DWPA Staff, Author at Deep Water Point & Associates

Local Government G-News August 9, 2023

DWPA Staff on August 9, 2023

August 9, 2023
Federal Funding Opportunities

U.S. Department of Energy; Golden Field Office 2023 Funding Opportunity Announcement for Energy Future Grants (EFG) Creating a Community-Led Energy Future applications due September 30, 2023

The Energy Future Grants (EFG) provides financial assistance to support local, state, and tribal government-led partnership efforts that will advance clean energy program innovation. EFG seeks to enhance energy affordable and access for communities, ensuring the broad benefits of a clean energy economy—including heath, economic development and jobs and emissions reductions—flow to disadvantaged communities.

U.S. Department of Energy; National Energy Technology Laboratory BIL – Carbon Utilization Procurement Grants under Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Section 40302 Concept papers accepted on a rolling basis and full applications due April 30, 2024

With funding provided from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Section 40302, the Carbon Utilization Procurement Grants program will help offset 50% of the costs to states, local governments, and public utilities or agencies to procure and use products developed through the conversion of captured carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions. The commercial or industrial products to be procured and used under these grants must demonstrate a significant net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to incumbent products via a life cycle analysis (LCA).

U.S. Department of Transportation Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Stage I Planning and Prototyping grant applications due October 10, 2023

The Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) program was established to provide grants to eligible public sector agencies to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems in order to improve transportation efficiency and safety. The purpose of this notice is to solicit applications for Stage 1 Planning and Prototyping applications for demonstration projects focused on advanced smart city or community technologies and systems to improve transportation efficiency and safety.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Grants: Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) applications due December 1, 2023

To address these diesel emissions and protect public health and air quality, authorized under Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), this funding opportunity provides assistance to accelerate the upgrade, retrofit, and turnover of the legacy diesel fleet.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Children and Families – Office of Refugee Resettlement Support for Trauma-Affected Refugees (STAR) applications due October 2, 2023

The goals of the Support for Trauma-Affected Refugees (STAR) Program are the integration and successful achievement of sustained physical, social, emotional, and economic well-being of those underserved refugees and other newcomers eligible for Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) services (hereafter referred to as “newcomers” for simplicity) whose experience of trauma is impeding their ability to function effectively at home, school, work or in social settings. Using STAR funds, recipients will provide eligible newcomers with holistic and integrated case management services, including health, psychological, and social adjustment services directly. Through project-related activities, recipients will simultaneously enhance their capacity to serve such populations.

WSW Special Report: The Importance of In-Person Meetings

DWPA Staff on August 4, 2023

As reported last week, the US Congress is now in recess. Senators and Members of Congress will be visiting with constituents, touring workplaces, marching in Labor Day parades and participating in numerous civic and cultural events throughout the country. Elected officials actually thrive on the interplay with constituents.

But how can your organization plan for continued engagement, now that our society has reopened following two dreadful years of uncertainty?

Over the past seven months, WSW has facilitated over a dozen advocacy days and events on behalf of clients. Although we have all grown accustomed to Zoom and Teams meetings, the US Congress is now (re)open for business. Just this last month, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was seen high-fiving young school students visiting the US Capitol. The imagery was not coincidental. Republicans took pride in the steps taken to resume normal operations.

Organizations and individuals should be thinking about how to resume normal advocacy operations as well. There is no substitute for face-to-face engagement. One example to share: Earlier in 2023, one of our trade association clients brought their Board of Directors meeting to Washington, DC. Tacked onto the end of the program was an opportunity for Board Members to visit the offices of their Senators and Representatives. As a result, this August, a Member of Congress will be visiting the business of one of those Board Members and touring their workshop. This is a relationship that did not exist in January. But now, due to the interest generated by the meeting, this CEO and Congressperson will be fused at the hip, touring a work site and mixing it up with the employees.

Point being, it is time to begin planning your next advocacy day. Relationships are like gardens – they need to be tended and nurtured. But it is worth every effort and expense. Now that Congressional offices are fully open – forget about Zoom– and do that next meeting in person.

