analyzing the data for USDA that I had started collecting when I was 16,” VanRaden said.

The federal scientist was one of several civil servants who received this year’s Service to America medal from the Partnership for Public Service nonprofit. Winners were honored during a ceremony on Wednesday at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian; although, VanRaden opted not to attend, in part, so he could reduce his carbon footprint by not flying.

He, along with two of his USDA colleagues, was recognized for making the U.S. “more prosperous.” The other categories were safer, stronger and healthier.

During his time in government, VanRaden developed a genomic prediction methodology that has enabled farmers to better identify genetically superior calves for breeding. His research contributed to an increase in milk production since the 1980s despite a decrease in the number of dairy cows.

He said that federal data on U.S. cows is sought after by other countries.

“The whole world is using this technology driven by the data that USDA created over a century,” VanRaden said. “Well, the farmers created it, but USDA collected it into one giant database.”

In 2025, VanRaden left government under a planned retirement. He lamented, however, that many of the individuals who he trained to replace him either separated from the agency due to the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the civil service or are subject to relocation orders because of USDA’s push to move employees out of the Washington, D.C., area.

The Partnership this year honored fewer civil servants than usual for the Service to America program, which celebrated its 25th anniversary. Max Stier, the president and CEO of the organization, said that was largely because government officials did not express “the typical energy to recognize and celebrate federal employees’ achievements.”

“Agencies that typically submit dozens of nominations this year submitted none,” he said in a statement to Government Executive. “We felt that even though we could not identify as many honorees as in past years, it was important to show that dedicated federal employees are still doing important and impactful work in these challenging circumstances.”

There were approximately 140 nominees this year from 39 agencies. In comparison, there were more than 350 nominations across 65 agencies for the 2025 program. The Partnership for 2026 also removed a requirement that nominees be current federal employees when they are nominated.

VanRaden, likewise, argued that the Trump administration does not value public service.

“During 36 of my 37 years [at USDA] — who was in charge, which party was in charge of the government — really had no bearing on what we did. It was math and data analysis. Everybody seemed to understand that the taxpayers, by funding research, led to big, important breakthroughs. That’s what makes this country great,” he said. “The attitude now is that the government can't do anything, and only the billionaires and the private business — that's where all the glory is. But it wasn't that way for all the previous decades. People understood that paying taxes and getting free research back was a tremendous investment. I don't understand why they gave up on that idea.

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Feds wary of skills-based hiring survey after 15 months of attacks

Erich Wagner — Fri, 08 May 2026 13:51:44 -0400

Some federal workers this week have expressed reluctance to participate in the Office of Personnel Management’s latest phase of a long-running bipartisan initiative, something experts say could mark an unintended consequence of the Trump administration’s campaign against federal workers it perceives as disloyal.

This week, OPM deployed its federal workforce competency initiative survey to roughly 550,000 employees. The questionnaire, which has previously been fielded both in 2021 and 2024, queries feds about the skillsets needed to perform their jobs, a key piece in the ongoing effort to shift away from degree- and qualification-based jobseeker evaluations and toward skills-based hiring, long a priority of both Republican and Democratic administrations.

But concern about the survey and fears of an ulterior motive quickly surfaced among feds. Multiple threads on Reddit asked what the survey was, and some wrote that they feared their responses would be used in furtherance of future reductions in force.

One Commerce Department employee told Government Executive that they received the survey invitation despite a lack of prior communication or education by their HR office. They said the administration’s co-opting of terms like “merit” and “accountability” as part of its messaging on federal layoffs and purging of diversity-related government offices has bred suspicion across the workforce.

"We all want more efficient government hiring and development, but ‘efficiency’ was cited as the justification for all of last year's senseless workforce actions,” they said. “It kind of feels like they burned the trust needed to get information from us because we don't know if it'll be a genuine attempt to improve civil service, or the first step in new automation and AI-dependent layoffs that will further degrade current capacity.”

An OPM spokesperson said Thursday that since deploying the survey this week, the agency has received 21,000 responses, a figure they expect to swell over time. The official sought to reassure feds that information collected will be used solely as part of the skills-based hiring push.

