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USPS nominations test the future of bipartisan boards

Erich Wagner and Jory Heckman — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:42:47 -0400

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters, D-Mich, asked Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., this week to put a hold on the current slate of USPS nominees until the administration identifies Democratic nominees to also serve on the board.

The USPS Board of Governors, which currently has two Democratic members, one Republican member and one independent member. The board has five vacancies, and Trump has submitted four Republican nominees. By law, no more than five members of the USPS board can belong to the same political party.

“This imbalance in representation would be unprecedented and would undermine public confidence in the Board’s ability to serve the public interest above any partisan political aims,” Peters wrote.

Trump submitted a mix of Democratic and Republican nominees to the USPS board during his first administration and consulted with congressional leaders from both political parties, keeping with the tradition of prior administrations.

“Unfortunately, President Trump has departed from this long-standing practice and has not engaged in any consultation with the Senate Minority Leader or the Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs,” Peters wrote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and the top Democrats on several Senate committees sent a letter to the White House last month pushing back on the administration’s broader lack of Democratic nominees for independent agenices.

Peters’ letter comes less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision in Slaughter v. Federal Trade Commission stripped removal protections from members of independent boards and commissions. Though that decision does not explicitly address instances when Congress has required the president nominate members of the other political party, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress may not “saddle him with those with whom he cannot work.”

Trump has been more personally involved in USPS operations than his recent predecessors. He signed an executive order in March directing states to send USPS a list of voters who vote by mail, and to refuse to mail ballots to unlisted voters. State governments have the primary responsibility of carrying out elections.

Early in Trump’s second term, USPS agreed to work with Census Bureau this year on a test of the upcoming decennial count. Trump also considered merging USPS with the Commerce Department.

In his first term, Trump threatened to withhold pandemic relief funds from USPS unless it agreed to charge Amazon higher rates to deliver its packages. A Treasury Department task force also recommended privatizing some postal operations.

Paul Steidler, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, said it’s important to consider the nominations “in the broader context of the Trump administration’s views about Democratic appointments” and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that gave the administration sweeping authority to fire members of independent agencies.

“It’s important to see the president’s actions in light of the Slaughter decision, and in light of the fact that the Supreme Court has backed up his ability to remove board members that he doesn’t want to have in place,” Steidler said.

Steidler said the postmaster general “has a ton of power, relative to the board,” and that the board’s political composition shouldn’t distract from the broader issue of postal reform and keeping USPS from running out of cash.

“Whether you like it or not, this gives Trump and the Republicans ownership of fixing the Postal Service,” Steidler said. “The focus has to be in reengineering the Postal Service. Part of that should be having a stronger, independent board that can look into what’s going on, and raise the alarm bells when there are serious issues that should be of concern to the American people.”

A spokesman for the American Postal Workers Union told Government Executive that the union is concerned the Trump administration has submitted nominees without any postal or logistics background. APWU will hold a national day of action outside post offices next Tuesday urging senators to reject these nominees.

“None of the current nominees have any experience in the Postal Service, or even in the wider logistics and delivery industry. Instead, what they share in common is experience in big business, finance, and management consulting,” APWU wrote in a fact sheet.

It’s not unusual for lawmakers to scrutinize the political makeup of the USPS board. In 2014, when the USPS board lacked enough members to hold a quorum, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put a hold on two of the Obama administration’s Republican nominees for the USPS board, who were already serving on the board and were tapped to serve another term.

Republicans, in turn, placed holds on the administration’s Democratic nominees to serve on the USPS board.

A USPS official who spoke on condition of anonymity said “it’s never good to not confirm nominees,” and that any attempts to hold up confirmations would be “counterproductive.”

“Is the Postal Service going to be any better or worse if we don’t approve these nominees? I know it’ll be worse off if they don’t. Because we’ll end up directionless again, which is what got us in this malaise in the first place,” the official said.

Experts warned that if the Senate moves forward on the USPS nominees, the maneuver may be just an opening salvo in a broader push to clear out Democrats from bipartisan boards. Many positions previously held by Democratic appointees before their 2025 firings remain vacant, such as at the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Slaughter decision could spur renewed purges of those that remain, such as the recent termination of members of the Election Assistance Commission.

“It’s more than a trial balloon, I think,” said Don Kettl, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland and former dean of its School of Public Policy. “This is a broader, conscious effort brick by brick and step by step to expand presidential power. They’ll continue to do it until the courts say stop . . . This is about much more than the Postal Service just as Slaughter was about much more than the FTC.”

Michael Fallings, managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a law firm specializing in federal employment issues, said one-party rule over quasi-judicial boards like the MSPB and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would hurt not just those appealing adverse actions, but the case law these agencies produce.

“If you have just one line of thinking, then those decisions have the potential not to be correct, not to look at the full facts, and generally be one-sided,” he said. “Even if it’s just through a dissent to a decision, that can be reviewed and evaluated for future cases as well.”

Jay Lerner, an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University’s School of Public Affairs and former inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said that while Slaughter has effectively short-circuited many of the laws aimed at insulating agencies from presidential power, a Congress looking to reassert its authority could establish new ways of influencing who the president can nominate for multi-member agency boards and commissions. One avenue could be strengthening often vague language requiring nominees to be “qualified” for their posts.

“Congress, depending on how strong it is now or in the next session, could voice objections and apply political pressure. It could pass different laws—not so much focusing on removal authorities, but on how appointees actually perform while in office. I think that Congress could enact laws requiring experts to identify performance standards for individuals holding a particular position. If there’s more specificity to those standards, then at least there are some concrete elements by which to assess an official's performance.”

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Trump appointees confirmed by the Senate are exiting their jobs in record numbers, report finds

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:05:00 -0400

Updated at 4:50 p.m. ET July 23

Senate-confirmed officials in the second Trump administration are leaving their positions at record rates, a good government nonprofit found in an analysis published Wednesday that warns the trend could hurt congressional input on who runs agencies.

“Though his first term was seen as turbulent regarding personnel, Trump has seen nearly two and a half times as many departures this administration as his first,” wrote Chris Piper of the Partnership for Public Service.

In total, 27 Senate-confirmed officials, 11.4%, have left the administration to date. That number includes three Cabinet secretaries as well as the heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration and IRS.

To compare, 11 Senate-approved officials departed their jobs by this point in Trump’s first term. The average across the first 18 months of the Bush, Obama and Biden administrations was 4.3 departures.

The Partnership reported that the former officials’ average tenure was eight months. Researchers also noted that these individuals waited an average of nearly five months to be confirmed, and 30% spent more time going through the Senate approval process than they did in their positions.

“These departures also squander the time and resources it takes to find, vet and confirm officials,” Piper wrote.

In addition to the record exits, the Partnership found that Trump is making fewer nominations — the lowest since Reagan. Researchers posited that this might be because the administration appears to have relatively fewer White House staffers focused on personnel.

But the result is an increase in acting officials who are not subject to Senate approval.

“Turnover on this scale does not just thin the government’s leadership ranks — it concentrates power in the president,” Piper wrote. “Each seat left to an acting official is one the president can fill on his own terms without the Senate’s advice and consent: no vetting, no confirmation hearing, no vote.”

Piper further cautioned that, because interim agency leadership is not always announced, it can obfuscate who is running agencies. And he warned that a reliance on temporary officials can impede long-term planning.

In response to a request for comment, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said: "The president and his entire administration will continue to tirelessly implement the Trump agenda and achieve tremendous results for the American people.”

This story has been updated with a statement from the White House.

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Why your retirement experience may depend more on the agency than the benefit

Tammy Flanagan — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 15:00:00 -0400

As federal employees transition into retirement, they also transition from familiar routines. After many years, if not many decades, of knowing where to go when it is time to access or change their federal benefits, retirement creates a need to learn new methods of communicating with new organizations. For health benefits, life insurance and, most importantly, retirement, the Office of Personnel Management becomes the new "personnel" shop for recent retirees. To turn on Social Security retirement benefits, learning to navigate the Social Security Administration's website and phone system becomes very important.

Instead of watching their lifetime retirement savings continue to grow, it is now time to figure out how to turn those investments into a stream of income that must last for many years and often several decades to come. These organizations provide customer service to help answer questions and guide new annuitants as they learn the ropes of life after retirement. Customer service is the help and support these individuals will rely on before, during and after their service to the federal government comes to an end. In anticipation of a smooth and enjoyable experience, there is an element of not knowing what to expect and the fear that something might go wrong.

For federal employees and retirees, customer service is not an abstract measure of government performance. It determines how quickly a new retiree receives their full annuity, whether a participant can resolve a Thrift Savings Plan account problem and how long a Social Security beneficiary must wait for help with a benefit issue. Recent statistics suggest three very different customer service stories. OPM's Retirement Services operation is still judged largely by claims-processing time and backlog. The Thrift Savings Plan, administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, reports comparatively strong participant satisfaction and short telephone wait times. The Social Security Administration serves a much broader public and has recently shown measurable improvement in telephone service, though its reported averages can mask long waits for some callers.

OPM Retirement Services has one of the most consequential service roles in the federal benefits ecosystem: converting a retiring employee's application into interim and then final annuity payments. The most recent OPM retirement processing data show the scale of the challenge. OPM reported that it experienced a historic surge in retirements in 2025 and responded by expanding the team. However, overall, Retirement Services shrunk 16% from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2026.

That higher volume matters because retirement processing is document-heavy, depends on agency and payroll office submissions and can be delayed by missing or inconsistent records.

