Federal Daily - July 12, 2010

Hooray! The New TSP Web Site Is Here!

The Thrift Savings Plan over the weekend finally launched its much anticipated new TSP Web site.

The new home page layout provides quick access to an enrollee’s TSP account, as well as to plan features, fund information, planning calculators, current limits and rates, and plan news. To help participants understand the workings of the new site, TSP has posted an online video on the transition from the old site to the new one.

Each section of the new site is organized to help participants find answers to questions more easily. For example, all of the TSP features and rules can be found under Plan Participation—so if participants need to know the difference between a contribution allocation and an interfund transfer, it’s right there, said Gregory Long, TSP executive director.

“If you want to better understand your TSP fund options, how they compare to each other and [their] historical performance, you can visit Investment Funds,” Long said. “And if you need to know what you should do about your TSP account at certain milestones in your life, such as marriage or separating from federal service, you can visit Life Events.”

Long said TSP plans to continue to update the site to make it more user friendly.

To see more, go to: https://www.tsp.gov/.

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Federal Scientists Still Lack Whistleblower Protections, Group Says

The Obama administration has yet to make good on its promise to provide better whistleblower protections to federal scientists, says one advocacy group.

In a report posted online July 8, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said new scientific whistleblower rules were to be in place by July 9, 2009, but the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy missed the deadline without explanation, despite an executive memorandum telling them to draw up new rules.

As a consequence, PEER said, federal scientists continue to report the same sort of suppression and manipulation of scientific and technical reports by agency managers that occurred under the previous administration.

“The atmosphere under Obama for federal scientists remains largely unchanged from the Bush era,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Federal agency science is still manipulated for political reasons largely because there are still no rules against it.”

Ruch pointed to the federal response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an example of an ongoing lack of scientific transparency and candor in agency decision-making.

According to PEER, the Environmental Protection Agency approved—without any scientific support—widespread application of oil dispersants deep underwater, despite the fact that these chemicals were designed for surface application. EPA lacked even baseline information about oil droplet size—information it needed to measure how effective the dispersant is at breaking up the oil slicks, PEER said. And, the group said, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has “flip-flopped on release of scientific observations about the size and nature of swelling underwater oil plumes.”

To see more, go to: www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1371.

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VA to Hold Forum to Examine Benefits for Women Vets

The Department of Veterans Affairs opened registration to a July 28 women veterans forum at the Women’s Memorial in Arlington, Va. The forum will address the quality of VA health care for women, the provision of benefits for women and ways the VA can continue improving access to the care and benefits for women vets.

Interested parties can register through the Center for Women Veterans via e-mail at 00W@va.gov. Registration closes on July 16 or when all seats are filled, whichever comes first. The forum will run from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., with morning presentations and an afternoon information marketplace offering resources and materials provided by VA program offices, veterans service organizations and advocacy organizations.

The forum is part of the ongoing VA initiative to improve health care for the growing numbers of women veterans, VA said.

“The VA forum will bring advocates for women veterans together to learn about VA services and to share valuable information with each other,” said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. “The forum will also give veterans’ advocates the tools they need to help build women veterans networks and communities throughout VA.”

To see more, go to: http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1921.

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