“OPM is continuing to work with agency HR offices to reinforce outreach and ensure employees understand the survey’s purpose,” they said. “This long-standing, bipartisan effort is focused solely on understanding the work federal employees perform, not evaluating individuals, and the data directly inform skills-based hiring, job design and workforce development. OPM is committed to transparency and building trust by clearly communicating how feedback I used and ensuring employees see how their input strengthens the federal workforce.”

Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy, said the incident shows the downsides of the Trump administration’s adversarial stance toward its employees.

“Once the idea of merit becomes perceived as a code word for slashing federal jobs and the idea of accountability becomes a code word for engaging in purges according to the ideology of employees, the principles that have been there in the federal government’s human capital world for 140 years are now being distorted by the mixed messages coming out of the administration,” he said. “So someone can say, ‘We’re interested in merit, in building capacity and making the workforce more accountable,’ and on one hand that sounds right and in many cases is right. But from the point of view of the employees, it just sounds like a continuation of those threats. Oftentimes, the only sensible strategy then is not to do anything, so as to avoid sticking your head up.”

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Inside the effort to connect Congress with the feds enacting its policies

Natalie Alms — Fri, 08 May 2026 13:30:33 -0400

Congress is flying blind on the effectiveness of the laws it creates.

That’s the thesis of a new project released last week by the POPVOX Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit, based on the input of 50 federal employees pushed out of their government jobs last year. The intent of this work was partly to gather insights on how policy implementation works in the executive branch and what barriers exist to effective government that lawmakers may not know about.

But it’s also about showing Capitol Hill what’s possible, said Anne Meeker, senior advisor for the POPVOX Foundation, which collaborated with the Niskanen Center, Civil Service Strong, the Partnership for Public Service and the Foundation for American Innovation on the work, called Departure Dialogues.

Communication between those making laws and those implementing them has been a problem for a long time, said Meeker, in part because federal employees doing the work aren’t usually authorized to go talk to Congress about what they may be dealing with as they turn statute into reality. That made last year a unique opportunity, as federal employees left the government en masse under the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce.

Typically, Congress’ current mechanisms for feedback from those closest to implementation in the government are limited. Hearings “are performative as often as they are informative,” the new report reads. Audits from the Government Accountability Office are usually retrospective, and congressionally-mandated reports are often compliance exercises.

Federal agencies have legislative affairs offices, but the information they transmit to Congress often gets filtered down to politics and top-level priorities, not the “program-level, operational oversights [of] what’s working, what’s breaking, what statutory language creates unnecessary friction,” the new report reads.

The hope is that Congress may replicate POPVOX’s process, or parts of it — including the use of AI to synthesize insights and surface patterns — so that experts have channels to communicate with lawmakers and their staff. For that reason, Departure Dialogues includes a methods report, in addition to a report on key findings and a legislative index.

One recommendation is for congressional committees to consider building structured input processes into reauthorization cycles or invite mid-level experts in for structured listening sessions.

As for what lawmakers may find if they take on the charge of hearing more from those in government agencies, one top takeaway Departure Dialogues found is that the accumulation of policies and requirements is making it difficult to get things done. Congress usually adds requirements, but it doesn’t take them away.

“One recurring challenge I encountered was the cumulative burden imposed by overlapping and sometimes conflicting legislative and reporting requirements associated with different funding streams,” Vikki Stein, who worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development for 30 years, told POPVOX.

“While each requirement was reasonable in itself, together they created inefficiencies that reduced our ability to focus on program effectiveness,” she continued. “This led to significant duplication of effort, diverting staff time and resources away from program monitoring, learning, and adaptation.”

Others told POPVOX that statutory language sometimes directly prevents them from achieving what Congress intended.

A common culprit: the Paperwork Reduction Act, a law created before the days of the internet that’s meant to reduce paperwork for Americans. Detractors say the law adds bureaucracy internally to those delivering government services who want to collect data like feedback meant to help ensure that government programs work well for people — but that it doesn’t ultimately always reduce burden on citizens the way it’s intended to.

