Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy

Weslan Hansen

MeriTalk

Weslan Hansen is a MeriTalk Staff Reporter covering the intersection of government and technology.

The U.S. Postal Service’s (USPS) chief technology officer has stepped down after working with the agency for nearly four decades and leading its tech modernization efforts.  […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted on July 10 to approve $812 million of spending for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in fiscal year 2026 – pushing back against action by House lawmakers last month to cut GAO’s FY 2026 budget by 48 percent on a year-over-year basis.   […]

The use of artificial intelligence tools is becoming increasingly common across Federal agencies, but what about deployment of an AI-driven “meta-human?” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the agency has created one and is ready to launch it this year.   […]

Half of all new American electric power will be consumed by artificial intelligence data centers by 2030, according to the Department of Energy (DoE), which warned in a report out Monday that the nation is facing an energy disaster unless it adopts innovative methods of power generation.  […]

The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to proceed for the time being with Federal agency reorganization and reduction-in-force (RIF) plans proposed by the White House earlier this year, but also appeared to carve out some room in an order issued on July 8 for specific agency reorganization and RIF plans to be challenged in lower courts.   […]

GSA

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) pilot to require all multiple award schedule (MAS) contract holders to report transactional data is unlikely to be effective, according to a report from the agency’s Office of the Inspector General (IG).   […]

A new artificial intelligence model born out of a collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Google DeepMind, and Google Research is aiming to improve tropical weather forecasting.   […]

Weslan Hansen
MeriTalk