I'm an on-again, off-again watcher of the FOX TV series 24. The truth is, I've grown tired of the series over the years, and didn't see much of it at all this season. That's only partly because the show's writers seemed to glorify torture through the repeated use of farfetched ticking time bomb scenarios requiring the hero, Jack Bauer, to go to extreme lengths to extract critical information from the bad guys.

For me, almost worse than that was the fact that the show featured quite possibly the most damning condemnation of a federal organization in the history of TV dramas. Its central fictitious organization, the Counter Terrorist Unit, was run by a series of woefully incompetent officials, was repeatedly infiltrated by terrorist plotters, and, with the exception of Bauer and his ally Chloe O'Brian, was staffed by people who either were disloyal to their country or couldn't manage the simplest of tasks--or both. Real-life agencies that appeared in the show, such as the FBI, weren't much -- if any -- better.

I'm with this reader of Andrew Sullivan's "Daily Dish," who offered a series of observations on 24's end:

What really struck me about the show was an outgrowth of a world, created by the 24 writers, where extreme institutional incompetence was the norm. When Jack is "forced" to torture, it is because CTU, in spite of technology and extralegal authority ... never has more than one active lead. Add to this that they are staffed in every department with treasonous moles and ass-covering bureaucrats, and supported by field agents and cops who cannot even successfully set a perimeter around a suspect.

By Robert Bodsky

Will BP be suspended or debarred from government contracting for its role in the massive oil spill in the Gulf? The Wall Street Journal offers some thought-provoking speculation this morning, noting that Obama administration attorneys are looking at whether BP's actions leading up to the environmental disaster warrant being banned from future federal contracts.

Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to eight senators on Wednesday, explaining that Justice Department attorneys are "examining a full range of affirmative legal options that may be available to the United States."

Let's put this all into a broader context. Could BP be subject to a massive fine? Count on it. Will they face additional scrutiny from federal regulators and watchdogs? Certainly. But suspension or debarment from future government contracts? Highly unlikely.

In fiscal 2009 the energy giant won a whopping $2.9 billion in contracts, the overwhelming majority from the Pentagon, where BP is the largest supplier of fuel. In other words, Defense needs BP, arguably as a matter of national security--a likely argument they will use not to suspend or debar the firm.

Some will argue that with the BP spill in the Gulf, we're in unchartered waters (so to speak). Maybe, but history says otherwise. For example, it's tough to find two more demonized contractors in history than KBR and Blackwater; however both have survived massive scandals and have kept winning billion-dollar contracts. In addition, companies like Siemens AG, BAE Systems and Chevron have paid nine-figure penalties to the government in recent years to settle foreign bribery cases. And, as I reported last month, none have faced suspension.

In other words, get used to BP as a government contractor. The administration may be wagging its finger at them now. But, sooner or later, they'll be partnering again.

Gerald F. Seib of the Wall Street Journal writes today that "the BP oil spill is just the latest in a series of traumatic events forcing a rethink of government's relationship with business."

We learned in the bank bailouts and auto company rescues, Seib writes, that the government isn't into nationalizing industries. And there seems to be general consensus that while federal regulation can sometimes go too far, at times it doesn't go far enough.

But the question of where exactly to draw lines will continue to be vexing. For example, Seib notes, when it comes to oil spills, "the federal government, it turns out, has precious little equipment or manpower to bring to a cleanup." President Obama addressed this issue in his news conference yesterday:

"When it comes to stopping the leak down below," he said, "the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP. ... Now, one of the legitimate questions that I think needs to be asked is should the federal government have such capacity." That, Obama said, is among the issues the presidential commission he has set up will address.

Such a move would dramatically expand the federal role in the oil industry. And if you extend this line of thinking -- that is, it's the government's responsibility to mitigate the effects of potential adverse consequences of industrial activity through the application of technology superior to that in the private sector -- you're looking at a very large expansion of government's role in the economy. That may be where we're headed. The question is, before we go there, will we have a genuine debate on what that will mean for the size, structure and cost of government?

(Hat tip: Chris Dorobek)

My colleague Allan Holmes has a post over at Nextgov's Tech Insider blog on a panel discussion about telework at the Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington.

It seems that an as-yet-unreleased OPM survey has found that 10 percent of federal employees say they telework at least one day a week. That would work out to roughly 200,000 feds -- a lot more than previously thought. And almost half of employees say they don't telework either because they can't due to the nature of their work, or because they simply don't want to.

Liz Birnbaum is out as head of the Minerals Management Service, the AP reports. That's hardly suprising, given all the bad press the agency has received in the wake of the Gulf spill -- especially this week.

The timing's a bit odd, though, given that spill response commander Thad Allen says the "top kill" effort to plug the leak is working, according to the Los Angeles Times.

And if Thad Allen says it, you can take it to the bank, right?

UPDATE, 4:37 p.m. Kind of an odd statement from President Obama today on Birnbaum's departure: "I found out about her resignation today. Ken Salazar has been in testimony throughout the day, so I don't know the circumstances in which this occurred." It's a little hard to imagine it wasn't on his radar screen that the head of MMS was about to bail--or be forced out -- given what's been going on the past few weeks.

Nice piece in the Washington Post today about Kathryn Troutman, federal resume and job hunting expert and erstwhile GovExec.com columnist. She has long been one of the world's leading experts on navigating the federal hiring process.

Troutman says she deals with about 400 would-be federal employees every week. Her expertise is clearly in demand these days, and not just because the recession has driven many private sector folks out of their jobs.

"The fact that there is a market for the services Kathryn provides is an indictment of the current [hiring] system," John Palguta of the Partnership for Public Service told the Post. "You can't figure it out without some help."

The Obama administration's hiring reform is supposed to change all that, of course. The currently required knowledge, skills and abilities statements that the reform effort has targeted for elimination are exactly the kind of thing that job seekers need the assistance of outside experts to understand. But I'm guessing even the post-reform hiring process will be complex enough that there still will be a market for the services of experts like Troutman.

For Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's proposal to reorganize the Minerals Management Service by splitting it three ways doesn't go far enough. In a letter to Salazar today, Shaheen urges him to dismantle the agency and start over.

"I fear that a culture of incompetence and corruption will still exist at the agency unless broad scale personnel changes accompany that reorganization," said Shaheen in the letter. "As you recently stated in the Senate Energy Committee in reference to reforming MMS, 'we need to clean up that house.' I think we need to clean out that house. It is time to abolish MMS and start anew with a new agency and new people."

Shaheen specifically referenced yesterday's inspector general report that revealed several employees in MMS's Lake Charles, La., district office admitted to accepting gifts, such as trips to sporting events, from oil and gas companies the agency regulates.

When the head of the district office responds to those revelations of cozy relationships by saying, "Obviously, we're all oil industry" (as he did in the IG report), it's clear that you've got more than an organizational problem on your hands. Structural changes won't help if an agency's culture is animated by relationships between government and industry that are simply too close for comfort. Ethics training may not do the trick either.

That said, it strikes me as facile to suggest that Interior simply "start anew with a new agency and new people." That would be a years-long undertaking. And where, exactly, would the new people come from? If they couldn't be current MMS employees, or presumably, people working in the industry, it would be a mammoth undertaking to hire and train them. In the meantime, whatever replaced MMS would likely do an even worse job of oversight and regulation.

The Washington Post's Chris Cilizza reports that House Republicans are set to return to the glory days of 1994 by creating a new "Contract with America"--or at least something like it. But, he notes, "There are also no illusions that whatever is produced ... will have the level of depth and specificity that was contained in the 1994 Contract."

That may be a smart move. After all, as I reported back in 1995, Republicans swept into control tethered to a Contract that committed them to various proposals to cut the size of government that proved very difficult to pull off:

No proposal was too ambitious for the heady Hundred Days of the first Republican Congress in 40 years: eliminating, privatizing and consolidating whole agencies and Cabinet departments, slashing federal employment and, of course, trimming federal pay increases and scaling back retirement benefits. But when talk shifted to action, the Republican revolution ran into some serious roadblocks. The House overwhelmingly passed a balanced-budget constitutional amendment in February, but the Senate narrowly voted it down. The House voted to freeze the implementation of new federal regulations, but the Senate unanimously rejected the idea. And House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., was barely able to round up enough votes for what he called the Contract's "crowning jewel," a $ 190 billion tax-cut package.

A group of moderate Republicans argued that changes in the federal retirement system included in the bill amounted to a $ 4,000 "tax hike" on the average federal employee over five years. Others simply questioned the wisdom of trying to cut taxes and reduce the federal budget deficit at the same time. Gingrich had to spend a tense week twisting arms before the measure finally passed on April 5.

"This is not a monolithic Roman legion marching inexorably toward victory," the Speaker conceded as the Hundred Days came to a close.

OPM says 43,649 full-time permanent federal employees retired in fiscal 2009 -- 27 percent less than projected, Federal Times reports. The number of retirees hasn't been that low since 2002.

Chalk it up to the Great Recession -- which provides another reminder that even with a large percentage of federal employees eligible to retire, it's notoriously difficult to predict retirement waves in government. Remember, it wasn't that long ago that OPM was projecting that the peak years for retirements would be 2008-2010.

I'm not sure which fact in this New York Times story is more disturbing: that 51 New York City bus drivers were spat upon last year, or that they took an average of 64 paid days off work after such incidents -- which are classified as assaults under the drivers' contract with the city.

The idea of freezing or cutting federal pay this year doesn't seem to be going away.

Ed O'Keefe notes today that House Republicans have included the idea of a pay freeze on YouCut, a project they've launched to let Americans vote on potential federal budget cuts. Here's what the GOPers have to say about a civil service pay increase:

As part of his budget, President Obama proposed providing federal civilian employees with a 1.4% pay raise next year. This year Federal employees received a 2% raise and since the year 2000 have received raises averaging 3.6% a year. USA Today recently reported that the typical federal worker is paid 20% more than a private-sector worker in the same occupation (median salary). This doesn't include the value of benefits like health care and retirement.

Not that they're trying to influence the vote or anything.

It's no surprise, but NASA officially says the Phoenix Mars Lander is out of commission, a victim of "severe ice damage" to its solar panels.

Last week, NASA flew the Mars Odyssey orbiter over the Phoenix landing site 61 times in a last-ditch effort to communicate with the lander, but no go. The spacecraft wasn't designed to survive the Martian winter.

Does the Obama White House have a problem with military leaders? That's the question Anne E. Kornblut and Scott Wilson implicitly raise in the Washington Post today.

In addition to the recently departed Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the piece focuses on National Security Adviser James L. Jones, Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry, and Special Envoy to Sudan L. Scott Gration. All, the writers say, have had their performance called into question "both inside and outside the government."

The insinuation is that the problem may be a culture clash with un-hierarchical civilian leadership at the White House, where few staffers come from military backgrounds. But a few issues with that theory emerge in the piece itself:

• If culture clash with a civilian-oriented White House was an issue, one would expect it would involve ex-military officers taking a can-do, chain-of-command, hard-line approach. But Kornblut and Wilson acknowledge that the officers highlighted in the piece "have been accused, in some cases, of having too light a touch."
• Other than Blair, none of the officials have lost their jobs, and White House officials seemed to be satisfied with their performance.
• Each officer faces unique circumstances and challenges, making it difficult to conclude that issues with military-style leadership are a common thread.

Jones often found his direct line to Obama interrupted by advisers with closer personal ties to the president. And in a White House where 18-hour days are routine, Jones often left around 6 p.m. to ride his bike home. His absence sometimes meant a loss in clout and Oval Office meetings held without him.