OPM's June 2026 retirement processing report illustrates both improvement and strain. In June, the agency received 8,663 new retirement claims, of which 6,852 were digital and 1,811 were paper. It processed 12,751 total claims that month, but the total inventory still stood at 33,851 pending cases.

The average processing time for all cases was 108 days in June, while digital cases were processed in 96 days and paper claims in 120 days. For the fiscal year to date, the average processing time was 77 days, and the fiscal-year-to-date digital processing time was 52 days. These numbers show why digital retirement processing is central to OPM's service strategy: Digital cases are faster, but the transition is incomplete, and paper cases continue to slow the system.

Compared with the other two agencies, OPM's service problem is the most specialized and the most procedural. The customer may contact OPM for status updates, but the real service outcome is whether the retirement claim is adjudicated accurately and quickly. A retiree waiting months for a finalized annuity may see the process as poor customer service even if phone representatives are courteous. OPM's published data also make clear that modernization is producing benefits, but not yet enough to eliminate large inventories or long waits during claim surges.

The TSP presents a different customer service profile. The TSP is massive. Recent reports show more than 7.3 million accounts and assets surpassing $1 trillion, yet its service statistics are notably favorable. In recent years, the TSP said it issued more than 1 million Forms 1099-R and notified more than 300,000 participants about required minimum distributions.

The March 2026 board materials showed that in February, the ThriftLine received approximately 200,000 calls, with an average waiting time to reach an agent of 11 seconds and 95% of callers waiting 20 seconds or less. Overall participant satisfaction with the ThriftLine exceeded 93% for the 12th consecutive month.

In the May report, it was noted that participants logged in about 4 million times to My Account through the Thrift Savings Plan mobile app during April, accounting for 42% of all TSP logins, up from 32% one year earlier. In April, TSP participants completed nearly 7,000 Roth in-plan conversions totaling approximately $135 million.

These statistics suggest that, among the three organizations, TSP currently offers the strongest measurable front-end customer experience. Its service channels are designed around account access, transactions, withdrawals, loans, beneficiary issues and investment elections. While individual participants may still encounter complex cases, especially around post-separation withdrawals or legal processing, the published service metrics point to a system that is answering calls quickly and satisfying most users who interact with it. The TSP also benefits from a narrower mission than SSA and a more account-based operating model than OPM Retirement Services.

The Social Security Administration is not directly comparable in scale. It serves more than 300 million people with active Social Security numbers and more than 71 million beneficiaries. Its customer service challenge spans retirement, disability, survivors, Medicare-related services, Social Security numbers, overpayments, appeals and in-person field office needs. SSA reports that online and telephone channels now account for most customer contacts, with online services increasingly emphasized through my Social Security accounts and digital transactions.

Recent SSA data show meaningful improvement, especially on the National 800 Number. The agency reported that, compared with service levels in May 2025, reductions in wait times through May 2026 saved the public an estimated 14.2 million hours: 7.6 million through online services, 4.9 million through the National 800 Number and 1.7 million through field office calls and visits. SSA also said it had served 5.9 million more callers in the fiscal year to date, an increase of more than 29% compared with prior years.

An inspector general audit released in December 2025 found that SSA's publicly reported National 800 Number metrics were accurate and that overall telephone service improved in fiscal 2025. The report said SSA served 68 million callers through employees or automation, a 65% increase from fiscal 2024. The average speed of answer was 13 minutes in October 2024, peaked at 30 minutes in January 2025 and fell to 7 minutes by September 2025. That was an improvement over fiscal 2024, when the peak was about 42 minutes and the low was 12 minutes.

Still, SSA's statistics require careful interpretation. The inspector general noted that the average speed of answer does not capture the full wait experienced by every caller. If a caller accepted a callback, SSA counted the call as having zero wait time for that metric, while the later callback delay was tracked separately.

For callers who stayed on hold in fiscal 2025, average queue wait time was about 51 minutes in October 2024, peaked at 1 hour and 40 minutes in January 2025 and fell to 19 minutes in September 2025. Average callback time was about 1 hour and 49 minutes in October 2024, peaked at 2 hours and 32 minutes in January 2025 and declined to about 1 hour and 2 minutes in September 2025. In other words, SSA improved significantly, but some customers still experienced long waits.

Measured by speed and satisfaction, the TSP appears to be performing best. Its recent reported wait times are measured in seconds, and satisfaction has remained above 93% for at least a year. Measured by breadth of service and volume handled, SSA faces the hardest public-facing challenge and has shown the largest recent improvement. Its phone metrics improved substantially in fiscal 2025 and continued to show gains into 2026, but its callback and queue-wait details reveal that averages can understate the experience of customers with complicated needs.

Measured by the consequences of delay, OPM Retirement Services may present the highest anxiety for its customers. A delayed TSP transaction or SSA phone call is frustrating, but a delayed federal annuity calculation can affect a retiree's monthly income for months.

The fairest conclusion is that each organization's customer service record reflects its mission and operating model. TSP service is the most consistently positive in the available statistics, aided by a transactional account structure and strong call center performance. SSA is the most improved, but because it serves nearly the entire public and handles highly varied benefit issues, it remains vulnerable to congestion and uneven experiences. OPM Retirement Services is making progress through digital retirement processing, but its backlog and processing times remain the most visible pain point for federal retirees.

For employees approaching retirement, the practical lesson is clear: Prepare paperwork early, use digital tools where available, monitor account access before separation and keep expectations realistic. The best customer service among the three is currently at the TSP, the most improved is SSA and the most urgent modernization challenge remains OPM retirement processing.

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Russian hackers can steal government emails without victims clicking a link, cyber agencies warn

David DiMolfetta — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 14:30:00 -0400

Russian state-backed hackers have exploited a vulnerability in widely used email software to steal messages, passwords and authentication data from Western government agencies and other organizations, U.S. and allied cyber-intelligence authorities said Thursday.

The campaign is notable because it does not require victims to click a malicious link or download an attachment. The exploit can instead activate when someone simply opens or previews an email in an unpatched version of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite — a popular alternative to major collaborative messaging platforms like Microsoft Exchange or Google Workspace — according to a joint advisory issued by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency and FBI.

The Russian hacking group, known primarily as Laundry Bear, has successfully targeted more than 10 organizations since July 2025, the agencies said. The campaign has hit the defense industrial base, federal and local governments, law enforcement, technology companies, educational institutions, media outlets and nongovernmental organizations.

The hackers sought to steal email addresses, passwords and two-factor authentication tokens, which could allow them to retain access to compromised accounts even after obtaining a victim’s password. Their tools also attempted to collect an organization’s email directory, as much as 90 days of a victim’s communications and other sensitive information.

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network purchased a Zimbra standard support subscription in February 2025, according to federal contracting data listed in GovTribe, a federal market intelligence platform owned by Nextgov/FCW parent company GovExec. The purchase does not indicate whether FinCEN used the vulnerable version of the software or was targeted in the campaign.

“Unlike traditional phishing that attempts to persuade a user to take an action, such as clicking a link or downloading a file, Laundry Bear’s current campaign uses a zero-click exploit that only requires a user to view a malicious email,” CISA said in a statement.

Proofpoint, which also investigated the activity, describes the technique as a “half-click” exploit because the victim must still open or preview the email. The company said no additional interaction is required once the message appears in a vulnerable Zimbra webmail client.

The emails were sent from both attacker-controlled Proton Mail accounts and addresses that had already been compromised, according to Proofpoint.

In one example released by the company, the sender claimed to represent a Belgian media-verification organization and proposed cooperation among European institutions combating disinformation. The message contained a legitimate-looking link to a European Union events calendar, but the malicious code was embedded directly in the email itself.

CISA urged organizations to update all Zimbra mail software, monitor their email systems for suspicious activity and review the technical indicators included in the advisory. Organizations that find evidence of a compromise should follow the agencies’ remediation guidance rather than relying solely on installing the available patch.

“CISA continues to see sophisticated and less sophisticated nation-state cyber groups deploy increasingly novel exploits into a highly successful capability to disrupt critical infrastructure or conduct espionage,” said Chris Butera, CISA’s acting executive assistant director for cybersecurity.

The advisory was also backed by defense, cybersecurity and intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and more than a dozen European countries.

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As FEMA's future hangs in the balance, Senate advances nominee to lead the agency

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The Senate on Wednesday moved one step closer to confirming the first administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency since President Donald Trump took office last year.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-4 to send Cameron Hamilton’s nomination to the floor, though it was not immediately clear whether the full Senate would vote before it breaks for its August recess.

Hamilton led FEMA in an acting role at the beginning of 2025 but was fired that May after testifying before Congress that he personally did "not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency."

Trump has said repeatedly during his second administration he would like to reduce the size and scope of the federal government's disaster management role, shifting more responsibility to state and local governments.

Trump created a FEMA Review Council last year to propose substantial changes to the agency, which is housed within the Department of Homeland Security. That group released its recommendations in early May, though neither the administration nor Congress has taken steps to implement those proposals.

Hamilton said during his confirmation hearing in June that if confirmed by the Senate he would ensure FEMA is "objective" and "fair."

He said he believes the agency's "disaster declaration process and also the federal mentorship that goes into it needs to be improved."

"I believe states need to receive better customer service. I have full faith and confidence in the FEMA workforce, but we can do better," Hamilton said. "And there's a significant amount of areas where that process should be simplified, better understood and we owe you answers, I think, much faster."

Hamilton wrote in the ethics paperwork that is a required part of the confirmation process that after being fired from FEMA in May 2025, he worked as a senior adviser at the Education Department until August.

After that, he was hired as the senior vice president of response and recovery at LTS, Inc., in Virginia, where he worked from August until April, when he became a senior adviser/senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security.

