All posts by : Shamima A

Climate science is receiving once-in-a-generation funding to solve the problem of our planet heating up and poisoning itself.

But the resulting innovation will face major headwinds once it’s ready for market: That’s because the government isn’t investing enough in the communication of climate science.

Earlier this year, the American Petroleum Institute launched an eight-figure campaign promoting U.S. natural gas and oil as integral to supplying the world with “cleaner, more reliable energy.” That’s just one example in a legion of astroturf and greenwash campaigns fighting climate-change solutions.

The federal government, unfortunately, has not yet mounted a creative communications counteroffensive.

The time has come to rethink how the federal government allocates the $14.9 billion the GAO says was spent on ads over the past 10 years, and what those investments need to accomplish.

The largest portion of this money is spent on military recruitment, a priority unlikely to change. But after that, the government and its scientists and professionals need to steal the megaphone from lobbyists and demagogues on climate and other scientific advances.

Here are three suggestions for how to do that:

1. Bake marketing into these climate tech investments: Federal grant applications should require budgets for marketing and communications. Without a plan to communicate findings to the general public, the data and results will get mangled in culture wars.

2. Be creative: Government agencies need to spend more money and more effort to communicate boldly and creatively. Think about how Nike markets shoes, or the best anti-tobacco ads ever. The government needs to bring its “A” game” to climate by, for example, partnering with the Ad Council.

3. Be nimble: Agencies must be ready to change tactics and messages in response to the opposition and to stay on the cutting edge.

Here’s a foreboding example. Direct air capture will likely play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change. This emerging technology uses giant fans to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere — sucking air like a giant Dyson vacuum and using chemical processes to separate the CO₂.

The greenhouse gas can then either be “sequestered” in underground storage, or used in products such as synthetic fuels or building materials.

We can already imagine what less-informed people are going to say about this if marketers don’t start working in tandem with scientists: “You’re stealing our air!”

The government must start marketing direct air capture and similar game-changing technologies like Apple markets its new phones. Because this is a helluva lot more important to our survival than a neat app.

We call for this revolution to clarify and simplify information about climate science and technology, and to recognize the persuasive power of marketing. 

Powerful tactics are needed to communicate information to non-experts and to combat waves of mis- and disinformation.

Government and scientists can lean into their strengths: credibility, conviction and innovation.

The stories of the future — the stories that will save us — need to be told more convincingly, in a more engaging way. Right now, that’s not the comfort zone or the skill set of the innovators. But they can build the best team to own the narrative.

The world depends on it. 

David Nitkin is a Maryland-based policy and communications consultant, and was chief of staff to former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and for a Johns Hopkins community hospital. Melissa Harris is the CEO of M. Harris & Co., a marketing agency, and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Both are former journalists at the Baltimore Sun.

Federal employees aiding in disaster response and recovery efforts are facing threats that could lead to harm, Homeland Security Department Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cautioned on Thursday, saying his agency would help protect those being targeted. 

The threats followed significant misinformation regarding the federal government’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, including false rumors pushed by former President Trump. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the rest of the Biden administration have repeatedly sought to correct the record, but federal responders are now facing consequences from the distribution of various hoaxes and distorted narratives. 

“We are seeing horrific hate speech of all types propagated on online platforms,” Mayorkas said from North Carolina during a White House briefing Thursday. “That deplorable speech has an impact on people’s lives, and it is also a motivating force for people to do harm. And it has got to stop.” 

FEMA has launched a “rumor response” page on its website in an attempt to put out more accurate information about its relief efforts. It has clarified, for example, that it has adequate funds to meet immediate needs, does not solicit cash donations, is not diverting disaster relief funds to migrant processing or housing and is not limiting relief to only $750 per person. 

More than 5,000 federal employees are currently deployed in response to Hurricane Helene, while thousands more are assisting after Milton devastated Florida on Wednesday. 

Mayorkas said it was DHS’ responsibility to push back on the threats FEMA and other personnel are facing. 

“It is our work in the Department of Homeland Security to combat hate in all its forms,” the secretary said. “We will continue that work.”

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an anti-extremism non-profit organization, found in its analysis that federal officials in recent weeks have faced a “deluge” of hate and threats. 

“Falsehoods around hurricane response have spawned credible threats and incitement to violence directed at the federal government,” ISD said. “This includes calls to send militias to face down FEMA for the perceived denial of aid, and that individuals would ‘shoot’ FEMA officials and the agency’s emergency responders.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this year vowed to prosecute anyone making threats against career federal employees, which he said have spiked to unprecedented levels. 