From CongressDaily's a.m. update:

President Obama will try something that former President George W. Bush couldn't pull off -- convincing Congress to give him authority to force lawmakers to vote to cut waste from spending bills. Under the plan he intends to send Congress today, Obama would be able to sign spending bills, then take two months to identify pet projects and questionable spending and send lawmakers a package of cuts they would have to vote to accept or reject. Senate Democrats rejected a similar plan three years ago, but in an anti-Washington election year, lawmakers might be more inclined to show they are tough on spending. House Minority Leader Boehner praised the idea, but said it was "no substitute for a real budget that reins in overall federal spending."

OMB is holding a conference call on the proposal right now. More to come on this soon.

UPDATE: The White House has posted a blog item summarizing the proposal. Money quote: "the expedited rescission authority in the Reduce Unnecessary Spending Act would be particularly effective in reining in programs that are heavily earmarked or not merit-based as well as those that are plainly wasteful and duplicative."

Another Onion classic.

By Timothy B. Clark

Here's a news scoop for you: David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States, was the top scorer in first round of Budgetball on the Mall today.

What's Budgetball? Well, as Walker explained, it's a game designed to teach people--mainly young people--about fiscal responsibility. "It's your future that's being mortgaged at a rapid pace," he told a sweaty crowd of college students gathered beneath the Washington Monument to play the game this afternoon.

Walker's team was joined by a Treasury Department team in advancing to the second round, and rumors floated that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner might be on his way over to cheer his employees on before leaving for China tonight.

Budgetball was invented in a partnership between Walker's organization, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and the National Academy of Public Administration. NAPA reached out to a group of historically black colleges, raised money for their transportation costs, and about half a dozen teams showed up for the 16-team competition. Their athletic and youthful players were pitted against Treasury, Walker's band of fiscal warriors, and other teams representing the Washington establishment. One such team, representing the Urban Institute, was captained by former Congressional Budget Office director Robert Reischauer, who himself was on the sidelines with a recent ice hockey injury.

So how does it work? Teams score by passing a ball from one player to another until it's caught in one of the end zones. You can "save" budget bucks by choosing to "sacrifice"--by stipulating that your players must pass standing on only one leg, or wearing oven mitts. And you can "borrow" and "spend" by, say, by adding an extra, seventh player to your team, or picking one player whose scores will count for two goals instead of one. If you win, and retain a surplus of budget bucks, you can carry those over to the next round. Walker, designated as a two-for-one scorer, racked up 7 of his team's 14 points in the first round.

Rock and roll blared, the hot sun blazed, spectators chugged water and Gatorade, and a big sign announced: "Budgetball on the Mall: The Nation Gets Fiscal." Whether the last half of that pronouncement comes to pass remains to be seen. But if you'd like to try your own hand at getting fiscal by making large cuts in the federal deficit, try the budget simulator created by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, whose staff was among those sweating and competing on the Mall.

President Obama had an uninvited guest at his speech yesterday on financial reform.

Seriously. There's video!

(Hat tip: FishbowlDC)

From the Los Angeles Times:

Kevin Costner may hold key to oil spill cleanup

Here's columnist Bill Schneider in National Journal, on the fallout from the response to the Gulf oil spill:

The Obama administration has some explaining to do -- mostly to fellow Democrats. Why did the president announce his decision to expand offshore drilling in March, before he carried through on his promise to reform the cozy relationship between federal regulators and the oil industry? Why did the federal Minerals Management Service grant BP an exemption from the environmental assessment procedures?

The MMS is becoming the FEMA of this story. Why did it take a disaster for the president to address the obvious conflict of interest within the agency? Now the president says, "The part of the agency which permits oil and gas drilling and collects royalties will be separate from the part of the agency in charge of inspecting oil rigs and platforms and enforcing the law." Talk about locking the barn door after the horse has bolted.

Brian Friel has some interesting thoughts on that subject in his "Management Matters" column this week. MMS, he notes is far from the only agency with conflict of interest issues to deal with. The Forest Service, for example, must balance the twin roles of preserving national forests and encouraging their cultivation. The IRS has both enforcement and customer service responsibilities.

That doesn't necessarily make such agencies ineffective, Friel argues:

The Forest Service has maintained its dual roles despite many decades of criticism that it leaned too much one way or another. The argument against splitting the agency has long been that two separate entities with authority over the same land could end up in bitter bureaucratic battles. Keeping a unified agency allows competing interests to work out compromises through a single chain of command, rather than create separate power structures that would wind up in turf wars. The IRS has stayed intact despite criticism of its handling of enforcement and service. Instead of a split, Congress gave the agency a strong national taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson, who has run the office since 2001. The IRS' ombudsman model could help other agencies struggling with the twin needs of enforcing the law and aiding citizens.

It's not as though this is a new issue. Back in 2007, Katherine McIntire Peters explored the ramifications of the conflicting missions of the Bureau of Land Management in the West. And as far back as 2001, in assessing the results of the Federal Performance Project, in which Government Executive was a partner, Anne Laurent noted that conflicting missions were at the heart of many agencies' performance issues:

In the few agencies with clear missions and well-crafted measures, managing for results comes almost naturally. The National Weather Service, this year's top graded agency, has set out to be a "no surprise service," providing the most timely and accurate forecasts possible.

It'd be nice if every federal agency had such mission clarity. But in the real world, it's the exception, not the rule.

You know what word I'm not really comfortable with? "Govies." I hear it a lot in reference to people who work in government these days, but it just sounds vaguely condescending -- unlike, say, "feds," which seems neutral. "Govies" feels closer to "bureaucrats."

But I wonder if this is one of those instances where this blog's tagline ("Outside the bureaucracy, looking in") comes into play. Is "govies" a commonly used term within the halls of government? Does it have any negative connotation? And what is the best non-pejorative colloquial term for federal employees?

