The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ strategy for artificial intelligence revolves around three main pillars. Officials want to accelerate AI adoption, educate and train the workforce, and build enduring, tested, trusted and verified AI capabilities. Matt Parks is the chief artificial intelligence officer for the Corps of Engineers. He tells Federal News Networks Jason Miller those pillars can’t be successful unless cybersecurity is woven throughout each of them.

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Last month, vulnerabilities in the open-source software language known as PHP created panic across the internet. Part of the chaos was one company’s decision to publish the patches for those bugs before an agreed-upon release date. Now, a top Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is calling that behavior “dangerous.” For more, Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday joins me.

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Deltek's latest look at the federal marketplace finds agencies continuing to concentrate work through existing acquisition vehicles and task-order strategies. For contractors and acquisition teams alike, understanding where government plans to buy may matter as much as understanding what it plans to buy. Joining me now with all of the details is Kathleen Sievers, Director of Research at Deltek.

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As Congress works through the final version of the defense authorization bill, contractors are watching closely for provisions involving intellectual property and access to technical data. Those decisions could shape how companies protect their investments while still providing government access to the technologies it wants most. Here with an industry perspective is Jim Carroll, CEO of the Professional Services Council.

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Access to federal business brings access to information, and that creates responsibilities of its own. A federal court is considering a novel prediction-markets case involving an active-duty servicemember accused of using nonpublic information for financial gain. The outcome could influence how contractors think about compliance, oversight and employee conduct. Joining me now is Alex Blanchard, Senior Counsel at Holland & Knight LLP.

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Coming up today on "The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton"

• Competition for federal business increasingly starts with access to the right contract vehicles. More opportunities are flowing through a relatively small number of acquisition channels
• Getting onto a contract vehicle is one thing. The next question is the terms under which companies bring technology and innovation to government. Congressional negotiators are weighing that balance in the National Defense Authorization Act
• Contractors gain access to valuable government information as part of doing business. A court is now weighing whether misuse of that information can be treated as fraud in a way that could reshape compliance expectations for employers with cleared workers

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The Census Bureau wants to expand its research on new ways to collect data across its business surveys. The agency wants to explore new ways to enhance data collection by gathering information directly from businesses via automated methods. Federal News Network reporter Silvia Oakland joins me to talk more about the request.

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Of federal employees who have recently separated from their jobs, political influence was a top reason they left. And nearly three-quarters say they didn’t leave their jobs voluntarily. Many felt pressured to go. A federal employee “exit survey,” conducted by the Accountability and Reform Research Consortium, collected responses from over 2,000 former federal employees across 55 agencies. To break down the findings, Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman spoke with the survey leads, Bill Resh and Gary Hollibaugh.

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Election Day is only one phase of administering an election. Before the polls open, officials spend months preparing for operational, physical and information-related disruptions, and after voting ends they still have to verify, audit and certify the results. Here to discuss that process is Chetrice Romero, senior cybersecurity advisor at Ice Miller.

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Once the votes are counted, members of Congress begin choosing the leaders who will organize their caucuses and shape strategy for the next Congress. Those contests often reveal as much about a party's future direction as the election itself. Mitchell Miller, Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP, joins me now with a look at what happens next.

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A new audit of the Postal Service's Mail Recovery Center found management may have been understating package volume while overstating how often undeliverable items were returned to customers. Auditors also identified commercial shipping practices that may have cost the agency millions of dollars. Joining me now is Heidi Einsweiler of the USPS Office of Inspector General.

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Coming up on the Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

• Election Day may be the public phase of the process. For election officials, it's the moment months of preparation are put to the test
• Election results decide who holds power. The congressional leadership races that follow show how each party intends to use it
• The Postal Service's system for handling undeliverable packages was moving more volume and returning fewer packages than management believed. A new audit explains why

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A new software vulnerability sent cybersecurity professionals scrambling over the past week. Discovered by cyber firms with the assistance of frontier AI models, the flaws in the PHP scripting language affected roughly 70% of all websites on the internet. Agencies had until Thursday to patch the PHP bugs. For more on the situation and what comes next, Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday joins me.

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Industry and legal experts are urging the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council to set governmentwide rules around federal agencies’ use of artificial intelligence in federal procurement. They say the ongoing Federal Acquisition Regulation overhaul is an opportunity for the council to address the use of those tools in proposal evaluation, price analysis and contract file documentation. Federal News Network’s Anastasia Obis has more.

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There are more cybersecurity challenges than any organization can realistically pursue at once. A new framework from the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute identifies seven areas that its researchers believe warrant sustained attention because of their potential impact on future national-security missions. Greg Touhill, director of the institute's CERT Division, is here to explain how that framework can help leaders decide where to place their time, attention and research dollars.

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Doctors rely on MRI scans to make important treatment decisions, but those images are only as reliable as the measurements behind them. Dr. Kathryn Keenan of the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed tools and methods that improve the accuracy and consistency of MRI results. She's also a recipient of the 2026 Arthur S. Flemming Award.

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Year-to-date returns remained strong even after a more uneven third quarter for some TSP funds. Federal News Network's Eric White spoke with Financial planner Arthur Stein to review the latest results and explain why investor behavior during good markets often determines outcomes during bad ones.

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Today on the Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

• Every cyber threat can't be a top priority. A new framework offers a way to decide which challenges deserve long-term research attention
• More accurate MRI measurements can lead to better diagnoses and fewer unnecessary procedures. One federal researcher is being recognized for helping make that possible
• Strong markets have rewarded retirement investors for several years. That can make it harder to judge how much risk is sitting in a portfolio

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Agencies now have explicit authority to put federal employees on paid administrative leave for “workforce realignment” reasons. That’s after the Office of Personnel Management published final regulations earlier this month. The changes effectively codify the Trump administration's unprecedented use of leave through last year's deferred resignation program. Here to break it all down, Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman.

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The Trump administration is prioritizing the removal of fraud, waste and abuse from federal programs and funding. Last week federal officials discussed how they're contributing to the administration's priorities through new technology, data sharing and interagency collaboration. Federal News Network reporter Silvia Oakland attended the ATARC Fraud, Waste and Abuse Forum. She joins me to talk more about how agencies are approaching the directive.

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