Now is the time to begin conversations with your WSW team lead and start the budgeting and logistics conversation for your 2024 visit to the nation’s Capital. We can’t guarantee a high-five from the Speaker of the House – or that your Member of Congress will be stopping by later this year. But as the saying goes, “If you don’t ask, the answer is always – NO!”

Have a great summer, and we look forward to planning your next visit in the weeks ahead.

IHE G-News July 31, 2023

DWPA Staff on July 31, 2023

July 31, 2023
Federal Funding Opportunities

U.S. Department of Education; Institute of Education Sciences Education Research applications due September 21, 2023

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) supports field-initiated research to build knowledge and understanding of education practice and policy that will help improve education experiences and outcomes for all learners across the lifespan in the U.S. Through this program, IES supports both basic and applied research that contributes to scientific knowledge and theory of teaching, learning, and organizing education systems; yields outcomes and products that are useful to learners and the educators and education institutions that serve them; and informs stakeholders about the cost and practical benefits and effects of programs, practices, and policies on relevant outcomes. IES will consider applications that address one of the following topics:

Career and Technical Education
Civics Education and Social Studies
Cognition and Student Learning
Early Learning Programs and Policies
Improving Education Systems
Literacy
Policies, Practices, and Programs to Support English Learners
Postsecondary and Adult Education
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education
Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Context for Teaching and Learning
Teaching, Teachers, and the Education Workforce

U.S. Department of Education; Institute of Education Sciences Special Education Research applications due September 21, 2023

This program supports rigorous special education research that addresses practical problems and issues facing learners with or at risk for disabilities, their families, practitioners, and policymakers. IES encourages a broad range of research, including studies that may have more than one research focus, such as reading and behavior, and may focus broadly on students with disabilities or on a particular disability, such as autism spectrum disorders. The range of research supported through this program includes, but is not limited to, programs to improve child development and school readiness; academic and/or behavioral interventions; instructional practices and/or professional development programs for teachers and other school-based personnel; strategies for improving the family support and engagement critical to the success of students with disabilities; policies and systems-level interventions and programs to address school finance, school-community collaborations, or school structures that affect educational progress for students with disabilities; transition from secondary school to postsecondary education, career, and/or independent living; as well as access to, persistence in, and completion of postsecondary education.

U.S. Department of Education; Institute of Education Sciences Research Training Programs in Special Education applications due September 21, 2023

This program prepares researchers to conduct rigorous and relevant early intervention and special education research. The intention is to support investigators in the early stages of their academic careers who have an established interest in special education research and to prepare them for an independent research career focused on learners with or at risk of disabilities. Under this program, investigators complete an integrated research and career development plan with guidance from experienced mentors.

U.S. Department of Education; Office for Postsecondary Education Postsecondary Student Success Program applications due September 25, 2023

The purpose of this program is to equitably improve postsecondary student outcomes, including retention, transfer, credit accumulation, and completion, by leveraging data and implementing, scaling, and rigorously evaluating evidence-based activities to support data-driven decisions and actions by institutional leaders committed to inclusive student success.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative: Novel Targets for Opioid Use Disorders and Opioid Overdose applications due February 1, 2024

This opportunity is part of the National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addictions Long-term (HEAL) initiative to accelerate the development of novel medications to treat all aspects of the opioid addiction cycle, including progression to chronic use, withdrawal symptoms, craving, relapse, and overdose. This specific funding opportunity will support research focusing on the identification of druggable new targets and discovery of optimizable probes for development of safe and efficacious medications to prevent and treat opioid use disorders, opioid overdose, and opioid-polysubstance use comorbidities.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; National Institutes of Health Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Program for Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences applications due February 15, 2024

The overarching goal of this program is to encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in the biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce, to pursue further studies or careers in research by supporting creative educational activities with a primary focus on courses for skills development, research experiences, and mentoring activities. The fully integrated educational activities should prepare undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds to enter Ph.D. degree programs in the neurosciences. To accomplish this institutional awards will be provided to develop neuroscience research education programs comprised of collaborative partnerships integrated across different educational institution types. Each partnership must include:

one or more institutions that either have a historical and current mission to educate students from any of the populations that have been identified as underrepresented in biomedical research or have a documented track record of recruiting, training and/or educating, and graduating underrepresented students, which has resulted in a historically documented contribution by the institution to the national pool of graduates from underrepresented backgrounds who pursue biomedical research careers;
a research-intensive institution that has an established neuroscience or neuroscience-related program;
integrated curriculum/academic enhancement and research experience activities designed to increase participants’ preparation to enter doctoral programs in the neurosciences; and
well-described plans to provide early communication and interaction between participating students and graduate neuroscience programs across the country.