Hamilton reported a salary of $247,916 and a bonus of $350,000 during the roughly eight months he worked at LTS, Inc. He expects to receive another bonus from the company valued between $250,001 and $500,000 at some point in the future.

LTS, Inc., writes on its website that it is "an award-winning enterprise consulting" firm that focuses on emergency response, automated health care solutions and occupational health services.

In the ethics agreement filed with the government, Hamilton wrote that he transferred ownership of his consulting business, Onward Operations LLC, to his spouse in March. He transferred ownership of his retail coffee business, Onward Valor LLC, to his spouse in January.

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Lawmakers look to avoid government shutdown, and reconsider getting rid of them entirely

Jory Heckman — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 17:23:15 -0400

Ahead of this year’s midterm elections, congressional leaders are taking earlier-than-usual steps to avoid a government shutdown this fall.

Federal employees faced the longest government shutdown in history last year, followed by the longest partial shutdown, which impacted the Homeland Security Department. Both shutdowns led to federal workers missing paychecks.

The House passed a continuing resolution on Tuesday that would keep the federal government funded through Dec. 4. The bill passed roughly along party lines in a vote of 220-205, with Republicans overwhelmingly voting in favor of the bill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters on Tuesday that Republicans are looking to avoid a government shutdown ahead of “a very consequential midterm election.”

“If the Democrats can't support this basic principle, then they alone are going to own the chaos that ensues if the government shuts down after September 30,” Johnson said.

House Democratic leaders rejected the stopgap spending bill, calling it a “premature and desperate attempt by Republicans to abdicate their responsibility to govern while there are still several months left to negotiate a bipartisan agreement.”

Congress hasn’t passed a comprehensive spending deal on time in decades, and often passes a last-minute continuing resolution to continue deliberations.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday that Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, is working with Democrats on the committee to keep the federal government funded “past the November elections, so that we don’t have the specter of a government shutdown.”

“The disruption, the chaos that creates is just something that both sides ought to be willing to try and avoid. And so I think it's going to be really important that we figure out a path forward to get a bipartisan agreement to fund the government that will keep the government open and ensure that government employees are getting paid,” Thune said.

Meanwhile, the House Appropriations Committee is revisiting legislation that would permanently eliminate the threat of government shutdowns.

The Prevent Government Shutdowns Act led by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., would trigger an automatic two-week continuing resolution any time a lapse in congressional appropriations occurs. Lankford initially introduced a version of this bill in 2019 along with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.

The bill would require Congress and Office of Management and Budget staff to remain in Washington, D.C., until a spending deal is reached. The continuing resolution would remain in effect beyond the initial two weeks if lawmakers don’t reach a deal by then.

Lankford told the committee that the bill puts the burden on Congress to reach a spending deal, and would no longer treat federal employees as a bargaining chip in these negotiations.

“Federal workers and their families should not suffer when Congress has not finished their appropriation work – but they do,” Lankford said.

Lankford said his bill wouldn’t result in a "perpetual CR,” but would instead hold lawmakers accountable for reaching a bipartisan spending plan.

“If we have to be here every day, we will get our work done, because we will find a way to be able to solve the problem,” he said.

The American Federation of Government Employees supports the bill. AFGE National President Everett Kelley wrote in a letter to the committee that “there are no concrete signs that the regular appropriations process will advance spending measures that are enacted in time” to avoid a shutdown on Oct. 1.

“AFGE is growing increasingly concerned that for a second consecutive year federal agencies and departments that depend on annual appropriations will go unfunded, and federal workers unpaid,” Kelley wrote.

Several Republicans on the committee showed support for the bill. Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the government shutdowns should not “become an accepted norm in the appropriations process.”

“Government shutdowns are reckless, and they do nothing other than create chaos and uncertainty,” Cole said.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, chairman of the interior, environment and related agencies subcommittee, said the risk of government shutdowns is greater with narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

“They’re getting worse and worse. And when you get narrower and narrower majorities, they’re going to become more frequent,” Simpson said.

Democrats on the committee, however, pushed back on the idea of automatic continuing resolutions.

Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said CRs “can be helpful when used sparingly,” and can be important to facilitate full-year funding agreements, but said they “should not be our first choice” to avoid government shutdowns.

“I am sympathetic for the goal of reducing government shutdowns. But the permanent funding proposals we will discuss here today would, in my opinion, create far more problems than they would solve,” DeLauro said.

Democrats have used government shutdowns to push back on the Trump administration’s impoundment and recission of congressionally appropriated funds. DeLauro said automatic CRs would “cement nearly complete control over government funding within the White House.”

“Why would we voluntarily forfeit that authority?” she said.

Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill., said automatic CRs “fail to meet the changing needs of our districts.”

“They do not protect federal workers. They do not protect federal resources,” Underwood said.

Shalanda Young, the OMB director under the Biden administration, told the committee that “what we currently have is unacceptable,” but added that shutdowns are “one of the many symptoms of what is broken” in Congress.

“For too long, congressional dysfunction has been the norm, while congressional leadership uses workarounds as substitutes for the difficult work of legislating,” Young said.

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Despite firings, acting IG says it’s 'the best time to be in the inspector general community' due to focus on fraud

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:49:40 -0400

The work of inspectors general to detect and prevent scams has become increasingly important as the Trump administration prioritizes combating fraud in government programs, a panel of the agency watchdogs said Wednesday during a conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by AGA, formerly known as the Association of Government Accountants.

“This is probably the best time to be in the inspector general community, where there's the renewed focus on fraud, waste and abuse,” said acting Education Department inspector general Mark Priebe.

Even so, members of the audience did ask about the president’s unprecedented firing last year of nearly 20 IGs and whether that is impacting their oversight work. Priebe said that he’s not concerned.

“If a new administration comes in and says we want all of our own IGs, that's fine,” he said. “I really think that the executive branch should have some say over their policies and their procedures and how they enact that.”

Government Executive has reported that Priebe, who previously served as a senior official in the Education IG, appears to have shared social media posts supporting Trump. While IGs are political appointees, they’ve historically served across administrations. Experts have warned that replacing them each time there’s a transfer of power would weaken independent government oversight.

Still, Priebe said that the Trump administration’s push to dismantle the Education Department, which has resulted in the halving of the agency’s workforce, is affecting his IG office.

“We're losing agents and auditors because they're not sure what's going to happen,” he said. “So that's an additional area that we're concerned with — to have a staff and to be able to check the department and go out into the public and fight fraud.”

Based on federal workforce data, Education’s IG office has gone from more than 200 staffers in 2024 to nearly 150 currently.

The IGs on the panel also discussed the challenges of detecting fraud as technology advances.

For example, Fara Damelin, the inspector general of the Federal Communications Commission, said that analyzing metadata is an integral method to verifying the authenticity of a document.

“That's why the government needs to get smarter and use all the technology out there,” she said.

But Priebe warned, based on a recent summit he attended, that fraudsters are figuring out ways to modify metadata.

The watchdogs also said that IG offices are attempting to move away from investigating fraud after it happens and instead prioritize stopping scams before they occur. Kenneth Dieffenbach — the executive director of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, which oversees COVID-19 and One Big Beautiful Bill Act spending — described it as going from a “pay and chase” to a “prevent and relax” model.

“Sometimes when we start an audit or an engagement with our agency, they're like, ‘Well, you can't look at that right now. We're still implementing this program,’” added Eric Rivera, the assistant IG for Audits at the Export-Import Bank OIG. “But we want to look at it right now so we can give them real-time feedback.”

House Republicans recently passed, with some Democratic support, a bill that would establish an IG office within the Treasury Department to counter fraud in programs that provide funding to non-federal entities.

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Unions ask for injunction restoring collective bargaining at Defense

Erich Wagner — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 16:10:07 -0400

A pair of federal employee unions on Monday urged a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction restoring their collective bargaining agreements with the Defense Department, arguing that Secretary Pete Hegseth failed to follow the Trump administration’s own process for implementing two executive orders banning organized labor at most federal agencies.

Earlier this month, the American Federation of Government Employees and National Federation of Federal Employees sued the Pentagon over the April termination of their collective bargaining agreements, a move that the Defense Department said was aimed at complying with President Trump’s March 2025 executive order barring collective bargaining for two-thirds of the federal workforce on national security grounds.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for Maryland, focuses not on the legality of Trump’s edict, but rather whether Hegseth fulfilled his obligation to conduct “reasoned decision-making” under the Administrative Procedure Act when he ordered CBAs be terminated with just 24 hours’ notice.

“The Hegseth memorandum did not point to any facts showing that any of plaintiffs’ CBAs, much less all of them, were inconsistent with national security,” the unions wrote. “DOD agencies had voluntarily agreed to these CBAs. Nor did the Hegseth memorandum consider the obvious alternatives to immediate mass termination of all CBAs, such as refraining from terminating CBAs until litigation about [the executive order] runs its course, allowing CBAs to expire pursuant to their own terms, or identifying only those specific parts of CBAs that the secretary determined to be inconsistent with national security . . . The Hegseth memorandum was the opposite of the reasoned decision-making that the APA requires before final agency action.”

The unions said that the Defense Department did not even follow a template for terminating union contracts issued by the Office of Personnel Management in February, seemingly designed to address the APA’s requirements for agencies to explain policy changes and consider the reliance interests of stakeholders. Instead, Hegseth wrote simply that the actions were “required” in order to comply with Trump’s order.

