The General Services Administration (GSA), in partnership with a federal cybersecurity interagency working group (comprised of members of the DoD, GSA, DHS, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)), released an RFI for stakeholders’ input to improve the governments’ cybersecurity acquisition and implementation.

According to a recent interview with the Federal Times, Acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini presented the case that GSA remains undaunted by current budgetary uncertainties. The agency is making efforts to expand market share by rededicating its efforts to channel more federal procurements through GSA contracts. In fact Tom Sharpe, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service commissioner, highlighted in a separate interview that GSA is creating agency specific plans to help agencies cut costs and save money by using GSA programs and schedules.

On May 20, 2013 the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the third company to become FedRAMP certified as Amazon Web Services. As part of the program, Amazon has been granted two Agency Authorities to Operate (ATOs) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CGI Federal and Autonomic Resources are the other two FedRAMP-certified providers.

The upcoming government furloughs will put many hard-working employees out of work. In his letter to OPM director John Berry, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposes to eliminate employees that aren’t doing jobs necessary to their agency’s mission. This would cut out any employees who are considered AWOL, non-mission critical, on standby, or are waiting for their security clearances. From 2001 to 2007, the employees that were AWOL from 18 agencies, missed 19.6 million hours. Employees who perform work unrelated to their agencies missions accounted for $155 million for their 3.4 million hours of work. Coburn also wrote that some 1,800 employees on standby received about $13 million between 2010 and 2011. On top of all this, around 20% of government contractors received a salary while they were waiting for their security clearances. These contractors could cost the government as much as $1.8 billion a month, while they were not doing the work stated in their contracts. Coburn believes that if these areas are focused on for the job cuts, then the employees performing critical jobs will be protected.

Yesterday, March 28th, the draft RFP’s for OASIS were released for public review and comment. Furthermore, on the OASIS Industry Community board it was stated that the General Services Administration (GSA) is tentatively planning an industry day on May 13th.