National Endowment for the Humanities Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities applications due October 11, 2023

This program supports research that examines technology and its relationship to society through the lens of the humanities, with a focus on the dangers and/or opportunities presented by technology, broadly defined. The National Endowment for the Humanities is particularly interested in projects that examine the role of technology in shaping current social and cultural issues.

National Science Foundation Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems proposals due November 17, 2023

The Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES) Program supports research projects that advance basic scientific understanding of integrated socio-environmental systems and the complex interactions within and among the environmental and human components of such a system. The program seeks proposals that emphasize the truly integrated nature of a socio-environmental system versus two discrete systems (a natural one and a human one) that are coupled. DISES projects must explore a connected and integrated socio-environmental system that includes explicit analysis of the processes and dynamics between the environmental and human components of the system.

Congress Heads into August Recess with a Long “To Do” List

DWPA Staff on July 28, 2023

GDP Numbers Remain Strong; Fed Raises Interest Rates

Members of Congress head into August recess after today and will return to a long “to do” list, with the end of the current fiscal year looming on September 30th. The House Appropriations Committee approved ten of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 bills out of Full Committee in June and July and passed one bill on the House Floor. That leaves two bills for the House Appropriations Committee to consider when they return to Washington after Labor Day: Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies as well as Commerce, Justice, Science and Related agencies, both of which are expected to be difficult to pass out of Committee. Before the House adjourned, the Military Construction, Veterans and Related Agencies appropriations bill passed the House floor. However, the Agriculture and FDA funding bill, which was also scheduled for a vote on the floor, faced pressure which divided moderates from House Republicans in the Freedom Caucus who demanded additional spending cuts beyond what was agreed to. Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee did something they haven’t done in years — they approved all twelve FY2024 bills out of Full Committee before the August Congressional work period. The Senate FY2024 Appropriations bills will likely see Senate floor action after Labor Day.

Looking forward to Congress’ return to session after Labor Day, the Senate returns September 5th and the House returns September 12th. That leaves about 15 or so legislative days until the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. Many in Congress, especially the House and Senate Appropriators, will work behind the scenes through the August Congressional recess to try and reconcile what is shaping up to be a massive budget fight. Keep in mind, the House and Senate proposed spending levels are more than $100 billion apart. The Congressional schedule does not leave much time before the September 30th end of the fiscal year, so a Continuing Resolution (CR) is all but assured to give the House and Senate Appropriators time to move the twelve Appropriations bills across each Chamber’s floor. A CR would fund the government at current FY 2023 levels and the timeframe at this point is unclear. Look for this legislation to come before both chambers in mid-September.

Here’s what else you may have missed this week:

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates to a 22-year high amid continued inflation fears. After a brief pause to rate hikes in the previous month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday announced another rate increase of a quarter of a percent in an effort to continue to tamp down inflation. Powell told reporters that if inflation did not cool to the projected 2% annual rate, that he would raise interest rates even higher. Although inflation has not been evenly felt across all products and services, on average it is currently sitting at about a 3% annual rate, nearly half of what it was a year ago. Despite these concerns and the Fed’s tightening of the economy, second-quarter growth of the GDP exceeded expectations yet again, outpacing some speculation of an impending recession.

UPS and Teamsters have reportedly reached an agreement, averting nationwide strike. After more than a month of building tension around the strike which could have impacted some 6% of the U.S. economy, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien announced a tentative agreement with UPS on Tuesday which includes higher pay, more union jobs, and A/C in all delivery vehicles. This victory mints the new Teamsters President as a force in organized labor, especially after he specifically directed President Biden to not get involved in the negotiation process. It remains to be seen if this development could have further reaching impacts in workforces around the country, perhaps where other companies have engaged in union-busting or unfair labor practices.