“The OPM termination template reinforces that CBA terminations are discretionary and must comply with the APA’s requirements for reasoned decision-making,” the unions wrote. “The OPM template indicates that agencies should specify that, after the issuance of the EO, the agency ‘considered whether to terminate any CBA, in whole or part, as it pertains to those bargaining unit employees who fall within the EO’s scope.’”

Since the contracts’ termination in April, management officials have told union members that their union “does not exist any longer,” and some employees have been required to sign documents attesting that they lack union representation. Employees in disciplinary proceedings are denied access to union representation, managers are unilaterally changing employees’ work schedules with little notice, and the labor groups’ membership is on the decline.

“Plaintiffs face an existential threat because workers are afraid to engage in any union activity or are confused about their right to do so,” they wrote. “DOD is telling plaintiffs’ members and prospective members that they are ineligible to join unions and that their unions ‘do not exist.’ Plaintiffs cannot successfully retain or recruit members under such circumstances, and union membership is declining. These harms are irreparable.”

Since its initial filing earlier this month, AFGE and NFFE’s case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a jurist who was nominated to the federal bench by both presidents Obama and Trump.

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ICE ramps up arrests as deportation effort expands

Tim Henderson, Stateline — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400

Immigration arrests reached 1,593 per day in early July in a new push to detain and deport immigrants that has led to deaths in traffic stops. There were more than 43,000 arrests in June, the highest recorded by the Trump administration, according to statistics released Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reflecting new bookings into detention facilities.

The June monthly total surpassed the 42,000 arrests in December, which included Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. If the rate for the first 11 days of July continues for a month it could be even higher, about 49,000 arrests.

Arrest numbers reached as high as 2,000 per day over a five-day period in late June, according to a New York Times report. The Department of Homeland Security has said it is “delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport pedophiles, murderers, rapists, and other criminals,” though less than a third of current detainees have a criminal conviction and 40% have never been accused of anything but non-criminal immigration violations, according to the statistics.

The Department of Homeland Security posted a list Monday of 15 immigrants previously convicted of serious crimes it said were arrested “while Americans enjoyed the weekend and the FIFA World Cup Finals.”

The statistics also show that about 2,000 detainees a month have been freed by court-ordered bond hearings, as many federal judges, even many Trump appointees, rule against the administration’s policy of mandatory detention for many immigrants. The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to rule on the legality of the policy in its October term.

Two immigrants were shot and killed during enforcement traffic stops in Texas and Maine this month. After a brief pause, President Donald Trump ordered traffic stops to continue. ICE officers will wear body cameras during such stops, according to border czar Tom Homan.

A man from Mexico, apparently on a valid tourist visa for a vacation, was also killed in traffic in Florida after an encounter with ICE in July. Arrests in New York City immigration courts have also continued despite a court order banning the practice.

Some of the unusual arrests that have come to light in the current crackdown include a nun from Nigeria walking to church in Texas (she was released the same day) and an Alaska state attorney from China.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

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Inspector general group would be axed under new House GOP bill

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill that would abolish a central group for agency inspectors general, many of whom have been fired by President Donald Trump.

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency is responsible for coordinating governmentwide oversight activities, overseeing investigations into senior watchdog officials and managing IG employee training.

Under the Restoring Integrity and Efficiency to Inspector General Oversight Act (H.R. 9725), however, CIGIE would shutter one year after the bill’s enactment. The Office of Management and Budget would take over establishing IG employee training standards, supervising interagency investigations and resolving jurisdictional disputes.

Last year, OMB blocked CIGIE from receiving funding for about a month-and-a-half but backtracked following objections from some Senate Republicans. At the time, White House officials said that IGs “have become corrupt, partisan and in some cases, have lied to the public.”

In addition, under the new bill, the Government Accountability Office would develop IG inspection standards and Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers would maintain at least one training academy for IG employees.

GAO in June issued a report that found CIGIE often fell short of its own process requirements when investigating misconduct allegations against IGs. For example, investigators warned that a CIGIE staffer is currently disregarding complaints they deem as “frivolous” despite internal policy that such decisions are required to be reviewed by legal counsel.

A Republican Oversight Committee aide cited that GAO report in a statement to Government Executive regarding the rationale behind the bill.

“Continued failures and abuses by [CIGIE’s] Integrity Committee have shown the inspectors general cannot be trusted to investigate wrongdoing in their ranks,” they said. “It is necessary to end the Integrity Committee and transfer CIGIE’s core functions to restore trust in the IG system.”

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., a member of the Oversight panel, introduced the bill to scrap CIGIE on July 16 and was one of the House Republicans to request the GAO review.

In a letter to the Oversight Committee, the Project on Government Oversight nonprofit argued that transferring many of CIGIE’s responsibilities to OMB represents “a profound structural and philosophical change that should concern anyone, regardless of party, who believes oversight must remain independent of those being overseen.”

“Consider an inspector general investigating OMB’s implementation of appropriations law, impoundment decisions, grant administration or reorganization decisions within their agency. Under this legislation, OMB could simultaneously establish oversight priorities, resolve jurisdictional disputes of investigations and shape the workforce of that inspector general’s office,” wrote POGO Interim Executive Director Isabel Munilla. “This structure would create an unavoidable conflict of interest, undermining both the perception and reality of inspector general independence and fundamentally eroding public confidence in federal oversight.”

CIGIE is currently being led by Cheryl Mason, the IG for the Veterans Affairs Department and a former senior adviser to VA Secretary Doug Collins. Democrats and good government groups have questioned her ability to provide independent oversight because of her previous role in the Trump administration.

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Former Education officials warn agency transfers could undermine core functions

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Former Education Department officials in Republican and Democratic administrations sounded the alarm Monday over the agency’s efforts to outsource its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., convened the former officials, along with advocates and educators, at a virtual press conference to blast those sweeping moves, which are part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismantle the 46-year-old Education Department.

Murray rebuked the transfers as “outrageous” and “completely unacceptable,” noting that while she is fighting “tooth and nail” against any effort to dismantle the agency, she is “especially concerned about what this could mean for all students, especially students with disabilities.”

The agency in June said the Department of Health and Human Services will administer programs under Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, while civil rights enforcement under its Office for Civil Rights will be transferred to the Department of Justice.

The Education Department had announced 10 earlier interagency agreements, or IAAs, with HHS, Labor, Interior, State and Treasury, which transfer several of Education’s responsibilities to those agencies.

The department has said it “will continue to perform all statutorily required duties and responsibilities” involving special education programs and civil rights enforcement.

OSERS is responsible for administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. The umbrella unit OSERS includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

The civil rights office is tasked with investigating complaints from students and families.

"Learners, not patients"

Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, said that the transfers “would split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency.”

Neas was the deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary at OSERS during the Biden administration.

“The stakes have never been higher,” she said. “If we allow the Department of Education to be dismantled, we not only undo decades of progress, we also risk abandoning the promise that every child deserves a chance to try and to succeed.”

Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law said the “new interagency agreement between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice is what someone would create if the person were designing a system to fail.”

Lhamon served as assistant secretary for civil rights during the Obama and Biden administrations.

“The principal harm of this new agreement is that it guarantees lengthier continued silence from the federal government on the classic kinds of discrimination cases families experience,” Lhamon said. Examples include restraining or secluding students, she said.

It raises “the core question (of) whether students with disabilities have the free appropriate public education to which the law entitles them,” Lhamon added.

Stephanie Smith Lee, co-director of policy and advocacy at National Down Syndrome Congress, pointed out that “IDEA is an education and civil rights law, not a healthcare program.”

“Students with disabilities are learners, not patients,” added Lee, who served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs under the George W. Bush administration.

“Moving special education and vocational rehabilitation to the Department of Health and Human Services would separate them from the rest of federal education policy and weaken the expertise and coordinated oversight that students, families and states depend on,” she said.

Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the Education Department, dismissed the criticism, saying in a statement to States Newsroom that Murray and the former officials were part of a failing status quo.

“As Senator Murray is well aware, the Department of Education’s interagency partnerships do not alter the Trump Administration's dedication to students with disabilities and federal civil rights laws,” she wrote. “These agreements simply ensure that well-positioned agencies can support the workload, pool their expertise, and ultimately strengthen protections for students.”

House bills "dead" in Senate

Meanwhile, earlier in July the House Committee on Education and Workforce advanced a package of 10 bills permanently transferring several of Education’s functions to other departments and largely reflecting many of the earlier IAAs.

Notably, that package does not include any efforts to transfer Education’s responsibilities regarding special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies.

“As long as this former preschool teacher is a United States senator, every one of those bills is dead on arrival,” Murray said.

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CDC shifts HIV prevention funds away from groups tackling this work

Jory Heckman — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 18:25:54 -0400

The Trump administration will not reauthorize millions of dollars in HIV prevention funding that used to go directly to community-based groups, opting instead to redirect that money to state and local health departments.

The money that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously distributed to community-based HIV prevention organizations will now go to states, which will decide whether or not to fund the CBOs. Roll Call first reported on these changes in federal HIV grants.

CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention (NCHHSTP) told staff in an email Tuesday that it will not renew a federal cooperative agreement supporting “Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. through Community-Based Partnerships,” a stream of federal funding that supports dozens of organizations.

CDC employees and nonprofit groups said these changes will result in more administrative costs and will take longer for federal funds to reach community-based groups carrying out HIV-prevention work.

The CDC, in a related funding announcement from December 2020, wrote that “CBOs are uniquely positioned to complement and extend the reach of HIV prevention efforts implemented by state and local health departments and education agencies.”

“They support the optimization of services across public, private, and other community-based organizations to achieve objectives of increased identification of HIV diagnoses, referral for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and non-occupational post-exposure prophylaxis (nPEP) services, earlier entry to HIV care, and increased consistency of care,” the agency wrote.