“We will do everything we can in our power to investigate, deter and prosecute anyone who makes threats against public servants,” Garland said in June. 

Federal officials have warned that threats against civil servants have increased in recent years, including at the Environmental Protection Agency, Internal Revenue Service and FBI. Those agencies, in conjunction with the Homeland Security Department’s Federal Protective Service, have taken steps to harden federal buildings and issue warnings to their workforces.

It is that time of the year when many federal employees as well as retirees must make some important decisions regarding their federal retirement and insurance benefits. I thought it might be a good time to make a checklist of things that you may be facing this fall so that you can prioritize those that are important to you.

CSRS or FERS Retirement

Are you preparing to retire at the end of 2024? If so, now is the time to submit your CSRS (SF 2801) or FERS (SF 3107) retirement application to your agency HR office. You should also receive a final retirement estimate for your planned retirement date along with a summary of your federal service prepared by a retirement specialist in HR.  If you are covered by FEGLI, you should also submit the Continuation of Life Insurance form SF 2818 along with your retirement application. Review OPM’s Quick Guide for Retirement Processing to learn more about your transition from employee to annuitant:   and you can see how much company you will have when you retire by reviewing the latest retirement processing statistics.

Maintain copies of your completed applications and copies of your records of federal service that show your beginning and ending dates of employment, changes in retirement coverage as well as changes in your work schedule. Be sure that you also have documentation of your health and life insurance coverage showing that you have been covered during the last five years of your federal service. Update your CSRS or FERS, FEGLI, and TSP beneficiary designations, if necessary, as well.

If you are planning to postpone applying for retirement under the MRA + 10 provisions of FERS, it is important to review the Application for Deferred or Postponed Retirement, RI 92-19, that you will complete and submit about 60 days before you would like your benefit to begin in the future. At that time, you will not have access to your agency’s human resources to assist you. If possible, request a retirement estimate of your future benefit and make copies of your personnel records that show your insurance coverage (you will need to have the last five years of your career covered under FEHB and FEGLI if you plan to reinstate these benefits later).  Also, maintain copies of records of the beginning and ending dates of your periods of federal service and any change in retirement coverage or work schedule. 

Thrift Savings Plan

Learn about your distribution options that are available at https://www.tsp.gov/withdrawals-in-retirement/  

You can learn how much income you might generate from your savings by computing a TSP annuity estimate using the TSP Annuity Calculator:  https://www.tsp.gov/calculators/tsp-annuity-calculator/#panel-1 

There are many options for managing and using your TSP funds in retirement, and to learn more, check out the TSP YouTube channel. 

Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program 

OPM has suspended new applications for FLTCIP in December 2022 for a period of two years. There has been no indication whether this will end this December but watch for possible news during the upcoming Open Season that begins on Nov. 11. If you are currently enrolled, you can also review your coverage online in your My LTCFEDS account. If you need additional information to help you make your decision, call from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET:

1-800-LTC-FEDS (1-800-582-3337)

TTY 1-800-843-3557

Int’l 1-571-730-5938

Federal Employees Health Benefits program and the Postal Service Health Benefits program

New for 2025 is the PSHB for Postal employees and annuitants. It is time to review the information that is currently available prior to the Open Season. 

Open Season will be held from Nov. 11 through Dec. 9, 2024, for FEHB and the new PSHB.

The 2025 premiums have been released for both FEHB and PSHB and prices have gone up more than average on some of the popular plans such as BC/BS Basic (11) and BC/BS Standard (10), Compass Rose High Option (42), Foreign Service Benefit Plan (40), GEHA Elevate Plus (25), GEHA High Option (31), GEHA Standard (31), NALC High Option (32), and SAMBA High Option (44).  Some plans such as the Aetna Advantage Plan (Z2) and APWU High Option (47) will see prices go down for 2025.  Premiums for plans under the PSHB are sometimes lower than the comparable FEHB plan such as NALC High Option (77), and both GEHA High and Standard Options.   

If you do nothing else this open season, review your 2025 plan brochure once they are released and on the front cover, you will find a reference to pages in the brochure that provide the changes in your plan for 2025, a summary of benefits, and the new premiums. You will begin to see the 2025 information popping up on the plan websites.