Congressional priorities in September will likely include more investigations and possibly impeachment. September will be a busy month in Congress, and spending bills will likely take up the majority of floor time, but you should expect committees charged with investigations and oversight to still dominate the limelight like they have these past months. There is growing pressure, especially among House Republicans, to charge somebody with something, whether that be the president’s son, Hunter Biden, or the president’s cabinet, like Attorney General Merrick Garland or Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, or maybe even President Biden himself. The calls for impeachment or indictment will likely only grow louder as news broke yesterday that former President Trump is being charged with additional crimes in the classified documents case which include efforts to delete security camera footage.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell causes concern after apparent health scare. Capitol Hill was abuzz on Wednesday after McConnell froze mid-sentence for an extended period during his weekly press briefing. He eventually was escorted away before returning minutes later to continue his remarks. Aides later said that the Senator felt lightheaded, but some have speculated that a more serious health concern is underlying the incident. McConnell has reportedly fallen several times this year, including one time in March which landed him in the hospital with a concussion. Similar health concerns have been shared about Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Senate’s oldest member.

July 2023 – Vol. 12; Issue 7

DWPA Staff on July 26, 2023

Tending the Campfire: Igniting the Flame of Market Intelligence

Leveraging expert knowledge crosses the bridge from market research to market intelligence and will strengthen an organization’s ability to develop future growth opportunities
Understanding and avoiding widely known market intelligence mistakes and following best practices will ensure organizations are utilizing the most relevant information and resources applicable to their goals
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are the veteran guides used to navigate from market research to market intelligence, providing practical knowledge and giving additional meaning to information gathered
Creating a “culture of market intelligence” supports an organizational commitment to ensuring data-driven and expertly informed decision-making
Market intelligence serves as the foundation for broader strategies, providing key knowledge and clarity that can be used to identify bid opportunities and increase p(win)
Intentionally using market intelligence can help organizations see beyond the federal market horizon, drive businesses forward, and reach your desired summit

Preparing for the Camping Adventure

The implementation of market intelligence on businesses has become a familiar tactic to improve numerous aspects of organizations. However, market intelligence needs to be properly planned for, just like a camping trip. Organizations need to beware of common market intelligence mistakes, as it can be easy to stray down the wrong trail. Common mistakes include only using one source, assuming inconsistencies to be trends, basing decisions on data alone, using out-of-date data, attempting to gather data at the last minute when it should be consistently tracked, and collecting information without an end result in mind. Learning and fully understanding what both market research and market intelligence are and the proper steps to take to be successful with market intelligence will prevent an organization from repeating known misconceptions. This will better position an organization for future operations, as forgetting your raincoat and running out of water are mistakes you will not make twice.

Navigating Market Intelligence

With the increased accessibility and ease of interpreting data, market research has become a standard practice and a growth-accelerator for an organization’s strategic decision-making. However, in the deep woods of today’s highly complex and competitive federal market, raw data and information alone will not keep you from going astray or missing your mark. Organizations need to not only plot the collection of data, but also evaluate, understand, and apply data outcomes in a way that is meaningful and tailored to a desired goal. Without these navigation skills, organizations may find themselves lost without a compass ‒ feeling overwhelmed and wasting hours wandering aimlessly through a dense forest of data, facts, and figures with no actionable results. Bearing the load of insights and analysis is what transforms market research into market intelligence, a differentiator for hiking through the federal market wilderness. The true trail guides of market intelligence are subject matter experts (SMEs), individuals with varying expertise who can read between the lines, pointing out the paths worth taking and providing crucial color and context to a vast landscape. Known as “the consultants of the consultants,” market intelligence SMEs leverage their expertise and industry knowledge to guide organizations on their path, bringing mundane quantitative data to life by providing a qualitative perspective and providing organizations with additional tools for using information.