Department of Health and Human Resources Press Secretary Emily Hilliard said in a statement that “CDC remains committed to supporting HIV prevention efforts nationwide, including the critical work of community-based organizations.

“As CDC streamlines HIV prevention funding through health departments, local decision-making will remain central to combatting HIV, ensuring that local data inform local strategies and interventions,” Hilliard said. “CDC will continue to support HIV testing, diagnosis, and linkage to care, expand access to PrEP, and help people living with HIV achieve and maintain viral suppression.”

A CDC employee told Government Executive said that the agency is reverting back to an old model of awarding federal grants that wasn’t as effective at getting funding to the communities hardest hit by HIV.

“The result is more overhead cost for the states, which means less money that ultimately ends up with the CBOs for HIV prevention,” the CDC employee said. “A lot of money gets lost going down to the CBOs, and it helped with CDC being able to coordinate directly with them.”

A second CDC employee said that under this new funding model, state health departments would subcontract these community-based organizations, “leaving gaps in oversight and the loss of technical support provided directly from CDC to CBOs.”

“This is a serious attack on communities, as CBOs are on the boots on the ground for HIV work and losing them would be a major loss,” the second CDC employee said. “Many of the CBOs are run by folks with not only expertise but lived experience – which is critical in the HIV space given trust and stigma."

The second CDC employee said that in the interim, “many CBOs will either be shut down completely or have to lay off staff.”

“Local politics will play a much larger role in what happens with the CBOs [and] if they get funding,” the employee said

CDC employees said the agency was previously planning to renew this federal grant funding for another five-year cycle starting in fiscal 2027. Save HIV Funding, a coalition of over 150 organizations and advocates, said in a statement Monday that community-based organizations currently receiving these awards were provided a three-month extension through September 2026, but have now been informed that a new funding opportunity will not be released.

Jeremiah Johnson, the executive director of PrEP4All and co-founder of the Save HIV Funding campaign, said that some impacted organizations which have spent decades building relationships with communities hardest hit by HIV may have to lay off staff or shut down “if this critical funding stream is discontinued or altered beyond recognition.”

“As we have already seen too many times in the past year, when we lose critical CDC funding and infrastructure, we see more illness and associated healthcare costs in our communities,” Johnson said.

More than 1.2 million Americans are currently living with HIV, according to HIV.gov

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OPM moves to implement long-awaited retirement fix for federal first responders

Erich Wagner — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:27:51 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management is set to propose new rules this week implementing a 2022 law aimed at reforming retirement benefits for federal first responders who are injured during their service and forced to pursue jobs elsewhere in government.

Federal workers in professions like law enforcement and firefighting participate in the federal government’s defined benefit retirement program on an accelerated basis—in exchange for paying more toward their pensions each paycheck, they become eligible for their full annuity once they have served 20 years and reached age 50. They are also subject to mandatory retirement at age 57.

But if a federal first responder is injured on the job and unable to continue in their current role, they lose access to the accelerated retirement timeline, despite the increased payments they have already made along the way.

A proposed rule set for publication Wednesday in the Federal Register would implement the First Responder Fair RETIRE Act, a 2022 law aimed at fixing this flaw. The legislation allows first responders forced to take a job elsewhere in the federal government to continue to pay accelerated contributions and reach retirement when they originally planned. And it grants feds the chance to be refunded the extra half-percentage point of their salary that went toward retirement if they leave federal service altogether prior to reaching retirement age.

The regulations establish criteria by which an employee may be eligible to retain their accelerated retirement timeline after returning to federal service following an injury: the employee must be serving as a law enforcement or Customs and Border Protection officer, firefighter, air traffic controller, nuclear material courier, or members of the Capital or Supreme Court police; their injury must be the “direct result” of something that happened while they were performing their duties; they must be “permanently unable” to serve in their original post; and they must not yet be eligible for voluntary or mandatory retirement.

But OPM hesitated at implementing Section 2 of the law, a “sense of Congress” statement in favor of retaining national security workers and their institutional knowledge.

“It is in the best national and homeland security interests of the United States for federal agencies to retain the specialized knowledge and expertise of individuals who suffer an injury or illness while serving in a covered position (as defined under the amendments made by this act),” the law states. “Federal agencies should ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that an individual who can no longer carry out the duties of a covered position, and is reappointed to a position in the civil service that is not a covered position, is reappointed within the same federal agency, in the same geographic location, and at a level of pay commensurate to the position which the individual held immediately prior to such injury or illness."

"Section 2 provides guiding principles for interpreting the statute, but it does not convey authority to issue regulations to achieve the stated objectives or to take other actions not otherwise permitted by law,” OPM wrote. “OPM has broad authority to regulate the [Civil Service Retirement System] and the [Federal Employees Retirement System]. Nonetheless, that regulatory authority is limited to regulations that are necessary to ‘carry out’ subchapter III of chapter 83 (the CSRS law) and chapter 84 (the FERS law). Section 2 is not part of those laws.”

Nonetheless, OPM said it would seek to implement at least the second half of the sense of Congress statement through other regulations governing workplace injuries.

“However, the Sense of Congress can be connected to the requirements in . . . a provision in the federal employee workers’ compensation law that provides for reemployment and retention rights for individuals who resume employment after overcoming injury or disability,” the rule states. “[If] it is not possible to reemploy the employee in a position in the same employing agency, that agency should seek OPM assistance with placing the employee.”

OPM is soliciting public comments on its proposal until September 30.

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Transportation looks to AI to accelerate its modernization initiatives

Edward Graham — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 07:00:00 -0400

The Department of Transportation is ramping up its use of artificial intelligence, according to a top agency official, with the emerging capabilities playing an increasingly important role in the agency’s ongoing modernization efforts.

Speaking at GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit on July 16, Transportation Deputy Secretary Steven Bradbury said internal adoption of the technologies has already helped to accelerate needed software upgrades, with growing workforce use of AI poised to further expand its impact on agency operations.

Transportation released its 1DOT IT strategy last September to help guide its digital infrastructure transformation, which includes a focus on modernizing and replacing its outdated systems.

Bradbury said uses of the emerging capabilities have already helped Transportation speed up its software production timelines from 18 months down to 18 weeks, noting that “when we have a need for new software applications, we can bring AI to bear to help.”

Agencywide experimentation with AI tools has also highlighted a broader range of potential benefits from the technologies, Bradbury said.

He cited internal figures that found that “80% of DOT people are now looking at the uses of AI,” and said current adoption of the capabilities highlights how the technologies can provide further benefits to the American people.

“We're using it in making our rulemaking faster, more effective,” Bradbury said. “We get tens of thousands of comments on the complicated rules that we issue. We need to be able to digest those quickly, understand them [and] respond to them. AI can obviously help with that. Similarly, reviewing hundreds and hundreds of grant applications to make the right decisions about which projects to support through our grantmaking — AI is going to be instrumental in helping us do that as well.”

Beyond internal uses of AI, the capabilities are also set to play a key role in the Trump administration’s broader push to upgrade the nation’s outdated air traffic control system. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the modernization effort in May 2025, saying at the time that the multi-billion dollar effort would include a modernized flight management system and updated ground radar systems at all U.S. airports.

Although Congress approved $12.5 billion for the modernization effort as part of the Big, Beautiful Bill, Bradbury said “we do need more” to finish the effort by the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.

He noted that the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing the initiative, is already in the process of setting up a Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories — or SMART — system “to use all of the information available, [including] weather, what's going on at the ground [and] where airplanes are being prepared for takeoff across the whole system to know in advance what the conflict points are.”

The FAA announced last month that it awarded Air Space Intelligence a 12-year, $875 million contract for new software and artificial intelligence capabilities, including for the SMART system.

Bradbury said that “AI is going to be essential to make this happen.”

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Homan says ICE officers will wear body cameras during traffic stops

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0400

In the wake of two fatal shootings in Texas and Maine, Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers will wear “at least one body camera” during traffic stops, Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, said over the weekend.

Homan, who President Donald Trump has tasked with leading his mass deportation campaign, said in a Sunday interview on Fox News that ICE’s acting director has instructed officers to wear a body camera “whenever possible” during vehicle stops.

This month, two immigrants — 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — were shot and killed by ICE agents who stopped their vehicles. Neither man was an initial enforcement target, the Department of Homeland Security said.

During Sunday’s Fox and Friends Weekend program, Homan said he supported body cameras because “they exonerate more law enforcement than they convict.”

“I want officers to wear body cameras because I want the American people to see what the officers saw when they took that action,” Homan said.

Federal immigration officers have shot 22 people and killed six, including three U.S. citizens, during the second Trump administration. Most shootings have stemmed from traffic stops, which Homan said officers were continuing.

After the back-to-back shootings of Salgado Araujo in Texas and Guerrero in Maine, DHS instructed agents to pause vehicle stops, but Trump quickly reversed those plans.

Congressional standstill

Homan blamed Democrats for the reason immigration agents don’t have body cameras, pointing to the weeks-long shutdown of DHS. He also accused traffic stops of becoming more dangerous because of Democrats criticizing ICE.

“They're more dangerous now than ever because Democratic members of Congress, Democratic mayors and governors have preached for the past year ‘ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency. ICE has no authority. Resist,’” he said.

Democrats refused to approve funding for DHS unless restraints were placed on ICE and Border Patrol officers, such as the requirement for body cameras, after two U.S. citizens were killed by federal immigration officers in Minnesota in January.

