Quick Hits
Deb Haaland, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, to lead the
Department of the Interior by a vote of 51 to 40 on Monday. Haaland becomes the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary. The Interior Department employs more than 60,000 people and spends $1.4 billion on IT annually.
Stefanie Tompkins was sworn in on Monday as the 23rd director of the
Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. Tompkins is returning to DARPA after a stint as vice president for research and technology transfer at Colorado School of Mines. Previously, Tompkins has been DARPA s acting director, chief of staff and director of the Defense Sciences Office.
Essential federal employees will be eligible for vaccines in the District of Columbia next month.
Employees are considered essential if they can t perform their job duties remotely or via telework and have to report to work in-person during the pandemic, according to guidance released by the District on Monday. The Phase 1C Tier 3 that covers them will open up the week of April 12. This week, employees at the Postal Service also became eligible in the district.
That expansion, however, won t include federal employees working in-person, but not in the city. More than 80% of federal employees live and work outside of the D.C. region, including many employees working in-person at the Internal Revenue Service, said Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union.
The intelligence community s newly declassified report largely concludes Russia attempted to meddle in the U.S. election through influence operations but did not attempt the kinds of cyberattacks observed in 2016.
The administration has ordered a wide-ranging assessment of the risks to various supply chain. Analysts, former government officials and industry say a large workforce gap and problematic frameworks are among the threats cybersecurity poses to the country s supply chains.