*** President Biden signed a stopgap transportation reauthorization bill on Saturday to undo the furlough of 3,700 Department of Transportation workers. The bill, passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a 365-51 vote in the House of Representatives, extends a number of expiring transportation programs by 30 days. The programs were set to be reauthorized before the close of fiscal 2021 in the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, but that bill was never brought for a vote because of ongoing differences about the content and scope of a companion policy bill.
*** This past week saw a flurry of task orders on the $50 billion governmentwide Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract managed by the General Services Administration, as agencies move to meet deadlines for adopting the new telecom purchasing vehicle. Notably, the Federal Emergency Management Agency tapped AT&T for voice and data services in a $123.4 million, five-year deal and the Department of Energy issued a $24.4 million task order to Granite Telecommunications to support voice services at agency headquarters and domestic field sites.