Congressional Republicans last year used a special legislative maneuver to allocate roughly $175 billion to DHS for immigration enforcement, detainment and deportations, without needing Democratic support.

GOP lawmakers used the same move following the shutdown this year to fund $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol until September of 2029.

In a separate interview, on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Homan again gave his support for body cameras on ICE officers and blamed Democrats for a lack of body cameras.

“I think body cameras are the way to go,” he said.

After the two killings in Minnesota in January, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said DHS would be issuing body cameras to immigration officers.

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OPM shrinks its workforce by a third, seeks further staffing cuts

Jory Heckman — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:40:49 -0400

The federal government’s human resources office shed more than a third of its total workforce so far under the second Trump administration and is seeking further staffing cuts through another round of voluntary separation incentives.

The Office of Personnel Management shrank its total headcount by 35% between December 2024 and March 2026, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.

In its analysis of federal workforce data, GAO found that more than half of OPM employees who left during this period had 11 or more years of service.

“These actions have reduced institutional knowledge and operational capacity at the agency,” GAO wrote, adding that these staffing cuts may worsen skills gaps it previously flagged at OPM.

Nearly 60% of OPM employees who have left under the second Trump administration did so through the deferred resignation program. Layoffs through a reduction in force account for 10% of OPM’s staffing cuts.

OPM is pursuing further workforce cuts. Last month, the agency announced it would give employees in its healthcare and insurance division another shot at opting into the deferred resignation program.

OPM set a July 13 deadline for eligible employees to opt in to the latest DRP offer. But employees age 40 or older have until Aug. 27 to consider the agreement. OPM employees accepted into this round of the DRP will go on paid administrative leave, starting at the end of August, and will officially separate from the agency in March 2027.

An OPM employee who opted into the latest DRP offer said it’s not yet clear how many coworkers have made the same decision.

“We are all curious, but no one is sharing unless they’re fully committed to staying,” the OPM employee said.

The latest DRP offer comes a few months before OPM’s busy Open Season, a one-month period in which federal and Postal Service employees can make changes to their healthcare plans.

Open Season starts in November and ends in December. Health plan changes made during this period go into effect in January.

An OPM spokesperson did not specify how many employees have opted into the latest DRP offer, but said in a statement that “we feel very confident in our staffing levels and OPM’s ability to deliver on a successful open season.”

Amid these workforce cuts, OPM has seen some processing delays.

OPM has been rolling out a long-awaited online system for federal retirees and marked its “last day” of paper-based processing this month. But federal employees who accepted the DRP offer last year are still waiting on OPM to finalize their retirement paperwork.

A former IRS employee who took the deferred resignation program last year said she is still waiting for her retirement checks to arrive.

“Those of us in this position have been forced to drain our savings, withdraw money from our 401(k)s and use credit cards to pay bills while waiting for our retirement checks to start,” she said.

The retired IRS employee said agency management held several meetings with employees about the deferred resignation offer and what it would mean for employees. But she said that “waiting almost a year for your retirement checks to process was not part of that discussion.”

She said she wouldn’t have taken the DRP offer if she knew she’d be waiting this long for her paperwork to be processed.

A former federal employee who retired from the National Cancer Institute last year said that OPM has not yet fully processed his retirement application. An OPM representative recently told him that his application has been adjudicated, but is still waiting to be reviewed.

"I can't help but wonder how many retirees are in the same boat,” the former NCI employee said.

An OPM spokesperson said the agency “remains committed to ensuring federal retirees receive the benefits they have earned while modernizing a decades-old retirement processing system,” and that the transition from a paper-based system will reduce processing times and provide a better experience for retirees.

GAO’s report found OPM’s retirement services office saw a 16% staffing decrease between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2026.

OPM, earlier this year, proposed taking over the work of adjudicating the appeals of certain terminated federal employees from the Merit Systems Protection Board. But OPM’s Merit System Accountability & Compliance division, which would take on this work, has seen a more than 40% staffing cut.

OPM, in its FY 2027 budget justification, proposed using AI tools and modernizing its IT systems to carry out its work with fewer staff.

GAO wrote that it requested additional documents from OPM regarding its reorganization efforts and the rationale behind closing or consolidating offices, but OPM officials did not provide any of the requested documents, meet with GAO officials, or respond to GAO’s written questions.

Dawn Locke, the director of GAO’s Strategic Issues Team, said OPM provided additional information after GAO released its report on Monday. Locke said GAO requested this information from OPM more than five months ago, and has not yet had an opportunity to review the materials that OPM just submitted.

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Arbitrator restores telework for IRS workers

Erich Wagner — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:52:35 -0400

An independent arbitrator last week became the latest to order a federal agency to restore 2024-era telework agreements to its workforce, concluding that the Internal Revenue Service unlawfully repudiated its union contract when it effectively ended the workplace flexibility last year.

The National Treasury Employees Union first filed the grievance in March 2025, shortly after the IRS unilaterally cancelled telework and remote work agreements en masse, despite a collective bargaining agreement that required a “case-by-case” review of employees’ eligibility along with a detailed list of potential rationales for doing so. IRS rejected that grievance in May 2025, leading the union to request the help of an arbitrator.

But in late March, the agency told arbitrator Christopher Shulman that he was “no longer authorized to accept or adjudicate any grievances involving the IRS and NTEU,” and that management was withdrawing from all pending grievance proceedings. This corresponded both with a push by the Office of Personnel Management that month to encourage agencies to formally terminate their union contracts in accordance with President Trump’s 2025 executive orders banning unions at most federal agencies due to their purported national security work, as well as a push by some in the administration to prevent the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service from assigning arbitrators in the first place.

Shulman and NTEU then conducted a hearing in May with the agency in absentia, citing an provision within the parties’ collective bargaining agreement allowing proceedings to continue with only one party’s consent.

Shulman bemoaned the uncertainty surrounding much of the federal collective bargaining apparatus, as a variety of lawsuits challenging the validity of Trump’s anti-union executive orders and their implementation continue to work their way through the courts.

“It is not hyperbole that most federal sector labor practitioners await a final judicial determination on this issue with bated breath,” he wrote. “If the EO’s exclusion of the agency from [the federal sector labor management statute’s’] ambit is ultimately upheld, then the agency’s termination of the parties’ collective bargaining agreements and subsequent withdrawal from the arbitration process will be deemed legal. If the IRS exclusion under executive order 14251 is not upheld, then the agency will likely have committed an unfair labor practice by terminating the collective bargaining agreement and withdrawing from this arbitration.”

But that is all moot, he said, because IRS terminated its telework and remote work agreements before the March 2025 executive order and the ultimate March 2026 contract termination.

“It is black letter law that expiration of a collective bargaining agreement does not terminate rights and obligations arising under the contract during its term,” Shulman wrote. “The obligation to arbitrate survives expiration where (as here) ‘the dispute arose during the life of the contract but arbitration proceedings had not begun before termination. The same would be true if arbitration processes began but were not completed, during the contract’s term.’”

Despite IRS’ lack of participation, Shulman approximated the agency’s argument, based upon its announcement that it would withdraw as well as its initial decision denying the union’s grievance. Like other agencies, IRS said it was compelled to implement its return-to-office mandate by Trump’s Jan. 20 memo instructing federal workers to return to agency offices full-time and OPM’s declaration that telework is a management right, making CBA provisions governing the workplace flexibility “unenforceable.”

But Shulman described OPM’s guidance to agencies as an “unqualified overstatement” of a Federal Labor Relations Authority caselaw.

“As noted by the union, telework and remote work arrangements do not address what work duties employees are to perform, which employees will perform the work, how they are to do so, or when,” he wrote. “Instead, these arrangements simply discuss where employees will perform assigned work. As such, FLRA and the courts have held these arrangements do not affect an agency’s rights to determine mission or to assign work.”

Shulman ruled that the agency must restore bargaining unit employees’ telework and remote work agreements, as well as rescind any adverse personnel actions stemming from the cancellation of the workplace flexibilities. IRS has 30 days appeal the decision to the FLRA.

In a statement Monday, NTEU National President Doreen Greenwald argued that telework and remote work are programs that are beneficial to employees, management and ultimately the public.

“Not only does telework save taxpayers money through reduced leasing costs, reduced energy expenses and increased productivity, it also boosts employee recruitment and retention, reduces traffic congestion and helps ease rising commuting costs,” she said. “NTEU is ready and determined to continue fighting to enforce our win on behalf of the employees we represent.”

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Secret Service is examining apparent Iranian video outlining Trump motorcade routes, assassination opportunities

David DiMolfetta — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:00:00 -0400

The U.S. Secret Service is examining a video that appears to have been produced by Iranian operatives and aims to identify opportunities to assassinate President Donald Trump, including supposed motorcade routes used by his protective details in Florida and New York.

The video, which was sent to Nextgov/FCW by a U.S. government official, is titled “Where to Kill Trump?!” with the title written in a blood-stained font alongside a bloody silhouette of the president’s side profile. In high-quality, likely AI-generated red, black and white graphics of people, buildings, vehicles, roads and other infrastructure, it claims to show how the president and his Secret Service detail commute from Palm Beach International Airport in Florida to his Mar-a-Lago estate, and from LaGuardia Airport to Trump Tower in New York City.

It has been taken off several sites since reports of it surfaced around the end of last week. The Secret Service is “aware of it and we’re looking into it,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a brief phone interview on Friday.

“Protecting the president and those under our protection is a responsibility we take extremely seriously,” a spokesperson added in a follow-up email. “While we do not comment on the specifics of protective intelligence, our teams work around the clock to assess real-time information and intelligence, ensuring our protective operations remain layered, adaptive, and fully aligned to address the climate.”