Enlighten me, please.

What's next in high-tech military gadgets? A Dick Tracy wristwatch that runs on solar power and has a flexible screen that shows images of maps and other battlefield data.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)

Who was the big loser in Tuesday's primary elections? Uncle Sam. Here's Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, who was ousted even before the primaries by a Tea Party insurgency at his party's nominating convention, to Washington Post columnist David Broder:

"I'll tell you what is new. There is this thing called the federal government. It's big and intimidating, and it's out of control. And whoever you are, and whatever your title, or your history, or your individual voting record, if you are part of it, you find yourself having to defend it. And sometimes, it just looks indefensible to them."

For sheer shooting-fish-in-a-barrel fun, there's nothing more reliable than mocking federal regulations. So it's not surprising that Reason magazine's Hit and Run blog is having a field day with the Pentagon's requirements for baking brownies.

Now I'll be the first to admit that a 26-page brownie regulation is, on the face of it, somewhat comical. But let me play just a little bit of devil's advocate here.

First of all, this isn't just any old brownie we're talking about. It's the brownies that go in the military's meals-ready-to-eat field rations that are shipped to remote outposts in war zones. So just any old mix isn't going to cut it for this stuff.

Second, while the recipe outlined in the regs is very detailed, the language says right up front: "The contractor is not required to follow the exact procedure shown below provided that the brownies conform to all finished product requirements..." Merely suggesting a tried-and-true method for producing brownies that work in MREs doesn't seem all that outrageous, especially when the finished product requirements are pretty reasonable:

The finished product shall comply with the following requirements, as applicable:

a. There shall be no foreign material such as, but not limited to, dirt, insect parts, hair, wood, glass, or metal.

b. There shall be no foreign odor or flavor such as, but not limited to, burnt, scorched, stale, sour, rancid, musty, or moldy.

c. There shall be no color foreign to the product.

d. Chocolate coating shall completely cover the product.

e. Product shall not be broken or crushed.

f. The dimensions of the coated brownie shall not exceed 3-1/2 inches by 2-1/2 inches by 5/8 inch.

g. The weight of the coated brownie shall be not less than 46 grams.

h. The texture of the brownie shall be firm but not hard.

i. The rectangular shaped coated oatmeal cookie shall not exceed 3-1/2 by 2-1/2 inches and shall not exceed 7/16 inch thickness.

j. The interior of the coated oatmeal cookie shall be crisp and have the characteristic flavor of oatmeal.

k. The weight of the coated oatmeal cookie shall be not less than 43 grams.

l. The chocolate coating shall be free from cracks, chips or rough spots.

Do you want to eat the brownies that are allowed to include insect parts and hair?

Finally, just imagine if soldiers started to get, say, salmonella-related illnesses from brownies in their MREs. What's the first thing members of Congress, reporters and watchdogs would scream: "Don't you people have regulations to prevent this sort of thing?" You want regulations that take into account multiple potential problems? This is what they look like, folks.

The Onion comes through again:

Report: Majority Of Government Doesn't Trust Citizens Either

Today the Obama administration's hiring reform proposal gets its first hearing on Capitol Hill, before a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. And that means the slow, grinding opposition to the parts of the proposal that don't sit well with employee organizations officially begins.

In his Federal Diary column today, Joe Davidson notes that the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union already have singled out two elements of the proposal they don't like: the shift away from the "rule of three" in determining who's eligible to be hired and what they view as insufficient aggressiveness in scaling back the Federal Career Intern Program.

The unions have one big advantage over the Obama team in this situation: They can afford to take the long view. Witness their effort to fight the Bush administration's National Security Personnel System. They gradually fought to undermine elements of the new system for years in Congress, and were willing to wait until Obama was elected to see it killed off.

So don't expect flashy, high-profile opposition to Obama's reform plan. Employee representatives and other defenders of the status quo have no interest in embarrassing an administration that is generally favorable to them. But they also have proven time and time again that they are willing to fight for as long as it takes to beat back systemic changes they oppose.

That means that the Obama administration has to be prepared to do some horse-trading to get what they really want. So don't be surprised if they give ground on FCIP to win on the rule of three and other elements of their plan.

The Senate has voted 75-21 in favor of a measure aimed at making inspectors general at financial regulatory agencies and other federal organizations more independent, according to the Project on Government Oversight.

The measure, included in financial regulatory reform legislation, requires that IGs at "designated federal entities" report to the entire board or commission of such agencies, rather than just the agency head. These types of IGs are appointed by agency chiefs. Some have suggested that these IGs be presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed, like their counterparts at major federal departments and agencies.

The measure that passed the Senate Tuesday was backed by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

Let's hope that Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes or a member of his staff has had time to do a little shopping since he was dispatched to the Gulf of Mexico to deal with the response to the BP oil spill. Interior Boss Ken Salazar told Congress Tuesday that Hayes rushed to the site of the disaster "without a change of underwear and without a toothbrush."

Ed O'Keefe notes today that President Obama has encouraged Spain to adopt an austerity budget that includes a 5 percent pay cut for its government employees. Then he goes on to ask, "could Obama request a federal civilian pay cut here if things got worse?"

The answer, of course is yes, he could. As O'Keefe notes, the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act has a giant-sized loophole enabling the president to invoke economic conditions to justify any raise he chooses. (In fact, every year since the law was passed, the country apparently has faced a serious economic crisis -- even during the late '90s, even when the economy was roaring.)

The question is whether Obama would take such a step. In reality, even freezing federal pay would be a pretty dramatic move, given the history of automatic, if sometimes small, salary boosts for federal workers. (And given that Congress is already ignoring the call of Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to hold the line on military pay increases.)

A pay cut is hard to imagine. Then again, we're basically in uncharted territory in terms of the amount of debt the government has taken on. Who knows what might happen?