Those writing the new report saw themes across workforce, contracting and internal communication: just as agencies and Congress are siloed, so too are agencies isolated from each other, and even teams within agencies are experiencing separation.

“The project was a little bit of an experiment to see if departing federal employees in this really politically tense moment were interested in participating,” Meeker said of the work.

“The response that we got … was really neat to see. We had so many folks really excited about this chance to say to Congress, like, ‘Look, forget the partisanship, forget the politics. This is just the one thing you need to know about how to make this program better,’” she continued. “That spirit of service was actually really kind of moving.”

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FEMA should employ fewer staff and offer aid to fewer individuals, Trump’s council recommends

Eric Katz — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:35:28 -0400

The federal government would employ less staff to respond to disasters and offer fewer opportunities for assistance to those impacted by them under a new set of recommendations put forward on Thursday by a panel created by President Trump, which said state and local governments must assume a larger share of responsibilities after major storms and other emergencies.

The much anticipated review of the Federal Emergency Management Agency called for a smaller footprint of the organization after a staffing assessment and a multi-year effort to shrink the workforce. FEMA’s workload has ballooned well beyond its initial mission, the panel said, which has resulted in an overly bureaucratic system that discourages states, individuals and the private sector from taking on important tasks.

Members of the FEMA Review Council—led by Homeland Security Department Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth and assortment of 10 current and former elected leaders and emergency management officials—said at a meeting unveiling their final report on Thursday that their “north star” was shifting leadership of emergency response and recovery to state, local, tribal and territorial governments. Their recommendations will now go to President Trump—who created the council by executive order on his first week in office—for his review, though many of the most significant proposals would require legislative action.

The council’s other goals included making FEMA a leaner organization, emphasizing the role of the individual, accelerating federal assistance dollars and maximizing transparency of public dollars spent on emergency management.

State and local governments should not be relying on federal spending to sustain their programs, said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and a lead on the FEMA panel. States should only hire firefighters they can pay themselves after initial federal assistance, Guthrie said as an example, and they should partner with faith and nonprofit groups for initial debris removal.

“Federal assistance should only be reserved for truly significant events that exceed state, local, tribal and territorial capacity and capability,” Guthrie said.

The council proposed a radical overhaul of FEMA’s assistance to individuals after disasters. Survivors can currently qualify for any of 15 different categories of individual assistance after an emergency, including for child care, medical expenses or a funeral. Under the new proposal, FEMA would offer only assistance to those whose houses were completely destroyed. The new approach would create a more streamlined interaction for survivors, who council members said have often complained of overly burdensome and confusing paperwork. They would still be able to use the funds for other costs, such as medical expenses or funerals.

Under the Trump administration, many governments and advocacy groups have complained of slowed down dispersal of funds after a disaster due to added layers of review and staffing losses.

Madison Sloan, director of disaster recovery and fair housing for the nonprofit Texas Appleseed, told reporters after the council released its recommendations that disaster survivors "absolutely" want a more streamlined system, but said the proposals would "slash the help" that is available to them.

“If your major disaster need is medical or funeral expenses, or you lost the car, you need to get to work, there's no help for you if your home wasn't destroyed,” Sloan said.

The panel suggested FEMA raise the threshold for when disaster declarations are made, saying it has become artificially low and does not appreciate the capacity state and local governments maintain.

It also recommended an overhaul of how FEMA doles out money for rebuilding and disaster avoidance, saying those mitigation dollars are disbursed too slowly in the current system. Under a new framework, states would be able to quickly tap into a percentage of estimated disaster costs in two tranches. In addition, the public assistance program, which funds projects such as replacing damaged infrastructure, would shift from a reimbursement model to a block grant model. The existing system is “reactive” and “excruciatingly slow,” whereas the new structure would transfer funds to states within 30 days of a presidential disaster declaration.

The council was initially set to release its report last year but the plan was put on ice after intervention from then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. It reportedly included widespread cuts to FEMA’s workforce. The updated document did not call for any specific staffing level, though it did propose reductions. FEMA recently reversed course on some personnel cuts after it brought back hundreds of emergency responders whose contracts it previously declined to review.