The video is narrated in Persian with English captions. “This is no ordinary report,” the captions say. “Based on the most complex security protocols between 2024 and 2026, Donald Trump’s routine movements in the US have been gathered and decoded.”

Almost three minutes long, the video describes the apparent core arrangement of the president’s motorcade, alongside the routes that are supposedly taken in each location. The Florida route also claims to show how Trump is escorted from Mar-a-Lago to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach during the weekends.

Nextgov/FCW is withholding details of the routes, road closures and security measures described in the video, on grounds that, if its contents are accurate enough, it may expose protective details that could put officials in danger. About halfway through the video, the captions say a specific location along one of the purported routes “seems like a very suitable location for the free people of the world!”

At the end of the video, as it describes supposed street closure arrangements around Trump Tower, the captions tell viewers: “Stay tuned … we are going to get even closer than this.”

It’s not immediately clear how widely the video has been circulated or who specifically produced it, nor when it was completed and disseminated, or whether more follow-up videos exist. Some social media posts last week attributed the clip to Iran’s state-backed Fars News Agency, though this could not be immediately verified.

But if the video's contents are sufficiently precise, it could raise concerns that Iran has expanded its surveillance and targeting efforts against the president, potentially revealing details about the routes and protective measures used by his Secret Service detail.

Tehran has long threatened to assassinate Trump in retaliation for the 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Those calls from Iranian leaders have intensified since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike earlier this year that began the ongoing Iran war.

The president makes regular trips to Florida to stay at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where he and his team often land at the Palm Beach airport, now officially named President Donald J. Trump International Airport. A Nextgov/FCW analysis of White House travel pool reports shows that the president appears to have only made two trips to New York City via LaGuardia last year. Throughout 2026, Trump made visits to New York, but they appear to not have involved LaGuardia as a destination airport.

Former presidents receive lifelong Secret Service protection. In 2024, while out of office, Trump regularly traveled by Secret Service motorcade from Trump Tower to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for his criminal hush-money trial. Trump also used his private Boeing 757, nicknamed “Trump Force One,” to travel between Florida and New York during the trial, including flights into LaGuardia.

Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations did not return a request for comment.

“What’s most telling about this video is what it does not include,” said Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service official who oversaw presidential protection duties for then President Barack Obama and for Trump in his first term. “Is this video a coded signal to attack things that are not listed?” he said, referring to the fact that presidential routes in Washington, D.C. are not described.

“That would be a concern of mine, that there is another target that they’re trying to steer concern away from. Or is D.C. such a hard target that they wouldn’t attempt it? I don’t know,” Eckloff said. He added that fear is a “primary export” of Iranian groups and opined that even a small attack on the president in D.C. would shake confidence more profoundly than an attack in Florida or New York.

The Secret Service is likely conducting a forensic review of the video with assistance from the intelligence community, Eckloff said.

Investigators would look for distinctive words, phrases or technical clues that could help trace the video to its original source, including the AI model or other tools used to make it. Any credible findings could then be shared with the president’s protective detail, which may adjust motorcade routes or strengthen security along them, he added.

The video illustrates how generative AI is increasingly being used in information operations and modern-day warfare. AI tools can give such content a more polished and realistic appearance, but the apparent use of AI doesn’t necessarily prove whether the routes or scenarios depicted are based on actual gathered intelligence.

“The Secret Service has all sorts of intelligence sources … both in this country and outside, so it’s understandable that they would already have this and be evaluating it in terms of the procedures followed,” said A.T. Smith, a former Secret Service deputy director who served in the agency for nearly 30 years between the Reagan and Obama administrations.

“It’s not uncommon for these sorts of things to pop up when you’re having these kinds of events in the world,” he added. “I’m sure the service is getting information from not only American intelligence agencies and sources, but probably around the world as well.”

Earlier this month, Trump departed the NATO summit in Turkey aboard the older Air Force One instead of the Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 after U.S. officials received Israeli intelligence warning of a possible Iranian plot to target him, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The video has emerged as the war between the United States and Iran continues to widen, with American forces striking Iranian targets and Tehran retaliating against U.S. personnel and regional allies. At least two U.S. service members were killed Friday while defending against an Iranian missile and drone attack in Jordan, the U.S. military said over the weekend.

“Given Trump’s worsening war in Iran, this video is very concerning, and I hope the Secret Service investigates it properly and adjusts protectee operations as necessary to counter this threat,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee.

“However, I have become increasingly concerned the Secret Service does not have the proper resources to do its job after its funding has been diverted to construction of Trump’s ballroom and it has frequently been forced to devote vast resources to act as a chauffeur for JD Vance and his family,” he said, referring to recent reports that federal funds were redirected toward security work connected to the White House ballroom and that agents have grown frustrated with the Vance family’s frequent, last-minute travel requests.

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Traffic stops become a flashpoint in ICE shootings

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:35:42 -0400

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on July 13 killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national with legal work authorization, in Maine, making him the 22nd person shot at by federal immigration officers during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Nearly all of those 22 incidents – 19 – involved Department of Homeland Security officers shooting upon people in their vehicles during traffic stops, a crucial nexus, according to a States Newsroom review of news reports and documents. The encounters spanned the nation, from Colorado to Texas to Oregon to New Jersey.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, where he promised to carry out an aggressive immigration crackdown, federal immigration officers have killed six people, three of them U.S. citizens. Four deaths came during traffic stops.

Following Guerrero’s death, the second immigrant to be killed by ICE officers during a traffic stop in a week, DHS put a pause on traffic stop enforcement. But Trump quickly ordered the department to abandon those plans.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that officers will conduct vehicle-related enforcement stops “in order to continue their deportation campaign.”

The agency has plenty of funding at hand. Congressional Republicans last year used a legislative maneuver to allocate roughly $175 billion to DHS for immigration enforcement, detainment and deportations, without needing Democratic support. GOP lawmakers did the same move this year to fund $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol until September of 2029.

After the ICE shooting in Biddeford, the entire Maine congressional delegation called for an independent investigation, with Republican Sen. Susan Collins urging an end to vehicle enforcement.

A Thursday report from the American Civil Liberties Union found patterns of misconduct by immigration agents during Trump’s second term, identifying 432 incidents where agents either used or threatened to use force against immigrants and bystanders.

The report reviewed more than 1,200 incidents across eight states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland and New Mexico.

Of the traffic-related enforcement, the ACLU found in 76 instances, people and passengers were pulled from their cars; windows were smashed 47 times; officers 14 times rammed vehicles into people’s cars; and they hit people with cars six times.

What happened afterward

In the moments after those 22 shootings, DHS has quickly accused those who were fired upon of using their vehicles as weapons against immigration officers.

But independent video has often contradicted that narrative.

In at least five cases DHS brought, charges were dismissed after the department accused U.S. citizens and immigrants shot by federal agents as being the aggressors.

In August 2025, Francisco Longoria, a Mexican national, was driving his vehicle in San Bernardino, California, when federal immigration agents in unmarked cars tried to pull him over. He fled and the agents fired upon him.

The Department of Justice charged him with attempting to harm agents, but prosecutors couldn’t defend the DHS actions and charges were dismissed. Longoria was not injured.

Marimar Martinez was labeled a domestic terrorist by DHS and indicted after she was shot in her car five times by Border Patrol agents in October 2025, during the Trump administration's aggressive immigration deportation campaign in Chicago. DOJ dropped its charges against Martinez, a U.S. citizen, after the Trump administration accused her of using her car as a weapon.

When the president initially directed immigration agents to the nation’s capitol, Phillip M. Brown, a U.S. citizen, was pulled over by law enforcement, including an immigration officer who shot into his vehicle. During the October 2025 shooting, Brown was not injured, but charged with fleeing from law enforcement. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case.

During the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation drive in Minneapolis in January, that left two U.S. citizens dead, a Venezuelan immigrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot by a federal agent while in his home. DHS accused Cesar Sosa-Celis of striking an immigration officer with a broom handle, but Cesar Sosa-Celis denied it and surveillance video contracted the federal government's claim.

The immigration agent who shot Cesar Sosa-Celis was prosecuted by local Minnesota officials and arrested in May for falsely reporting a crime and for assault.

In Houston, on July 7, ICE officers killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, saying he tried to run over agents as has been the case in other incidents.

Salgado Araujo was driving several other people to work that morning when immigration officers approached his van. He was not considered a person of interest, DHS has stated.

The FBI has sought a search warrant to seize plastic bags with “crystal-like substances,” to test for methamphetamine, according to the Texas Tribune. One of the lawyers representing Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van during the shooting, said it was granulated salt.

A grim beginning to the year

The most people shot by federal immigration agents was in January. Three of the five people shot by ICE and Border Patrol officers were in Minnesota, with two of them fatalities.

The two deaths were in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration conducted an aggressive deportation campaign that targeted the city, which has a high Somali refugee population.

That month, federal immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, and shot and wounded Cesar Sosa-Celis.

Good was killed while in her vehicle, which then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled her as a domestic terrorist. DHS accused Good of using her SUV as a weapon, but independent video did not uphold that allegation.

A week later, federal immigration officers shot and killed intensive care unit nurse Pretti, who was recording agents on his phone and helping a woman who was pushed down by them. Noem again labeled him a domestic terrorist and said he was attacking agents, but multiple videos taken from different angles do not show that.

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Energy Department removes more than 1,600 webpages from public website

Kate Yoder, Grist — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 13:04:55 -0400

If you wanted to save some money by learning how to check your home for air leaks, poor insulation, and power-hungry lightbulbs, the Energy Department website was ready to help. And if you needed an expert, the site guided you to another page for help lining up a professional energy assessment, a well-established first step to cut utility bills and curb pollution at the same time.

