Quick Hits

*** U.S. Transportation Command is looking to expand information sharing to reduce mission risks.

"The thing that I want to bring across here is these national programs are capability focused," said Wayne "Jake" Carson, TRANSCOM's mission assurance program branch chief and DOD liaison to the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute, during a presentation at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Centers of Excellence Summit Aug. 1.

"They don't include dependencies" like the "trucking companies that we depend on a contract with" or the "command and control systems that we require to move large quantities of equipment by highway," he said.

TRANSCOM is a target for adversaries as much as its partners, which is why information sharing across the "whole of nation" -- to include commercial, public, and private carriers -- is critical, Carson said.

"The rail carriers, the air carriers, the sealift carriers -- they're not government entities and many of these are not regulated," Carson said. "Pipeline, they have a pretty good sense of where risk is. When it comes to rail, highway, and maritime, not so much."

Carson said the Coast Guard is doing a lot of work with maritime arena but there was room for improvement in tamping down risk in a contested environment. DOD has been working to share information with the Coast Guard and DHS to protect critical infrastructure. Those efforts could expand in the coming months, according to Carson. "I think before the year is out, we're going to see a lot of advances in information sharing amongst all of government," he said.

*** The White House released a progress report on Performance.gov on its government reorganization plan. According to the update, agencies are leveraging existing authorities to put parts of 20 proposals in place and Congress has held hearings or proposed legislation on 10 of the proposals. The administration has some goals in its sights, including the transfer of background checks from the Office of Personnel Management to the Department of Defense. However other efforts, notably the merger of most of OPM into the General Services Administration, are facing stiff headwinds on Capitol Hill.