Federal employee groups fear that they are being left out of a health care reform compromise forged by unions and lawmakers to alleviate the effects of a proposed excise tax on insurance plans. The deal, posted on the Web sites of the AFL-CIO and the National Education Association, would raise the premium threshold level at which a 40 percent tax kicks ...

OSLO (AP) -- President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism. Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two ...

The U.S. Postal Service lost billions of dollars in revenue during the last fiscal year as the volume of mail plunged. Lawmakers may one day soon consider cutting mail delivery to five days a week. They also may need to sort out how the Postal Service pays for the benefits of current and future retirees. But most customers only care about ...

The government is developing a comprehensive database that will track the performance of federal contractors, according to a proposed rule published Thursday in the Federal Register. Click here to read the proposed rule The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, which the General Services Administration will maintain, will integrate a handful of existing databases with new information provided by contracting ...

The 40 people who met behind closed doors in the Ronald Reagan Building on Wednesday weren't in a position to make any decisions about fixing the federal government's recruitment and hiring process, but their discussion could have a lasting impact on federal policy. The Harvard Kennedy School, along with the University of Maryland and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), organized ...

Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts. Tougher enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, which tightly restricts the distribution of pain medicines such as morphine and ...

SEATTLE — The new top federal prosecutor in Seattle knows the significance her role carries for many people: She's apparently the nation's first openly gay U.S. attorney. But as a daughter of privilege — her dad was a powerful Democratic state senator, and she had all the benefits of a comfortable upbringing and a good education — Jenny Durkan also recalls ...

The number of political appointees converting-or burrowing-into career positions is minute, according to the Office of Personnel Management. In 2008, OPM says it reviewed 58 conversions and found only two of the required further evaluation. This is out of more than 1,600 political positions. The minority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported in 2005 that the Bush ...

Within his first few months in office, President Obama signed the largest economic recovery package in a generation, significantly boosted government assistance to banks and auto manufacturers, and augmented the role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. No matter your political affiliation, it is undeniable that these policies have expanded the missions of federal agencies, and by proxy, those of government contractors. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are muscling through a deficit-swelling spending bill, giving domestic programs their third major boost this year and awarding lawmakers with more than 5,000 home-state projects. The House voted 221-202 Thursday to pass the 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure _ combining $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare ...

An independent engineers union at the Tennessee Valley Authority voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to affiliate with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. The Engineering Association, which represents scientists, engineers, technicians and other white-collar workers at TVA, voted 856 to 88 in favor of joining IFPTE. The association approached IFPTE after an internal deliberation about whether to join a larger ...

Applying for a job with the federal government can be a miserable experience. Announcements of vacancies are often written in arcane, incomprehensible jargon; applications can stretch for dozens of pages; one branch of an agency might not have any idea of the hiring needs of a second branch. This is not the opinion of jilted job-seekers. Instead, it was the frank ...

A second class of student ambassadors have completed their internships with the federal government, and six of them will return to their college campuses talking about the Energy Department. Of the 30 participants in the 2009-2010 Federal Service Ambassador Program sponsored by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, six college students were enrolled in a new Energy Department-specific internship. Energy's program ...

Late Monday, the Senate voted on and unanimously passed telework legislation which had been held up for more than a year. The 2010 Telework Enhancement Act (S. 707), sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is designed to expand telecommuting opportunities in the federal government by making employees presumptively eligible and requiring agencies to take a number of ...

Want to help the federal government save some money? Make sure to vote Thursday in a contest designed to help Uncle Sam cut costs. The winner gets a face-to-face meeting with President Obama before Christmas, and the winning idea will be included in his 2011 budget. The Office of Management and Budget launched the SAVE Award in September, an effort to ...

Federal funding for performance pay in public schools would quadruple, to $400 million a year, under a bill moving through Congress that reflects the growing political momentum behind an education reform idea once considered anathema to many Democrats and labor leaders. The Teacher Incentive Fund, launched during the Bush administration, has become a priority for President Obama. It has awarded more ...

The General Services Administration announced on Monday that it is lowering by five cents the 2010 mileage reimbursement rate for federal employees using private vehicles for government business. The new rate, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2010, is 50 cents per mile, down from 55 cents per mile in 2009. Unless GSA issues a mid-year adjustment, the rate will remain ...

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry sees great advantages to having federal workers stay home. That wouldn't mean taking the day off, however. Berry is an advocate of teleworking and is asking federal managers and employees to help sell the idea to skeptical managers and lawmakers. Berry was making his pitch Thursday, the same day that Washington area commuters experienced ...

Happy Friday! The Commerce Department will establish a new Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship to help small businesses grow faster, part of the Obama administration's new $100 billion innovation agenda announced earlier this week. The administration is especially interested in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs as statistics suggest businesses less than five years old accounted for nearly all private sector employment ...

After strong debate from both sides of the aisle, the Senate on Thursday rejected a legislative provision that would have frozen federal pay and the size of the government workforce. The chamber voted 57-41 to let stand a budgetary point of order against a GOP alternative amendment to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. The point of order essentially ...