Monthly Archives: September 2024

The Department of the Air Force has issued a solicitation for commercial technologies to generate electricity and hydrogen for U.S. installations using geothermal energy.

The Air Force prefers geothermal energy because it can supply continuous, resilient and carbon-free electricity in all weather conditions, enabling the service to maintain mission continuity, according to the Monday notice posted on Tradewinds.

The solution will also allow the department to comply with congressional requirements to support energy resilience for important missions at USAF bases.

Through the solicitation, the government is looking to work with potential partners in developing prototypes to test if the desired electricity-generating technologies could be used at Air Force installations in the United States.

During the prototyping work at Travis Air Force Base in California, the selected vendors would collect data through geoscientific exploration and design a utility-scale facility to produce electricity and green hydrogen, the notice said.

The vendors are also expected to propose a deal structure to sell the generated electricity to the Air Force and other customers.

If the service determines that the proposed electricity production capability is technically and economically viable, the prototype would be considered in building a future facility to generate electricity and hydrogen.

Interested parties are invited to submit their proposals no later than Nov. 15.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded Viasat a $33.6 million contract to advance military satellite communication for tactical aircraft.

Under the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet—or DEUCSI—program, Viasat will leverage its active electronically scanned array, or AESA, technology and radio frequency integrated circuits to develop a phased array antenna for future military operations, the global communications company announced Tuesday.

Michael Maughan, Viasat Government’s vice president for space and mission systems, said, “Viasat has extensive expertise supporting the development of AESA phased array antenna technology across domains and we’re excited to bring that experience to the DEUCSI program.”

Viasat aims to produce a resilient AESA antenna that can efficiently communicate aboard tactical aircraft, including rotary-wing platforms, by facilitating connections across different frequencies, orbits and providers. The AESA system is meant to be used in military missions requiring multiple beams, demonstrate a low probability of intercept and feature jamming resistance capabilities.

“We believe hybrid resilient communication solutions are central to future government mobility operations and our teams are committed to continuing to help solve these multi-band, multi-orbit, multi-constellation interoperability challenges with high performance, cost-effective capabilities,” Maughan added.

The AESA antenna will reportedly provide streamlined services with zero moving parts, enhanced functionality and advanced aerodynamics for the aircraft.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that $279.9 million in fiscal year 2024 grants will be distributed to help state, local and territorial government agencies mitigate cyber risks and develop resilience against cybersecurity threats.

DHS said Monday the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency jointly oversee the State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program, or SLCGP.

SLCGP was established as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and by the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act.

The grant program provides $1 billion in funding over four years to help SLT agencies further develop their capabilities and platforms to manage and respond to cyberthreats.

“These cyber grants are an investment in the security of our nation’s infrastructure, helping to ensure that communities across the country have the tools they need to defend against cyberattacks,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. 

“CISA is proud to offer the SLCGP, helping governments lay a solid foundation for building a sustainable and resilient cybersecurity program for the future,” added Easterly, a 2024 Wash100 awardee.

In August 2023, CISA and FEMA announced the availability of $375 million in FY 2023 funding for the grant program.

According to DHS, eligible entities have until Dec. 3 to apply for funds under the program.

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Homeland Security Summit on Nov. 13 to learn more about U.S. technology initiatives to protect the country amid the evolving geopolitical landscape. Register now!

The FBI and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service served a search warrant at Carahsoft Technology Corp.’s headquarters in Reston, Virginia this morning.

Multiple sources confirmed law enforcement agencies closed down the building and removed computers and boxes of documents.

One source said they tried to enter the building around 10 a.m. today, but was turned away by FBI agents at the front door.

Another source says Carahsoft employees were sent home and told not to take anything out of the building.

Additionally, two sources say the FBI and DCIS served two criminal subpoenas and one civil one. One of the sources said one of the subpoenas was related to an ongoing False Claims Act case the Justice Department is pursuing.

“Representatives from the Department of Justice came to the Carahsoft office today as they are conducting an investigation into a company with which Carahsoft has done business in the past,” said a Carahsoft spokeswoman. “Carahsoft is fully cooperating on this matter. We are operating business as usual.”

A spokeswoman for the FBI in the Maryland district declined to comment.

“We can confirm that the FBI conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity on Sunset Hills Road this morning. We decline to comment further,” said a spokeswoman for the FBI Washington field office in an email.

It’s unclear why the FBI and DCIS served the warrant at the company’s headquarters. The Carahsoft spokeswoman declined to say what the law enforcement activity pertained to, but confirmed it was not related to an ongoing False Claims Act investigation.