Medicare and FEHB/PSHB

Most Postal employees will need to choose a plan to complement Medicare A and B when they reach age 65 and have retired. There are some exceptions to the requirement for retirees to be enrolled in Medicare A & B to continue coverage under PSHB. Here are two of those exceptions to this new requirement:

• Postal Service annuitants retired on or before Jan. 1, 2025, not already enrolled in Part B; Family members of these retirees are not required to enroll in Medicare Part B.
• Postal Service employees who are age 64 or older on Jan. 1, 2025, are not required to enroll in Part B after they retire.  Family members of these employees are not required to enroll in Part B after the employee retires.

Learn more about the Medicare requirements at https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/pshb/#url=Medicare-Part-B 

If you are retired and are over age 65, there are several open enrollment periods to be aware of:

Initial Enrollment Period that begins three months before you turn 65 and lasts for three months after your 65th birthday (seven months total). This is when most people enroll in the original Medicare, Parts A and B.

If you are covered by current employment health insurance (either you or your spouse is working and you are covered by FEHB through this current employment), you may delay enrollment in Medicare. Part A does not have a premium if you’ve paid the 1.45% payroll tax (or your spouse has paid this tax), so there is not much reason to avoid Part A (unless you are contributing to a Health Savings Account). If you are receiving Social Security retirement benefits when you reach age 65, you will be automatically enrolled in A and B. If you want to delay part B until you (or your spouse who has you covered under their current employment health plan) have retired, you will have a Special Enrollment Period that will last for eight months following the month of retirement.  

If you missed your IEP and SEP, there is an annual General Enrollment Period that begins on Jan. 1 and runs through March 31 where you may enroll in Part B. Keep in mind that for every 12 months that you could have been enrolled, but weren’t, there is a permanent 10% late enrollment penalty based on the standard Medicare Part B premium ($174.70/month for 2024 and expected to be approximately $185/month in 2025).   

This open season, be sure to learn about the additional prescription drug benefits that many FEHB plans will be including in 2025 for those with Medicare A and/or B enrollment. New for the 2024 plan year was an opportunity for eligible enrollees to receive additional savings and enhanced benefits through a Prescription Drug Plan Employer Group Waiver Plan) offered by 10 FEHB plans. This program will be expanded for the 2025 plan year.  This is in addition to the 28 FEHB plans offering a Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug Plan (MA-PD) EGWP in 2024. 

Medicare Part D 

New for the 2024 plan year was an opportunity for eligible enrollees to receive additional savings and enhanced benefits through a Prescription Drug Plan Employer Group Waiver Plan (PDP-EGWP) offered by 10 FEHB plans. This program will be expanded for the 2025 plan year.  This is in addition to the 28 FEHB plans that offered a Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug Plan (MAPD) EGWP in 2024.  This open season, be sure to learn about the additional PDP-EGWP or MAPD benefits that more FEHB plans and all PSHB plans will be included in 2025 for those with Medicare A and/or B enrollment.  FEHB members may choose to use the Medicare PDP-EGWP drug coverage or opt out of Part D and use the drug benefit available in the FEHB plan. Most of the FEHB plans offering a Medicare Advantage option will include the MAPD as the drug benefit of that option. Postal annuitants who are automatically enrolled in the Part D benefit under the PSHB enrollment must remain enrolled in Part D, otherwise risk losing drug coverage altogether, unless they choose to pay for a Part D plan.   

Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program

After you have selected your FEHB/PSHB coverage for 2025, check to see if your health plan provides dental or vision care benefits. If not, or if you need more coverage, select one of the national/international dental plans.  There will be a series of webinars and a virtual health fair available at benefeds.com where you can learn more about this program. 

Federal Flexible Spending Account Program

Employees should also consider the amount of money to set aside in a tax-free flexible spending account programs offered through the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program. Visit https://www.fsafeds.gov/support/eligibleexpenses for all of the eligible expenses where you can spend your allocated funds. It is not too late to use the funds that you have contributed in 2024. Check out the options for healthcare, dependent care and, one for dental and vision expenses specifically for individuals covered under a high deductible health plan who use a Health Savings Account. 

The annual cost-of-living adjustment for federal retirees is set, and for the second straight year, it may disappoint them.

The Social Security Administration on Thursday announced that Social Security beneficiaries will receive a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment in January, a decrease from last year’s 3.2% increase in annuity payments. SSA calculates the annual increase based on the annual change in the third quarter consumer price index for workers.

