• A bipartisan group of senators is trying to make shutdowns more painful for the members of Congress whose votes cause them. Senators James Lankford (R-OK) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced the Prevent Government Shutdowns Act, requiring lawmakers to remain in Washington D.C. until spending bills are passed. It would also institute automatic 14-day continuing resolutions if spending bills aren’t approved. The legislation was first introduced in 2019 and a companion bill has been introduced in the House.
• NASA is moving the National Space Policy into the implementation phase. NASA is reorganizing many of its headquarters activities and mission offices to increase specialization at centers and integrate mission directorates. The changes include the establishment of three new mission directorates focused on human space flight, research and technology and science. Each of the mission directorates will now report directly to the administrator. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman also named executives to lead the new directorates, centers and the acquisition office. Isaacman said the agencywide realignment will focus resources on NASA's most pressing objectives and removing unnecessary bureaucracy and obstacles from the workforce that impede progress.
• The Pentagon has significantly scaled back the civilian harm mitigation program it is legally required to maintain. The Defense Department inspector general found that DoD no longer has all of the personnel and tools needed to fully implement a civilian harm mitigation initiative. Specifically, DoD components ended funding for the civilian harm mitigation and response data management platform, stopped holding steering committee meetings and lost personnel and leadership at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. The inspector general said that as a result, the Defense Department “may not comply with its civilian casualties and harm policy, a policy required by Federal law.”
• The Department of Veteran Affairs is getting bipartisan praise for the resumed rollout of its new Electronic Health Record. The VA began EHR deployments in April after a three-year pause. It rolled out the Oracle-Cerner system to four VA health care sites in Michigan. Top Democrats on several committees and their Republican colleagues say the EHR project appears to be back on track after years of dysfunction. Groups representing VA employees, however, say the latest facilities to adopt the new EHR are dealing with many of the same problems as before. VA Secretary Doug Collins told lawmakers the department is still working on fixes at some of the earlier go-live sites.
• The White House is seeking detailed federal spending information on dozens of non-profit organizations. A memo from the Office of Management and Budget calls on all agencies to submit spending reports for a targeted list of 49 non-profits. Many of the named groups do advocacy work supporting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), immigrants and refugees, civil rights and humanitarian aid. Agencies’ spending reports are due to OMB by May 29.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed senior Pentagon leadership, combatant commands and defense agencies to develop an additional metric for officer and non-commissioned officer evaluation processes. Hegseth said the military must ensure its promotion and development system is “ruthlessly meritocratic” and focused on joint warfighting ability. The Pentagon will create “objective, data-driven metrics for measuring and identifying warfighting ability.” Hegseth tapped the under secretary for personnel and readiness to lead the effort.
• The Defense Department is lacking accountability measures for suicide prevention training across the armed forces. The Government Accountability Office found that DoD doesn’t have a system in place to ensure that branches of the military report how often service members complete their trainings. An official in the Defense Suicide Prevention Office told GAO that they do not receive training data. GAO also found most of the services themselves don’t collect information on training completion; only the National Guard Bureau takes action to ensure training completion. And though most of the services have surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of their training programs, GAO says more could be done to ensure the programs achieve their goals. Improving the reporting and evaluation around these programs would help shape suicide prevention policy and mitigate risks, GAO says.
• Agency leaders are calling on Congress to address a multi-billion-dollar backlog of federal maintenance projects. Leadership from 22 agencies are calling on lawmakers to give the General Services Administration full access to the Federal Buildings Fund, a pot of money that includes all rent payments GSA receives from tenant agencies. Congress has skimmed more than $1 billion from the fund each year to pay for other things. GSA is also looking to proceed with more minor repairs and alterations without approval from Congress.
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is trying to make it easier for cyber experts to report known exploited vulnerabilities or KEVs. CISA created a new nomination form that lets researchers, vendors and industry report these cyber threats. CISA says this new reporting capability enhances its ability to quickly identify, validate and share KEV and critical threat information to agencies and the private sector. The nomination form also builds on two other CISA initiatives: The Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP) Platform and Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) Program, which together encourage good faith security research and promotes transparent, coordinated remediation of cyber risks.

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