Ongoing False Claims Act investigation

Separately, Carahsoft is facing a False Claims Act case that involves the Defense Department and other agencies seeks to determine “whether Carahsoft conspired with other companies to rig bids, inflate prices, overcharge and defraud the Department of Defense (DoD), among other federal government agencies, in selling [redacted] software, cloud storage and related hardware and services…”

DoJ asked Carahsoft in June 2022 for information related to the False Claims Act case, which included “13 interrogatories and 18 requests for documents.”

According to court documents from July 2023, “Carahsoft has acknowledged that it has in its possession, custody or control thousands of documents that are responsive to the Civil Investigative Demand (CID) but that it has failed to produce.”

Justice says Carahsoft produced 2,650 documents, which “represented only a small fraction of the documents that Carahsoft has confirmed that it has in its possession, custody or control.”

Justice says in the court filing that without these documents, which total in the tens of thousands, it would not be able to “reconstruct the factual basis for any transaction, let alone reconstruct the many transactions and be able to determine whether they reflect the collusive practices and overcharges to the government that the FCA authorizes the government to investigate.”

Multiple emails to Carahsoft’s attorney, Richard Conway of Blank Rome, also weren’t returned.

Carahsoft has dealt with charges of violating the False Claims Act previously. In 2015, the company and VMWare agreed to pay a fine of $75.5 million to settle allegations that it misrepresented their commercial pricing practices and overcharged the government on VMware software products and related services purchased under the General Services Administration schedule.

Additionally, court documents show two other recent allegations of False Claims Act violations that DoJ decided not to pursue.

Carahsoft won more than $1.4 billion in federal contracts in fiscal 2023, with the Defense Department being the company’s biggest customer, accounting for more than $653 million, according to USAspending.gov.

So far in 2024, Carahsoft has won more than $960 million in prime awards.

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The State Department is embarking on a transformation in how it performs acquisition. It’s moving to a category management approach, organizing procurement around the primary categories of spend. In addition, it’s launching a lifecycle management approach to help streamline and standardize procurement workflows.

“For the most part, most agencies are trying to buy smarter these days and use best in class vehicles that are established out there. We’re certainly doing that,” Mike Derrios, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and senior procurement executive at the State Department, said on Federal Monthly Insights — Contract Management Modernization. “But the missing ingredient for us really, and for any agency, is aggregating the demand signal. So how can you look internally at the requirements and identify those opportunities before you go to the best in class vehicles? That’s really where we get the best bang for the buck, so to speak.”

That’s why State is reorganizing to have teams focused on specific areas of procurement, such as IT, including cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, for example. The idea is that procurement specialists in those areas will more deeply understand their respective markets, such as how fast and the ways in which technology changes.

The idea is to use that knowledge of the market to supplement the larger buying power of category management. State wants to interact with industry in a smarter way, to get better responses to requests for proposals and take more things — like interdependencies and technology refreshes — into account at the start of the process.

Acquisition strategy on the frontend

Derrios said that’s part of a larger strategy of focusing on the frontend of the acquisition process. Toward that end, State is also launching what it calls “procurement planning conferences” in the third quarter of the year, to engage with customers and find out what the upcoming year’s portfolio will look like.

“We’re trying to get ahead of some of the constraints that are just inherently in the procurement function across the enterprise. Budget cycles seem to be truncated these days, for example, have been for a while,” Derrios told the Federal Drive with Tom Temin. “How can we get in front of that by talking to our customers about what they think they might do with their money next year, should they get it that way? We’re at least planning together for the major things that are going to require significant effort as well as those that may not be as strenuous for us.”

State is using data analytics to get a better idea of what that looks like. Derrios said it’s trying to build more dashboard capabilities to provide a better look at the current portfolios, rather than relying on agencies to dig into their own systems and the Federal Procurement Data System just to get a retroactive view. State wants a more concurrent picture, as close to real-time as possible.

Streamlining the process

At the same time, the last thing State wants to do is give contracting specialists one more database or tool to incorporate into their workflow; Derrios said they have too many already.

“I would like for us to have an end to end system where, frankly, it would be fantastic if we had a system that allowed our customers to be able to work workflow documents into a shared workspace where our [contracting officers (COs)] and our customers could actually work on documents together,” he said. “I’ll go so far as to say a secure system where industry could submit their proposals in to us. I say that with emphasis on ‘secure’ system. I would love that.”

Right now, that process is largely handled via email, he said, which is getting unwieldy. Even the documents are in some cases simply too large for companies to submit through that channel. Unfortunately, Derrios said, that kind of system is not something State is even close to having.

