FCW Insider: July 23, 2021
The latest news and analysis from FCW's reporters and editors.
Lawmakers push for new defense supply chain strategy
The House Armed Services Committee's Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force issued recommendations that push for domestic production and better government oversight of supply chain vulnerabilities.
VA to continue pause on Cerner deployment for six more months
At the end of calendar 2021, the Department of Veterans Affairs expects to announce a new schedule for the deployment of its $21 billion electronic health record modernization project.
Wyden dings IRS over access issues in tax credit tool
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee wants the tax agency to offer its advanced child tax credit tool in more mobile-friendly format and make the content available in more languages.
What we learned about accessibility by scanning more than 2 million federal .gov web pages
For government to effectively tackle the digital accessibility challenge, all agency stakeholders must become accessibility champions.
Quick Hits
*** The Senate Armed Services Committee passed their version of the National Defense Authorization Act, with $777.9 billion in defense funding for fiscal year 2022. This includes $740.3 billion for the Department of Defense and $27.7 billion for the Department of Energy's national security program. The overall number is $25 billion more than was requested by the Biden administration. The Senate's 2022 NDAA does not include overseas contingency operations funding.
*** The U.S. Senate confirmed the nominations of several senior defense officials by unanimous consent on Thursday, including Heidi Shyu, to serve as undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense and Gina Ortiz Jones to serve as undersecretary of the Air Force.
*** The Better Identity Coalition and the Electronic Transaction Association, two trade groups, are urging leaders in Congress to include funding for digital identity verification in any infrastructure package that takes shape. The groups are suggesting $3 billion to support states issuing digital mobile drivers licenses, new digital identity services for federal agencies to validate customers and "identity inclusion" efforts to helping offer physical and digital credential to individuals who have been left behind by the documentation requirements of REAL ID legislation.