The report would task FEMA with conducting a “strategic review of personnel requirements to determine appropriate staffing levels, primarily targeting the disaster workforce through program efficiencies and increased accountability.” The resulting “workforce adjustments” would take place over two-to-three years to allow the agency “to realize the efficiencies while reducing staff.”

FEMA would, under the proposal, also consider relocating its headquarters out of Washington and offloading some of its work to the Defense Department.

Will McDow, the Environmental Defense Fund's associate vice president for coasts and watersheds, said the council's findings failed to reflect the increasingly frequent and severe storms across the country.

“Slashing investments and functions of FEMA would shift enormous burdens onto states and communities and reduce government efficiency,” McDow said. “Instead of one centralized agency that can respond for all states, we would need 50.”

Sloan similarly suggested the proposals would leave gaps in the nation’s emergency response.

“There is a major shift of responsibility and costs to state, local, tribal and territorial governments, with no guarantee that there will be sufficient federal funding to meet those costs, or that states will be able to raise that money themselves,” she said.

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A week of recognition, and a career of service

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:00:00 -0400

Celebrated annually during the first week of May, Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) honors the people who serve our nation as federal, state, county, local and tribal government employees.

“Public Service Recognition Week is a chance to thank the people who keep government running and deliver results for the American people every day,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said. “Federal employees take on some of the most important challenges in the country, from protecting our national security to improving how government serves citizens. Their work matters, and this week is about recognizing the impact they make.”

The Partnership for Public Service introduced this celebration 41 years ago, and over the past 25 years they have honored some of the most outstanding public servants. This year’s group includes honorees who revolutionized dairy cattle breeding to improve milk production and animal health, recovered billions of dollars from multinational corporations that schemed to artificially lower their tax liability, halted sophisticated cyber intrusion to the State Department’s email accounts and accomplished groundbreaking methods of addressing air pollution.

Although the number of honorees in 2026 was reduced to only four, over the past 25 years there have been more than 800 civil servants recognized for their remarkable accomplishments that benefit our country and build trust in our government. Despite the disruptions in the federal workforce, federal employees continue to work across the country and around the world to find ways to prevent drugs from killing our citizens, prevent diseases from destroying our families, find solutions to transportation problems, forecast weather to minimize the loss of lives when a natural disaster strikes, protect our nation and countless other ways they help keep our nation safe and continue building our strong democracy.

There are countless federal workers who have a record of steady promotions to higher grade levels and increasing responsibility, but those records do not always show the sense of accomplishment felt at each advancement. Federal service has allowed eager young employees to move through the ranks by showing hard work and dedication to their mission. Federal workers build on their years of experience to become mentors to younger workers and examples to the public. There are countless opportunities for advancement and the option of doing many different types of work requiring hundreds of different skill sets, educational prerequisites and levels of experience.

Federal employees are often recognized for exemplary performance by receiving time off awards, pay increases and cash bonuses as a tangible way of showing thanks for a job well done. But a pat on the back by a fellow employee or a word of praise from a supervisor or a member of the public can also go a long way toward making that employee feel appreciated.

From my perspective of meeting employees near the end of their federal careers, I have noticed their sense of pride when looking back over the years of dedicated public service. When federal workers are ready to move on to a new chapter of their lives, they never seem to regret the choice that they made to enter a career of serving the American public. Federal employees prepare for retirement through diligent savings and thoughtful planning to produce a comfortable life after government. Retirement from federal service is not only a reward, but a well-deserved benefit.

Thank you to all the federal workers and employee annuitants who have crossed my path either in my everyday life or in my work of helping understand and obtain their retirement benefits. I have admired your dedication to your goals and the many accomplishments you have achieved.

I have often been on the receiving end of professional, patient and caring assistance from employees at the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. The retirement specialists and payroll office workers are the unsung heroes of the retirement process. If you are a federal employee planning to retire or who has already transitioned into retirement, know that despite the challenges faced by an overwhelming workload, the employees who are working for you deserve your appreciation, not only this week, but throughout the year.