Pres. Obama has nominated Deputy FBI Director John Pistole to head the Transportation Security Administration, his third crack at tapping someone to head the agency. Federal employees unions immediately reacted positively, while noting that they would need to dig deeper into his background.

"The Senate needs to move quickly to ensure that a qualified person is selected to run TSA," said John Gage, national president of The American Federation of Government Employees.

An AFGE spokeswoman said Pistole "appears to be qualified" but that the union is still trying to learn more about him.

National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley said NTEU is looking forward to learning more about Pistole's record and stressed the importance of getting a permanent TSA administrator in place.

"TSA needs a permanent leader so it can deal effectively with its transportation protection responsibilities," Kelley said. "In addition, there are multiple and continuing workplace issues that have been deferred pending nomination and confirmation of a full-time administrator. I am hopeful that confirmation of a permanent administrator will serve as the linchpin in the necessary steps to TSA becoming the world-class professional transportation protection agency our nation needs and deserves."

The House Armed Services Committee will be marking up the 2011 Defense authorization bill on Wednesday. A number of groups, most notably the Federal Managers Association, seem to be using this as an opportunity to re-voice their concerns about the looming transition away from NSPS.

Unfortunately the committee has a policy against discussing what's in the mark in advance of Wednesday, but I'll be interested to see what provisions are included in this initial bill to help ease the transition, and what happens to them through the long and arduous process of getting an auth bill passed.

By Dawn Lim

Happy Friday! Recipes from top chefs at the "Feds Get Fit Cook-off" -- including one for the winning roasted tomato curry coconut soup - have now been posted online.

Last month, the Office of Personnel Management hosted its first cooking competition for federal employees as part of the agency's initiative to promote healthy living among the federal workforce.

Melissa Knoll of the Social Security Administration, wowed judges with her aromatic, textured blend of tomatoes, shrimp and peas.

OPM Deputy Director Christine M. Griffin highlighted the range of choices that federal employees have to stay healthy. "If you go to any federal cafeteria now you will actually see a much different variety of food than you would have five or six years ago," she said.

"You could actually come here everyday -- I do it -- and I look at the healthy choice, and I look at the not-so-healthy choice," Griffin said, "Nine times out of ten, I'm going to choose the healthy choice because the excuse that there wasn't a healthy choice has been taken away."

The Merit Systems Protection Board is, of course, tasked with protecting the federal government's merit system. Part of that mandate is to conduct studies to determine whether various elements of the system are operating properly and free of prohibited personnel practices.

Every three years, the MSPB reaches out to stakeholders for input on appropriate topics to study. That time is upon us, and MSPB is asking for your input. If you're interested, take their survey here or email your ideas to research.agenda@mspb.gov.

Study topics in recent years have covered employee engagement, fair and equitable treatment, managing poor performers and the use of job simulations as a hiring tool. Are they missing something? Let them know.

Ed O'Keefe points today to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showing 45 percent of Americans think the government hasn't done enough in response to the BP oil spill, while 43 percent say it has. Those numbers are actually pretty good, given the fact that oil is still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. But if things don't get better soon, don't expect them to hold up.

Every day, the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, which is responsible for coordinating response efforts, sends out an update on its various activities. Yesterday's included the following:

• Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 13,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
• More than 510 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts--in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
• Approximately 1.5 million feet of boom (regular and sorbent) have been deployed to contain the spill--and approximately 1.5 million feet are available.
• Approximately 4 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
• Approximately 436,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed. More than 120,000 gallons are available.

That's an impressive set of numbers -- or at least they seem impressive. But that's the problem. The Obama administration, and the federal government as a whole, isn't going to be judged on how much it does, but on how effective the response is. At the end of the day, if oil starts washing ashore and the federal officials and BP engineers on scene haven't figured out how to stop it, very few people are going to give the government an "A" for effort.

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, has an interesting take on the ongoing BP oil spill -- blame it on the managers:

Managers apparently had the choice of including remote shut-off technology in the project, but I'm assuming they decided that it cost too much, or would take too long, or they had some other managerish reason. So far, managers have acted exactly as you would expect managers to act.

Now it's the turn of engineers to fix this problem. I assume there are relatively few budget constraints on engineers as they concoct their plans. And I assume everyone at BP agrees what their highest priority is, for a change. In other words, there won't be as much manager interference as normal. And I assume some of the best engineers in the solar system are working on this. So what we have here is a pure case of brains against oil spill. It's the Manhattan Project for natural disasters.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

I've never actually worked in a federal building, but I have spent a fair amount of time in them. And one thing I've never seen is a line of people -- men or women -- waiting to use a restroom. So with members of Congress concerned enough about potty parity in federal facilities to hold a hearing on the issue yesterday, I have to ask: Is this actually a problem? Are there federal buildings where women have to wait in line to go to the bathroom? If so, that's a serious productivity issue.

Or is it just that lawmakers just making an issue out of this because they want to show their support for potty parity where it really matters -- in sports arenas, theaters and such? The one such federally operated venue like that I'm aware of -- Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts -- didn't seem to have a problem the times I've been there recently.

Well, that didn't take long. On Wednesday, House lawmakers gave an indication of just how seriously they will take Robert Gates' plea last Saturday to stop boosting the administration's military pay raise request every year.

CongressDaily reports that the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee voted for a 1.9 percent military boost next year. That's half a percentage point higher than the Obama administration requested. Gates specifically noted Congress' habit of annually boosting the administration's pay request in his speech, saying it contributed to rises in pay and benefits costs that are "eating the Defense Department alive."

If the concept of pay parity holds, as it does most of the time (except for this year), civilian feds can expect a similar pay boost.

Four days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared that military pay and benefits costs "are eating the Defense Department alive" and need to be reined in, First Lady Michelle Obama had a somewhat different message for the families of service members. She announced Wednesday that the president had ordered a 90-day review "to develop a coordinated federal governmentwide approach to supporting and engaging military families."