Federal retirees enrolled in the Civil Service Retirement System will receive a 2.5% increase to their annuities in January, but former feds who are part of the newer Federal Employees Retirement System, which launched in the 1980s alongside the 401(k)-style Thrift Savings Plan, will see only a 2.0% cost-of-living adjustment.

That’s because FERS’ cost-of-living adjustment is calculated based on an extrapolation of the Social Security and CSRS increase. Each year, if CSRS sees an increase of less than 2%, FERS retirees receive the full COLA, while if the adjustment is between 2% and 3%, like next year, FERS enrollees only receive a 2% increase. And if the CSRS COLA is 3% or more, FERS retirees receive that adjustment, minus 1 percentage point.

That formula is a source of consternation among federal employee and retiree groups, and some Democratic lawmakers. Legislation, thus far not acted upon in either chamber of Congress, like the Equal COLA Act, would ensure both FERS and CSRS retirees receive the same annuity increase each year.

In a statement, National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association National President William Shackelford said that while overall inflation may be waning, the accompanying decrease in former feds’ cost-of-living adjustments is a tough pill to swallow alongside news that federal workers and retirees will pay, on average, 13.5% more toward health care premiums in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program next year.

“With inflation above 2%, FERS retirees will have their COLAs capped, reducing the real value of their annuities,” Shackelford said. “Inflation impacts these FERS retirees the same way as all other retirees, yet they are forced to accept a diet COLA. The Equal COLA Act would remedy this inequity, providing full COLAs to FERS retirees . . . This COLA also does not account for the sharp increase in the enrollee share of health insurance premiums affecting the federal community, which will rise by an average of 13% next year for federal annuitants. While such increases may impact the following year’s COLA, they are not yet reflected in the past year’s data.”

After months of testing, the federal government’s identity proofing and single sign-on service, Login.gov, is opening up its face recognition capabilities across the government to agencies that want to use them.

The General Services Administration says that the offering of one-to-one face matching has been independently certified as compliant with a government-backed standard for digital identity proofing set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called identity assurance level two. 

Federal agencies use Login.gov for people to verify their identities when logging in to access government benefits and services. The offering has over 100 million users already across over 50 federal and state agencies, and this news could affect how future users have to verify their identity to access information and benefits. 

“Proving your identity is a critical step in receiving many government benefits and services, and we want to ensure we are making that as easy and secure as possible for members of the public, while protecting against identity theft and fraud,” said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan in a statement. 

“Login.gov’s new IAL2-compliant product offering is another milestone in ensuring agencies have a wide variety of strong identity verification options,” she continued. 

That certification comes over a year and a half after a bombshell watchdog report found that GSA had been misleading other agencies by claiming it met IAL2 when it did not. 

GSA says that Login.gov will continue to offer its existing identity verification options to agencies as well, although they can now choose to require this more stringent level of identity verification.

“Login.gov heard from our agency partners with higher-risk use cases that it was important that we offer a version of our strong identity verification service that is IAL2 certified,” said Login.gov Director Hanna Kim in a statement.

The IAL2 digital identity standard is most easily met using a biometric. Login.gov uses one-to-one face matching to compare a user’s selfie with a submitted photo of their government ID, as opposed to one-to-many, where a selfie is compared against a database of photos. 

GSA also offers an in-person option at post offices for people that struggle to verify themselves online or don’t want to. 

Despite the fact that face matching brings GSA into compliance with the NIST standard, the implementation of face recognition remains controversial. 

A group of Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee penned a letter to NIST Director Laurie Locascio yesterday asking for more details on the technology and NIST’s role, noting that “concerns remain with the reliability, accuracy, and security of the technology.”

NIST is currently updating its guidance and offering new options to meet IAL2 that don’t require the technology. 

Questions also remain about how well the setup of matching IDs with selfies works and for whom, despite the fact that some private sector options that also rely on one-to-one matching proliferated during the pandemic.

“At the end of the day, we don’t really have a lot of information about how well they work,” Arun Vemury, senior engineering advisor for identity technologies at DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate, previously told Nextgov/FCW of this type of solution.

GSA itself is also working with academics to test identity verification setups, and preliminary results found that one of the five tested solutions performed worse with Black people. GSA had previously stated that it would wait to use the technology in Login.gov until it had done “rigorous review” about equity.

The performance of the tested solutions varied widely, but the best one still had an overall false rejection rate — where a real person with their actual ID is rejected — of about 10%.