Humans in the loop

While many agencies are turning to technology to streamline workflows and gain efficiencies, Derrios said State is paying particular attention to the limits of such technologies just as much as the possibilities. That’s why he’s partnering with the head of contracting at State headquarters to implement a contract and legal review board.

“Especially on our larger contracts, we’re going to be putting eyes on those and taking a look at things … are the terms and conditions the right ones?” he said. “For us, it’s really about striking that balance. How can we leverage technology to the maximum extent and automate as much of it as possible? But let’s also get back to the old fashioned way. It’s okay to put some human eyes on things.”

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Index rose by 0.71% last week, ending a two-week decline and raising the average to $5,293.78.

GovCon Index is an aggregate index that collects and presents real-time data on the stock market performance of 30 key government contracting companies. With this information, users can evaluate each organization’s standing in today’s GovCon marketplace while gaining insights into major financial trends in the industry.

Last week’s top performer was The Carlyle Group, which grew by 8.31%. V2X (+7.12%) followed, and Curtiss-Wright (+5.65%) claimed the third slot in the ranks. Fourth place was taken by Palantir, which rose by 4.33%, and Jacobs (+3.15%) was fifth.

GovCon Index began last week with notable gains, but dropped sharply on Tuesday and continued to fall on Wednesday. Despite these losses, increases on Thursday and Friday kept GovCon Index in positive territory overall.

Check out last week’s market reports to get the full story on daily GovCon Index performance. To view the full list of tracked companies, click here.

The CSC 2.0 project has released its report for 2024 detailing the progress being made by the government in implementing the recommendations of the original Cyberspace Solarium Commission on putting into effect a layered cyber deterrence strategy.

CSC 2.0 said Thursday that of the 82 original recommendations, 80 percent are either nearly or fully implemented, an accomplishment reached through legislation, policy or other innovative means.

The reported achievements of the executive branch include the White House’s issuance of a new national security memorandum on critical infrastructure and resilience, the Office of the National Cyber Director’s having completed 33 of the 36 initial initiatives for the implementation of the National Cybersecurity Strategy and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s having been appointed as the national coordinator for critical infrastructure security and resilience.

For its part, the ostensible achievements of Congress include the passage of the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022, which calls on CI entities to report cyber incidents to CISA; and the provision of funds to CISA and the ONCD through the fiscal year 2024 omnibus spending bill.

CSC 2.0 nevertheless noted that more work remains to be done, especially in light of increasing threats from nation-state adversaries and criminal organizations.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division launched its new radiation-hardened microelectronics testing capability, called the Short Pulse Gamma, on July 31.

The NAVSEA said Friday the SPG, also known as “Bumblebee,” is intended to bolster the NSWC Crane’s ability to provide research, development, testing and evaluation data needed by systems designers and manufacturers.

NSWC Crane, which provides radiation testing support for the Navy Strategic Systems Programs, will utilize the new facility for testing multiple, concurrent and future nuclear modernization programs.

The new SPG system marks the initial phase of NSWC Crane’s $100 million radiation modernization initiative meant to provide a complete suite of strategic radiation environment requirements for microelectronics.

Angela Lewis, SES and technical director at NSWC Crane, expressed delight over the new SPG facility, saying, “This is a critical capability that will ensure continued resilience for the Department of Defense and the United States. Radiation-hardened microelectronics are a key enabling technology for Missile Defense, Nuclear Modernization, and Space missions. This new facility will provide important capacity to support testing for multiple, concurrent, and future nuclear modernization programs.”

Dev Shenoy, principal director for Microelectronics at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, described the new capability as an important step toward validating and verifying critical technologies in radiation environments.

“NSWC Crane has a strong understanding of radiation effects and expertise required in order to ensure proper execution of these deliverables,” said Shenoy.

Jeff Harris has been appointed chief information security officer at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a LinkedIn post he shared Friday.

Harris joins the FHFA after six years at the U.S. Small Business Association, where he served as CISO and then as director of cybersecurity operations.

The information technology and cybersecurity executive also held the CISO position at the Department of the Navy.

Before that, Harris was with the Office of Naval Intelligence as deputy chief information officer for information assurance and cybersecurity and then director of defensive cyber operations while also serving as chief of the ONI Cyber Incident Response Center.

Harris also spent time at the Department of Homeland Security as the deputy director for IT applications. 

Before joining DHS, Harris worked as the senior security architect at Camber Corporation, which was acquired in 2016 by Huntington Ingalls Industries. He was also with General Dynamics for five years as a senior staff member of architecture, integration and engineering.

Earlier in his career, Harris served in the U.S. Army as a network switching systems operator and maintainer.