Specifically, the review aims to:

• Set strategic military family priorities for the next ten years and identify key military family concerns and challenges;


• Review a cross section of public and private programs to identify the most promising ideas and programs that positively support military families;


• Develop options for departments to integrate military family matters into their strategic and budgetary priorities;


• Examine opportunities for Federal policies and programs to stimulate new and support existing state and local efforts achieving military family readiness goals and meeting military family priorities;


• Identify opportunities to leverage the skills and experience of military family members in national and community life; and


• Strengthen existing feedback mechanisms for military families to voice their concerns and views on the effectiveness and future direction of relevant Federal programs and policies.

In the wake of a series of attacks at federal facilities, the House yesterday evening expressed its support for measures to protect government employees on the job.

The vote came in support of a resolution introduced by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va. Specifically, the text of the resolution:

(1) expresses the Nation's appreciation for the outstanding contributions made by Federal employees to the United States;

(2) supports the goal of protecting the safety and security of our Federal employees; and

(3) urges that the Government seek ways to improve the safety and security of our Federal employees.

Here's Moran on the House floor backing the resolution:

When it comes to cutting Defense spending, keep this in mind: every day, at 5:00, the Pentagon issues a list of contracts issued that day. It can be pretty long -- sometimes as much as 20-25 items. And the list only includes contracts valued at $5 million and up.

(Hat tip: Marc Ambinder, via Twitter)

President Obama's hiring reform memo is out. Here are a few quick reactions:

In my previous post, I made the case that agencies shouldn't get too much leeway in implementing its provisions. And in the key areas, the memo doesn't leave much wiggle room. For example, not only are knowledge, skills and abilities statements out, but Obama is clear that agencies must "eliminate any requirement that applicants respond to essay-style questions" in their initial applications. Likewise, the memo expressly states that agencies must allow candidates to submit either resumes and cover letters or some other complete some other "simple, plain language" application form. And "rule of three" on candidates who can ultimately be selected is gone.

When there is leeway, it's backed up with requirements that agencies measure measure what they're doing and show they've speeded up the hiring process while still recruiting highly qualified employees. And OPM is on the hook set up a system for holding agencies and managers accountable.

At first glance, it's a pretty specific policy -- with teeth.

So the day has arrived--the Obama administration is ready to make it's foray into federal hiring reform. Let's hope this isn't just a trip into the Fire Swamp.

After all, this is hardly the first time that government has sought to overhaul its application process. Remember the death of the dreaded form SF-171 and the move to resume-based hiring? That was back in 1995. It took years to make the shift, and the result was a hybrid creature known as the "federal resume," which required much more specific, tailored information than a standard resume. (Keep that history in mind when OPM's John Berry talks about the Obama administration's effort as a shift to a resume-based system. That was supposed to have happened years ago.)

The problem with reforms to standard federal processes like this is agencies tend to try to find ways to continue to keep using their old methods. In January 1994, then-OPM Director Jim King famously dumped a wheelbarrow containing all the pages of the old Federal Personnel Manual into a recycling truck to symbolize the fact that agencies were freed from its restrictions. But what many of them came up with to replace it looked suspiciously like the old FPM.

The test of this latest reform effort may be whether or not agency officials are given the leeway simply to put old wine in new bottles.

In his address Saturday in Kansas, Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn't just speak generically about the need to trim overhead and cut bureaucracy. He directly and specifically went farther out on a limb than any Defense secretary in recent memory in taking on the department's sacred cows on Capitol Hill--and even in the White House.

Here are two of the biggest:

Health Care: Military health care costs, Gates said, "are eating the Defense Department alive," rising from $19 billion a decade ago to $50 billion now. This is not exactly news. As far back as September 2001, Katherine McIntire Peters was reporting in GovExec that "Congress repeatedly has expanded [military] health care benefits without appropriating additional funds to pay for them." And that was before the implementation of a requirement that TRICARE, the military's managed care program, be opened to retirees. Gates' message on TRICARE was blunt: He lamented that premiums under the program never seem to go up and indicated that military retirees with full-time post-service jobs should get health coverage through their employers. He lamented that any proposals to rein in the programs' cost "routinely die an ignominious death on Capitol Hill."

Pay: The "admirable sentiment" to take care of the troops also "motivates the Congress routinely to add an extra half percent to the pay raise that the department requests each year," Gates lamented. Even before his speech, Pentagon officials were spreading the word that Congress ought to hold the line on military pay increases.

But make no mistake: It's not just Congress that wants to make sure troops and their families are taken care of when it comes to pay and health benefits. You don't see presidents rushing to cuts such items, either. So tilting at this windmill may be Gates' biggest challenge.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates' big speech on Saturday was aimed squarely at the notion of cutting overhead costs, especially in the civilian and military bureaucracies.

But don't overlook what Gates said about contractors, too:

Consider the Department's spending on operations and maintenance, a broad category that encompasses about $200 billion worth of the day-to-day activities of the military - from flight training to mowing the grass. Over the last decade, spending in this area - not counting expenses directly related to the wars - has about doubled, with large increases in administrative and infrastructure support. At the same time, the department's spending on contract services - excluding the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters - has grown by some $23 billion. The one area of real decline in overhead was in the area where we actually needed it: full-time contracting professionals, whose numbers plunged from 26,000 to about 9,000. We ended up with contractors supervising other contractors - with predictable results.

Of course, Gates has already put his money where his mouth is on boosting the size of the acquisition workforce. He started pushing for it more than a year ago, in his fiscal 2010 budget request. But now Gates has made it clear that was only the beginning of his focus on Pentagon purchasing. "The changes we have made in the procurement arena represent an important start," he said Saturday. "But only a start. More is needed -- much more."

That was one big speech from Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Kansas on Saturday. (See the CongressDaily story here and the transcript here.) So big, in fact, that I'm going to use a series of posts to examine it.