Kim noted that GSA is using a face matching algorithm with good test results in NIST reviews when asked about bias concerns in a recent interview with Nextgov/FCW. 

“We’re glad that we’ve been able to do this while ensuring that users continue to have multiple secure pathways to verify their identity, whether that is in-person or remote,” she said in a statement about the latest news. “Looking ahead, we will continue to uphold our values of equity, privacy, and transparency by incorporating best-in-class technology and learning from academic and user research.”

A trio of Democrats on Capitol Hill think that the IRS requirements for identity verification in the Direct File program “created serious access barriers” to filing taxes using the service. 

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., penned a letter to the heads of the IRS and Treasury Department on Tuesday requesting more information and a briefing about identity verification requirements for Direct File.

Direct File is a new program piloted last year to give taxpayers a way to file online, directly with the IRS and for free using a government-fielded tool. The tax agency recently announced its plans for the service’s expansion in the coming tax season. 

“The launch of Direct File was a huge success, and going forward, we look forward to it serving more taxpayers with more features, which is precisely why it is important to understand the impact of the identity verification process on taxpayers,” the lawmakers write in the letter. 

The letter points to Nextgov/FCW reporting on drop-offs in the Direct File pilot, particularly at the point where users had to prove their identities and make an account. Only 62% of those that finished the eligibility checker created or signed into an account. 

“Direct File is poised to be especially critical for those taxpayers who face barriers to filing,” the letter reads. “Requiring them to use ID.me is creating yet another needless barrier to exactly these taxpayers who need Direct File most to claim tax benefits.”

The lawmakers also argue that the identity verification required by the IRS for Direct File goes beyond what is required for private tax prep companies’ tools, putting Direct File at a “significant disadvantage.”

Last tax season, the IRS used private vendor ID.me for Direct File’s identity verification, pointing to the vendor’s compliance with a government-created identity standard called identity assurance level two.

Federal agencies are required to follow National Institute of Standards and Technology identity guidelines under a 2019 memo. IAL2 is one of three levels of identity proofing under those guidelines.

“While we applaud the IRS’ goal of protecting taxpayers from identity theft, it makes no sense to only require heightened identity verification for taxpayers using the free Direct File service, while allowing identity thieves to continue to exploit the comparatively lax security of commercial tax prep services,” the group wrote in the letter. 

“If the threat posed by identity thieves and fraudsters is severe enough to warrant requiring taxpayers to submit to identity verification before submitting their tax returns, then the IRS should require such security protections, across the board,” they continue. “If the threat posed by identity thieves is not serious enough for the IRS to require commercial tax prep companies to implement burdensome identity verification, then taxpayers using Direct File should not be required to do so either.”

The Democrats also cite concerns about bias in face recognition technology and the privacy ramifications of the government outsourcing identity verification.

This isn’t ID.me’s first time in the spotlight. The service also garnered the attention of lawmakers in 2022, particularly for its use of face recognition to verify the identities of taxpayers logging into the IRS online.

Using a biometric like facial recognition is the easiest way to meet that commonly sought after IAL2 standard under NIST guidelines, although the standards agency is currently updating the guidelines to allow for non-biometric options. 

The IRS said in 2022 that it would add Login.gov — a single sign-on and identity proofing service fielded by the government — as an option, but has yet to do so, citing a lack of compliance with IAL2. 

Login.gov has added facial recognition technology to meet that standard, but the only choice for users of Direct File was to go through ID.me, which offers people logging into the IRS accounts a facial recognition or video call option. 

The question of whether the IRS is considering Login.gov as an alternative is one of several the lawmakers want answers to.

They also ask what the IRS knows about how identity proofing worked for Direct File and what barriers it may have caused, in addition to whether the IRS may reconsider its requirement for IAL2 altogether once NIST finalizes its updates and whether private tax companies should also have to be IAL2 compliant, among other things.

“ID.me is proud to support the IRS in the expansion of its successful Direct File program,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW. “For users who choose our self-service pathway, which uses facial verification with 1:1 matching, our NIST- and DHS-tested algorithm has demonstrated 99+% effectiveness across all tested demographics.”

H&R Block and TurboTax did not immediately respond to requests for comment on their practices around identity proofing. 

“The IRS has already committed to moving to Login.gov,” a Warren aide told Nextgov/FCW. “We look forward to learning more about their facial recognition and identity verification technology.”

The IRS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.