*** Rep Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is asking Chad Wolf, acting chief of the Department of Homeland Security, for assurances that recent personnel moves at the Office of Director of National Intelligence, including the appointment of several key loyalists to the top and senior positions, will not impact the ability of DHS to brief the committee on election security threats. In a Feb. 21 letter, Thompson said he's concerned that the ODNI shakeup bodes ill for information sharing across departments.
"The American people are depending on the executive branch to work effectively with Congress to protect elections from foreign interference," Thompson stated. "Candor must be the hallmark of that effort."
*** The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced an upgrade to its weather prediction supercomputing system. Two new Cray computers, each with a 12 petaflop capacity, are coming online in 2022, replacing existing Cray and Dell systems.
*** The U.S. Department of Agriculture is planning as request for information to industry and stakeholders to focus on the use of data and technology to making American farming more productive while reducing its environmental footprint. Secretary Sonny Perdue's recent vision statement looks to improve data collection and to close key data gaps.