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‘Highly problematic for a thousand reasons’: NIH employees criticize Trump-era requirement to scrutinize grants with words related to diversity

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 07 May 2026 13:56:40 -0400

As the Trump administration continues its effort to root out federal funding for diversity initiatives, the National Institutes of Health has modified its grant review process to identify research that contains words associated with race or gender, which has held up some grant disbursements and forced scientists to rewrite proposals.

“I feel that this kind of censorship is making the path forward to support narrower and narrower research only to include, for example, white, straight, cisgender men,” said a program director at one of NIH’s institutes. “Any other population is being scrutinized, which is highly, highly, highly problematic for a thousand reasons. I don't want to be an instrument of an organization that is discriminating against people based on their demographics. That is 100% wrong, and I'm being forced to do that.”

The program director, who preferred to be unnamed due to fears of retaliation, told Government Executive that beginning this year employees at their institute have been required, as part of routine administrative reviews for grant applications and progress reports, to certify that the research documents do not contain certain words identified by a “text analysis tool.”

That certification refers to whether a grant has been populated into a spreadsheet for including a term flagged by the tool. Employees have not received a list of the words that the agency is searching for, but the program director and some colleagues have crowdsourced a list of terms that have previously caused problems including: diversity, equity and inclusion; gender; LGBT; racism; climate change; vaccine acceptance.

Along with seeking to terminate federal funding for DEI initiatives, the Trump administration has also canceled research related to climate change. And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees NIH, is known for spreading misinformation about vaccines.

“We are now in a situation where people are finding this to just be so utterly unethical that there are terms that are flagged in the name of [agency] priorities that really aren't about identifying important areas of science to study,” the program director said. “They are identifying particular groups of people or topics not to study.”

As an example, the NIH employee said that if a grant report were detected for including the phrase “diverse perspectives,” they would either have to write a justification for why the use of the word “diverse” is acceptable in this case or the grantee would need to use a synonym, such as “various perspectives.”

“It's wasting the time of people who are highly trained scientists and science administrators to do something that is absurd,” the employee said, adding that it’s unclear who ultimately decides if a flagged word is appropriate and funding can therefore be unlocked.

While officials have been assessing NIH grants for words that may run afoul of Trump’s anti-diversity policies since the start of his second administration, the NIH program director said that the requirement to use a tool for identifying specific terms represents a more systematic attempt to scrutinize, and potentially cancel, research.

An NIH spokesperson told Government Executive in a statement that funding decisions are based on several factors including “scientific merit, public health priorities, available funding and adherence to federal requirements.”

“The agency relies on longstanding administrative and programmatic review processes to assess grant applications and progress reports,” the official said. “These reviews ensure compliance with applicable laws, regulations, agency policies and program priorities.”

The spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up question about which agency official has the final say on whether funding for a grant with a flagged word can be disbursed.

Jenna Norton, an NIH employee who was put on paid leave after publicly criticizing the Trump administration’s research policies, on April 30 publicized through social media the mandate that grants be deemed “clean” by a text review before receiving funding.

"I also want to address the use of the word ‘clean,’ which implies that grants that use ‘misaligned’ words like ‘minority,’ ‘gender,’ ‘latinx,’ ‘equity,’ ‘lived experience,’ or ‘social determinants of health’ are dirty,” she wrote. “This kind of language matters. Grants that address these issues are not dirty.”

Norton was reinstated to her position on May 4.

Additionally, The New York Times recently reported that the text scan requirement for certain words has contributed to a slowdown in awarding grants.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya wrote in a 2025 statement that the agency under the Trump administration would prioritize chronic health issues and “next-generation tools” like AI.

“A core function of NIH institutes and centers is to assess scientific merit within the context of NIH’s broader strategic goals and develop appropriate research funding plans accordingly,” he wrote. “In an environment where NIH receives more meritorious applications than it can fund, this review process is increasingly critical.”

The Partnership for Public Service nonprofit reported that there was a 24% reduction between fiscal years 2024 and 2025 in spending on science agency project grants.

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