That is, until this summer, when both of those resources vanished from the agency’s site, each now redirecting to “Page not found.” They were taken down by July 3, around the same time that the Department of Energy deleted more than 1,600 pages from the Energy Saver section of its site, gutting a resource for people looking to conserve energy and lower bills.

“I can’t remember another time that, with DOE specifically, we’ve seen an entire domain go down the way that [it] has been reported on now,” said Izzy Pacenza, who monitors government websites for the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. Over a 30-day span this summer, as swaths of the country suffered under heat waves, more than 300 of the webpages had received 160,000 page views, according to an analysis from The Guardian.

The news coverage of the missing websites has focused on the disappearance of one recommendation in particular. Ahead of a heat wave that roasted New York City with 100-degree temperatures earlier this month, Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked businesses and residents to set their AC to 78 degrees to conserve energy, drawing the ire of Republicans who mocked the restrictions as “socialism.” Internet sleuths were quick to notice that similar guidance had vanished from the Department of Energy’s website, which used to direct people to keep their thermostat between 75 and 78 degrees. The timing suggested that the agency might have removed the pages as a rebuke to Mamdani’s advice.

The purge looked suspiciously timed for another reason: On July 2, the Energy Department announced a proposed rule to make it harder for future administrations to approve energy efficiency standards for household appliances, saying it would “permanently end Green New Scam appliance mandates.” The move was part of the Trump administration’s broader attack on energy efficiency requirements.

The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative has argued that Trump’s federal agencies tend to remove information from their websites related to regulatory changes they just announced, which limits access to information people could use to oppose agency proposals during the legally required public comment period. But the facts that would be most relevant here — the agency’s information about its Appliance and Equipment Standards Program — remain on the site, pointed out Andrew deLaski, the executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “I haven’t seen things come down that are directly related to the appliance standards program,” he said.

The Energy Department did not respond to questions about why it removed the webpages. But the purge could be understood as part of a broader pattern of removing the most accessible, actionable public information about climate change from federal government websites. Last summer brought an abrupt end to the government website that hosted the National Climate Assessment, a series of congressionally mandated reports that broke down how climate change affects the regions where people live. Around the same time, Climate.gov, the widely used site that translated the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research into easy-to-understand resources, vanished too.

Energy Saver provided a similar service, distilling technical knowledge about conserving energy into advice for ordinary people: shopping for efficient appliances, installing “cool roofs,” and do-it-yourself guides to saving energy and money.

“These things are seen as authoritative resources and tools given to us by the government for us to think about how climate change interacts with our daily lives,” Pacenza said. “And now that interaction, and that relationship, is being broken or interrupted.”

This kind of consumer advice on how to save energy clashes with President Donald Trump’s “energy dominance” framing. The administration has promoted a narrative that energy use, powered by fossil fuels, “is a tenet of American values and of our identity,” Pacenza said. Telling people to be aware of their energy use is in tension with this narrative. Even if the DOE’s website purge wasn’t driven by Mamdani’s statements about conserving energy, a similar impulse may lie behind the decision.

The debate over asking Americans to adjust their thermostats to save energy is actually decades old: During a fuel shortage in the summer of 1979, President Jimmy Carter required retail stores, restaurants, and other public and commercial buildings to keep the thermostat no warmer than 65 degrees in winter and no cooler than 78 degrees in summer (sound familiar?). President Ronald Reagan reversed those restrictions in 1981, calling them “an excessive regulatory burden.”

In general, though, energy efficiency measures used to be in the realm of bipartisan agreement. Reagan went on to sign the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act of 1987 into law, establishing minimum efficiency standards for refrigerators, freezers, and other household equipment. But recent years have seen air conditioners, laundry machines, shower heads, and other items get roped into the culture wars. Republicans have argued that government efficiency standards interfere with “consumer choice” and have been undoing regulations passed by Democratic administrations.

“This administration isn’t doing anything to improve efficiency standards — they’re only trying to go backwards,” deLaski said.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/politics/energy-department-saving-disappear-website/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.

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GSA wants other agencies to borrow what's working on tech

Frank Konkel — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:59:52 -0400

As the General Services Administration closes in on achieving its 2026 moonshot goal to save and automate 1 million hours of work for its employees, the agency will showcase and share those internal efforts — and a host of other proven tech efforts — with a governmentwide audience on July 30.

Registration for the Emerging Technology Showcase is open to all federal employees, and though the event will be held in person at the Interior Department’s Yates Auditorium, it will be livestreamed for a virtual audience likely in the tens of thousands.

“The administration has looked at GSA to lead” on approaches that make government more efficient, effective and responsive, GSA Deputy Administrator Mike Lynch said Thursday at the Government Efficiency Summit.

GSA hosted an internal tech demo day in late spring, featuring several agency employees — including Lynch and Chief Information Officer Dave Shive — who showcased several ways technology was being used across the agency to save time, improve efficiencies, deliver better outcomes and services or make employees’ jobs easier. Several thousand employees tuned in, and Lynch said its in the agency’s DNA to share what’s working.

“That's really a core to GSA's mission and a convening function that we've heard: a lot of demand and interest throughout government to expand what we were doing internally and offer it up more broadly,” he added.

One certain talking point for the event will be a step-by-step guide GSA released in June to cut, streamline and automate work called the Elimination, Optimization and Automation playbook. The playbook builds on lessons learned from federal pilots, mature automation programs and GSA’s own extensive internal enterprise efforts to improve operations. One such effort, the agency’s push to save and eliminate 1 million hours of employee work within the calendar year, is pacing far ahead of schedule.

“We're at roughly 850,000 [hours identified], which has been amazing, and we've been blown away with kind of the adoption that's taken place, largely driven by technology,” Lynch said Thursday. “We put that in [the] playbook, and we're now showcasing that as part of the forum on the 30th that should be available to all of government to see where to use that within your own workflows.”

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How a little-known Trump directive reshaped the government's counterterrorism approach

Melinda Haas, The Conversation — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:37:33 -0400

A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had been planning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drew representatives from more than 65 countries to Washington. The gathering was informally called the “Antifa summit.”

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement, without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an “unprecedented global offensive” against what it calls “radical left terrorism.”

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture is National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law-enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

The Justice Department has built task forces staffed by counterterrorism prosecutors. The FBI has set up its own NSPM-7 mission center to oversee investigations into left-wing movements, including a joint effort with the IRS to investigate nonprofit groups.

The Justice Department has used this machinery to convict activists and send some of them to prison for decades.

NSPM-7 was not passed by Congress. It’s a lesser-known tool of executive power: a presidential memorandum.

As an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.

This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.

Presidential national security powers

Executive memorandums direct agencies to prepare reports, implement policies, or align programs with the administration’s priorities. Unlike executive orders, they aren’t required to be published. When they relate to national security, like NSPM-7, they’re called national security directives – many of which stay classified and may not be declassified for years or decades.

The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.

The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

The strategy includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts, empowering multiagency task forces to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization and the groups’ funders. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 2025 implementation memo went further, ordering a five-year review of agency files on antifa. A task force staffed with counterterrorism and organized-crime prosecutors is carrying out these investigations.

‘Domestic terrorist organizations’

The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus FBI resources from approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”

NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in “organized doxxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”

Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.

But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.

That gap hasn’t stopped prosecutions. In Texas, eight defendants tied to a “North Texas Antifa Cell” were sentenced in June 2026 for a 2025 armed confrontation at the Prairieland immigration detention center. One man received 100 years, and others who never fired a weapon still drew decades in prison under terrorism sentencing guidelines.

In Minnesota, 15 members and associates of a group called Direct Action Minnesota were indicted in June 2026 on conspiracy and assault charges. A 94-page indictment cited behavior such as wearing an “I’m Antifa!” sweatshirt, possessing a bullhorn or including a devil emoji in a Signal message.

NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, departing from approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.

Earlier directives, dating to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, treated terrorism as a global menace countered through military power and diplomacy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed it as a domestic challenge after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After 9/11, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense through the global war on terrorism. The Obama administration later tried to narrow those powers, asking whether targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons” — a standard focused on tactics and capture feasibility, not ideology.

The first Trump administration used a “travel ban” against several “terror-prone”countries, while President Joe Biden redirected focus toward weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, the “domestic terrorist” label itself has rarely produced actual charges. The State Department designated four antifa-aligned groups as foreign terrorist organizations. But antifa is a decentralized movement, not a formal group with a roster.

This designation lacks any real legal weight because U.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. Domestic terrorism itself is not a chargeable offense.

Prosecutors have instead leaned on older statutes such as material support for terrorism and conspiracy laws, tools originally built for cases like the ones above, not protest movements.

First Amendment rights at risk

There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law; definitions vary by purpose – criminal law, intelligence collection, civil liability.

Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.

But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.

The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political, economic, religious or cultural goals.

The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.

Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump in October 2025expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”

As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.

Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.

But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.

Silencing dissent

NSPM-7 does not criminalize previously legal conduct.

Rather, it states that the Trump administration will focus investigations around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.

Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label. Federal judges in the Prairieland case have shown little sympathy for that distinction: One judge described the protest itself as “an assault on democracy,” even for defendants who never touched a weapon.

Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidenceshows it remains far below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, accounting for the vast majority of domestic terrorism fatalities.

Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even where, as in Minnesota, judges have already dismissed roughly half of similar federal cases for lack of evidence.

This is an updated version of a story originally published December 3, 2025.

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