First, let's look at the context: the address took place at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Abilene, Kan. Eisenhower, of course, is a man known primarily for two things: victory in World War II and warning against the growth of the military-industrial complex. It was clearly no accident that Gates chose this location to make his case for cutting the Defense bureaucracy. He noted Eisenhower's efforts to rein in military spending, quoting him directly: "I say the patriot today is the fellow who can do the job with less money."

Of course, there's another context, too. Gates acknowledged that he was "fully aware of the fact that I am not the first in this office to make this case and or call for this effort." Indeed, he noted that his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, had launched his own crusade against the Pentagon bureaucracy. Unfortunately, that endeavor was unveiled in speech on Sept. 10, 2001, and was pushed well beyond the back burner by the events of the following day.

Now, though, Gates just might be in a position to make some headway. He's got very little left to lose at this point. He had to be coaxed into taking the top Pentagon job during the Bush administration, and then to stay for the Obama transition. He doesn't need this job. Nor does he need to curry favor with anyone on Capitol Hill, in the defense industrial base -- or in the White House, for that matter. So if anyone can take on all the forces arrayed against change in Defense operations, Gates just might be the guy.

Joe Klein has a provocative piece in TIME this week making the case that the Obama administration ought to slow down and learn a thing or two about management before it pushes any more big legislative initiatives.

Klein expresses a frustration that many federal managers, rank and file employees, labor union leaders and academic experts have shared for years: Washington places a lot more emphasis on passing laws than implementing them. "Good management," he writes "is, sadly, neither a government specialty nor a priority for either political party." (I can almost hear Bob Tobias shouting "Amen!")

Then Klein makes it political: "Democrats tend to be more interested in legislating than in managing," he writes. "They come to office filled with irrational exuberance, pass giant fur balls of legislation -- stuff that often sounds fabulous, in principle -- and expect a stultified bureaucracy, bereft of the incentives and punishments of the private sector, to manage it all with the efficiency of a bounty hunter. This has always been the strongest conservative argument against government activism. Traditionally, Republicans were more concerned with good management than Democrats -- until the Reagan era, when the 'government is the problem' mantra took hold. If you don't believe in government, you don't bother much with governing efficiently."

While Klein points the finger at politicians for failing to take management seriously, he doesn't spare the career federal workforce. He writes: "Three types of people tend to seek government work: idealists, those looking for sinecures and those who want to build lucrative private-sector careers based on their knowledge of government regulations. All three types present problems."

The Transportation Security Administration says it "has implemented strict measures to protect passenger privacy" when it comes to the use of full-body scanning machines. Employee privacy may be another matter.

The Smoking Gun reported Thursday on the case of Rolando Negrin, a TSA employee at Miami International Airport who stands accused of assaulting a co-worker with a police baton in an airport parking lot on May 4. The alleged attack stemmed from an incident at a previous training session that Miami New Times says occurred last year.

According to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun, an "investigation revealed that [Negrin] was upset after training with [a] 'whole body image' machine. The x-ray revealed that [Negrin] has a small penis and co-workers made fun of him on a daily basis. [Negrin] stated he could not take the jokes any more and lost his mind."

Obviously, that's no excuse for attacking a co-worker. But the story certainly raises some questions about why TSA training would involve potentially subjecting its employees to embarassing ridicule by co-workers.

I once again had the honor of attending the Senior Executives Association Professional Development League Presidential Rank Awards banquet last night. The dinner, held at the State Department's Diplomatic Reception Rooms, always is an extraordinarily classy event that befits the distinguished federal executives it honors.

I got to sit at one of the NASA tables, and I can only say that being with a group of actual rocket scientists is a truly humbling experience. If you're not inspired by the work they and all the other executives who were honored do every day, then I really feel sorry for you.

Here's the full list of the 2009 distinguished executives who were honored, along with brief descriptions of their accomplishments.

Here's a really bad camera phone photo of Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking to the assembled executives and guests, who included Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry:

The State Department has posted video of Clinton's speech.

And here's a photo from the terrace outside the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, showing a wonderful Washington evening:

As Alyssa indicated yesterday, she's making the biggest mistake of her life and moving on from Government Executive. OK, just kidding about that. She's off to a new adventure at Washingtonian, and we're looking forward to seeing all the great things that someone of her talent, drive and dedication will do there.

Alyssa also indicated that I'll be taking back the reins of Fedblog. For those who don't know, I started this blog back in 2004, and wrote it for several years before handing it off to Alyssa. I've been following the federal government for 20 years now, so I hope I've gained a little bit of insight into how it works. But I also approach the task of writing this blog with the understanding and humility that is reflected in its tagline -- that I'm always "outside the bureaucracy, looking in."

Of course, other writers at GovExec always have been regular contributors to Fedblog, and that will continue to be the case -- which is a good thing, because they're the ones out there day in and day out trying to track down the news and information that can help federal managers and executives get their jobs done.

After almost three years at Government Executive and a year and a half as the voice of FedBlog, it feels bittersweet to type this: this is my last day at GovExec. I'll be moving over a neighborhood and into a whole different world of reporting to take up a position at Washingtonian, and handing the reins of this blog back to Tom Shoop.

I can't say enough what a pleasure it's been work at Government Executive, a fantastic home for any young journalist looking to learn Washington and the craft of reporting, and to spend time with all of you. You've pushed me, made me laugh, and made me think. I'm so grateful to you for sharing your collective wisdom. The work you do is critical. I'll never forget that.

The Service to America Medal finalists are out. And it makes me wonder the same thing I wonder every year. Is it enough to highlight their service in Washington, DC? The lawmakers who showed up to extol federal service are the ones who are pretty much already invested in federal workforce issues. Is it enough to have them on board? I don't know how to expand the public service caucus--with legislators, they've pretty much got to have a high concentration of federal employees or installations in their districts to get seriously invested in federal management issues. And in my experience, it's pretty difficult to get national-level publications seriously interested in profiles of civil servants or pieces on the importance of the civil service to national issues. I know some folks are suspicious of Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry's plans for a federal service marketing campaign. But it seems like paid media might be the way to stir up attention that outside of Washington, is currently pretty tepid.

