• A top House democrat is demanding a hearing to examine the effects of the Trump administration’s actions at federal statistical agencies. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, said committee members should understand how recent challenges of understaffing and underfunding at these agencies are impacting their work. Scott pointed to a recent report from the American Statistical Association that highlights problems like halted projects and reports, low response rates, decreased data production and smaller staff across agencies including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Economic Research Service and the National Center for Education Statistics. Scott requested a September hearing on how lower quality, less frequent data reports will impact the American public.
• The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council is close to finalizing two new acquisition rules. Vendors will soon have new procurement requirements to report cyber incidents in an accurate and timely manner. The FAR Council expects to finalize a rule by the end of the fiscal year to implement the 2021 executive order to improve federal cybersecurity. The cyber threat and incident reporting and information sharing rule has been in the works since 2023. The FAR Council's semi-regulatory agenda detailed this and one other rule that's in the works. The council said its other rule to prevent conflicts of interest is expected to become final in July 2027.
• The Defense Department is asking Congress to expand benefits for military families affected by domestic violence and child abuse. In a legislative proposal sent to Congress in July, the Pentagon asked lawmakers to streamline the Transitional Compensation for Abused Dependents program and ensure that administrative delays don't cause eligible spouses and children to lose benefits they are entitled to receive. The proposal would also increase the age of eligible dependent children from 18 to 21 to provide additional benefits to dependents even if they are not enrolled in college. DoD said the proposal would ensure that impacted families have full access to the transitional compensation benefits, including medical benefits.
• The Navy is on the clock to provide the White House with a plan to support the building of a fifth shipyard, to implement a new ship building investment model to address chronic challenges in American naval shipbuilding. President Donald Trump said these changes will address a lack of capacity and competition among shipbuilders, which has resulted in large backlogs of orders across six major Navy shipbuilding programs. The White House wants to address what it called an atrophied shipbuilding industrial base, diminished supplier bases that has resulted in delays and increased costs.
• The Defense Department’s inspector general will investigate the Pentagon’s compliance with a 2019 law designed to cut down on wasteful spending. The deep dive will focus on overpayments, underpayments, duplicate payments, payments to ineligible recipients and payments for goods or services not received in fiscal 2026. The watchdog is required to perform this audit every year.
• A former Labor Department employee convicted of wire fraud will literally have to pay for his crime, and then some. Mo Yuong Kang pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining almost $46,000 in Pandemic Unemployment Assistance while federal prosecutors say he was working as an employee at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He has now been sentenced to one year probation as well as paying twice the amount he received in benefits.
• The federal government will reimburse troops who opt to freeze their eggs or sperm up to $10,000 per year under a pilot program that begins Sept.14. The three-year initiative will test the feasibility of helping to fund cryopreservation for certain service members facing combat deployments, hazardous orders or long separations. Reimbursement is capped at $10,000 per year for eggs and $500 per year for sperm.
• A new lawsuit is seeking to force the Office of Personnel Management to update its policy guidance to reflect a Supreme Court decision that clarified how federal employees who are also in the military reserve must be paid when called to active duty. The lawsuit argues that OPM has unreasonably delayed issuing regulations as required by law and asks the court to compel the agency to “perform the governmentwide rulemaking duty.” Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that civilian employees called to active duty during a national emergency are entitled to differential pay, regardless of whether their service is directly connected to a particular emergency. The Supreme Court’s decision also required OPM to update its policy guidance. But 15 months later, the guidance remains the same.

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