FederalDaily - September 15, 2006
Kelley Urges DOE to Rethink Plan
The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) urged the Department of Energy (DOE) to rethink
its planned merger of the agency’s separate safety and health function with its security function
under a DOE reorganization plan. “NTEU is concerned that these changes will have a direct and
negative effect on the lives of many (DOE) employees and citizens across the country,” NTEU President
Colleen M. Kelley said on Sept 13. NTEU said the decision would result in a loss of safety and health
accountability since the specific missions no longer would be carried out under the leadership of an
assistant secretary. The union said it represents more than 125 DOE employees in the specialized health
and safety functions, and nearly 1,700 DOE employees overall, in two chapters—at DOE headquarters
and at a facility in Germantown, Md. For more information, go to: www.nteu.org
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DHS Releases Cyber Attack Simulation Results
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the results of its first exercise simulating a
major cyber-terrorism attack on the United States. DHS ran the “Cyber Storm,” simulation
from Feb. 6 through Feb. 10 as a way to test communications, policies and procedures in the face of
an Internet-based assault. The attack was led by a simulated loose coalition of well-financed anti-globalization
and anarchist “hacktivists” from many different countries, said the department's Sept.
13 report. DHS did not give the attack response a grade, but weaknesses were exposed. The exercise
revealed the limited ability of participants to correlate multiple incidents across multiple infrastructures,
said the report. And, while the response was “generally effective” in addressing single
attacks, “most incidents were treated as individual and discrete events,” the report said.
More than 110 state. local and federal government agencies and private corporations took part in the
exercise, staged on a specially established computer network to avoid harming the real Internet. To
see more, go to: www.dhs.gov
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Group Says EPA Would Shutter Labs, Cut Staff
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget cuts for Fiscal Year 2008 include a series of proposed
laboratory closures, as well as a program of staff buyouts, according to an internal memo released
by a public employees advocacy group. The closures were included in a five-year austerity plan detailed
in an internal agency memo released Sept. 13 by the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER). PEER said the plan calls for closing 10 percent of EPA’s network of laboratories and
research centers, which currently employ about 2,000 scientists. Furthermore, the plan would give EPA
regional administrators a freer hand to carry out personnel reductions targeted at higher-ranking (GS
12 to GS 15) scientists, analysts and managers, PEER said. These cuts would be in addition to anticipated
attrition—about 35 percent of EPA staff will become eligible to retire during the next three
years, PEER said. To see the internal memo, go to: www.peer.org/docs/epa/06_13_9_cfo_memo.pdf
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