I'm at the Office of Personnel Management right now for a meeting at the National Council on Labor-Management Relations. In a cute twist, the agency's setting up for its Public Service Recognition Week cookout, which can't start until the meeting is done, because a band is set up to play pretty much right outside the conference room window. I like the idea that a meeting about how to create good working conditions in federal agencies is being kept running efficiently by a program to make folks feel like they've got a good work environment. That's synergy.

The financial crisis is a horrible thing, a cascading series of events that has ruined or seriously damaged the lives of millions of Americans. It's also a reminder that pay-for-performance isn't just an issue that the federal government has to figure out: the financial sector has an aggressive pay-for-performance structure. Reihan Salam defends it as an economic system:

But note that bonuses, commissions, and piece-rates are used throughout the economy, and indeed had been fairly common in the service sector long before the financialization of the U.S. economy took off. The reason these forms of compensation proved successful is that, in the so-called "war for talent," they proved a powerful inducement for highly-productive and potentially footloose workers to stay on the team.

As advanced economies have shifted from manufacturing, and in particular forms of manufacturing that involve repetitive tasks, to highly complex services, it hardly seems surprising that we'd see more room for performance pay. The productivity gap between one employee and another matters more. Moreover, the rise of bonuses had another happy consequence. In his 1984 book The Share Economy, Harvard economist Marvin Weitzman called for heavier reliance on bonuses (gain-sharing or contingent compensation schemes) on the grounds that it might smooth out the boom-bust cycle: bonuses would allow firms to lower costs without shedding workers.

But Mike Konczal has doubts. It's definitely interesting to look at the problem from the other side of the mirror. And I'm not sure government or the financial services industry has achieved the right balance.

The Center for Public Integrity has a cri de coeur up on the need for a fully confirmed and in-place corps of Inspectors General. I agree with everything they're saying, and I'm glad they're acknowledging the glacial pace of the nominations and confirmation process more generally.

But I think it's important to include some context here. According to the appointments the Washington Post is tracking, only 70.9 percent of the positions Obama has to fill are filled with confirmed appointees. 79.5 percent of Inspectors General positions are filled with permanent officials, according to the Center's own statistics. So watchdogs are actually doing somewhat better than federal positions as a whole in terms of getting appointed and confirmed.

And I also think it's worth interrogating the idea that career officials in acting positions are actually less stable than confirmed people, given the scandals that have rocked the IG community, and that the Center points out. I think it would actually make a lot of sense to have career folks hold IG slots for set term limits. But then, of course, as the Government Accountability Office proves, when it comes to filling someone when that term is up or that person steps down, the molasses-like pace of the appointment and confirmation process is still going to prevent a smooth transition.

I understand that military pay and benefits are a sacred cow. For a couple of years now, I've watched lawmakers fall all over themselves to meet or exceed the president's requests for military pay raises. But it's a bit difficult for me to square Congress's refusal to tick up the amount military families pay for TRICARE when the military itself is asking for that change. It isn't worth sacrificing the effectiveness of other programs, which keep servicemembers functional and perhaps safe, just to avoid violating propriety. If top brass are saying TRICARE costs are cutting into the budgets for other programs, that needs to be addressed.

Here's OMB Director Peter Orszag, to the Washington Post's Joe Davidson, on the plan the Obama administration is developing to overhaul the federal hiring process:

"We have been working on hiring reform along with OPM. It takes too long and is too complicated. "

I can't resist asking: What, exactly, is taking too long? The hiring process, or the process of putting together the reform proposal?

By Katherine Peters

Last week, we wrote about the new Army modernization strategy and created our own hyperlink to the document. A careful reader pointed out that the original document posted by the Army (to which we created our own link) contained a graphic with a reference to something called the Ground Based Intercourse. Apparently he wasn't the only reader who took notice. The Army has updated the document (and so have we); the graphic now refers to the Ground Based Midcourse Interceptor.

If you're interested in the government's response to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Ed O'Keefe has put together a nice roundup of a map of the spill, twitterers to follow, and links to the official website for the cleanup. The magnitude of this is overwhelming.

I was thinking about that this weekend, reading through Obama's Michigan speech on the importance of government. We've seen a lot of polling out recently about anti-government views. But are the speeches by Obama himself and members of his administration making any headway against those negative ideas? I'd be curious to see before-and-after polling in areas where those speeches are happening. The sample size might be too small to be meaningful, but I'm still curious.

And I also wonder about the rhetorical strategy of making concessions about government's impact:

Obama acknowledged that in "certain instances," government has been inefficient and restricted personal freedom. Examples, he said, included a welfare system that discouraged personal responsibility, a tendency to neglect the role of parents in their children's education and failed regulatory efforts. But on the whole, Obama argued, government is a powerful force for good. "Government is the police officers who are protecting our communities and the service men and women who are defending us abroad," he said. "Government is the roads you drove in on and the speed limits that kept you safe. Government is what ensures that mines adhere to safety standards and that oil spills are cleaned up by the companies that caused them. Government is this extraordinary public university -- a place that is doing life-saving research and catalyzing economic growth and graduating students who will change the world around them in ways big and small."

I understand that this is a long-term project. But I think, as the administration proceeds in its second year, it's one that's been underexamined.

When it comes to dealing with incidents in and around New Orleans, it appears there's only one man for the job: Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen.

Allen, of course, was the go-to guy in the Hurricane Katrina response after the initial federal effort went awry. Now Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has tapped him to serve as "national incident commander" for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He'll work with the Defense, Interior and Commerce departments, along with the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies, to coordinate the response to the looming environmental disaster.