Cooking up a Culture of Market Intelligence

While the benefits of market intelligence are vast, they are only felt when market intelligence is used organization-wide to complement other business offerings and drive company goals through data-driven, expert-informed decision-making. Too often, market intelligence gets left alone in the woods, finding itself delegated to a few individuals and disconnected from the larger organization. Operating in a vacuum such as this is not an effective use of market intelligence resources. Instead, market intelligence must be connected to all aspects of the broader business and guide strategic initiatives (e.g., key hires, mergers and acquisitions, etc.) and offerings. Companies must create and adopt a “culture of market intelligence,” ingraining the best practices and consistent utilization across business lines and into the very fiber of the organization. This culture fosters collaboration throughout the organization and ensures individuals from each line of business are aligned to the greater goals and targeted outcomes and allows for market intelligence SMEs to set appropriate parameters, acquire appropriate data, and provide expert knowledge to help move the organization forward.

Lighting the Campfire: Operationalizing Market Intelligence for GovCon Strategies

True market intelligence is much more than warmed-over empirical spending data, market sizing, and organization charts. When operationalized, market intelligence has a transcendent impact on strategy at the GovCon corporate, group, and bid opportunity level – delivering tangible value that informs and rationalizes decision-making. In the GovCon space, best practices include “Company X” blackhat role playing, “solution to win” analysis (not your grandparents’ outdated “how low can you go” price to win assessments) and ferreting out credible info on cure notices and award fees rather than relying on bloviations from competitors seeking to unseat incumbents. Useful market intel leverages non-obvious event correlation (e.g., business developer migration paths are a reliable early warning indicator of companies that are in trouble) to inform analysis, develop compelling win themes, and validate the tendentious rumors spread around the campfire. Well-run companies know that there is no true “white space” in the GovCon market. Market intelligence helps identify the sweet spot for any firm – the intersection of market attractiveness and the ability to compete. The best market intel doesn’t just confirm what you already knew…it unveils actionable insights you didn’t know to ask about.

10 Market Intelligence Elements That Can’t Be Ignored

Informed, qualitative perspectives are as valuable as quantitative perspectives and providing professional input can assist in avoiding group think and internal echo chambers.
Establishing specific objectives and ensuring everyone understands them is a primary imperative.
Understanding an organization’s capabilities, customers, and structure is necessary to identify the right data sets.
The market lacks one authoritative source of intel, making the crucial discipline the ability to seek out various sources, federate the data, and then interpret the ground truth through triangulation.
The ideas, messages, and value propositions resulting from market intel need to be tested and validated.
Even the most compelling value proposition requires knowing if someone is willing (or able) to change—more-so for mission-focused customers!
When your capabilities help customers get things done (tangibly, and intangibly), it sells itself.
Even the best solution still must conform to the constraints of the market; and always assume there are others trumpeting similar features and benefits.
Understanding competitor strengths and weaknesses is key; but knowing why a customer is bound to a company is more valuable.
There is nothing of greater benefit than having talent that not only can collect and interpret data from an analytical standpoint, but also provide practical, objective perspectives.

Ted Milone
202-744-1363
Ted.Milone@dwpassociates.com

Meredith Aurora
703-362-7737
Meredith.Aurora@dwpassociates.com

Jessica Butturff
703-786-1841
Jessica.Butturff@dwpassociates.com

John Hagan Joins Deep Water Point & Associates as a Strategic Advisor for Transaction Advisory Services Practice

DWPA Staff on July 25, 2023

John Hagan, a well-known and highly respected merger, acquisition, and capital markets expert, has joined Deep Water Point & Associates as a strategic advisor for its Transaction Advisory Services practice.

Local Government G-News July 24, 2023

DWPA Staff on July 24, 2023

July 24, 2023
Federal Funding Opportunities

U.S. Department of Agriculture; Rural Utilities Service Powering Affordable Clean Energy letters of interest due September 29, 2023

As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, The Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE) program PACE helps make clean, affordable, and reliable energy accessible to the people of rural America. PACE will forgive up to 60 percent of loans for renewable energy projects that use wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, or biomass, as well as for renewable energy storage projects. The PACE program is available to eligible applicants that generate electricity for resale to residents in both rural and nonrural areas. However, at least 50 percent of the population served by the proposed renewable energy project must live in communities with populations of 20,000 or fewer.

U.S. Department of Commerce; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration FY2023 Ocean-Based Climate Resilience applications due September 11, 2023

The Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators funding opportunity seeks to fund develop business accelerators that provide specific programming and opportunities for small businesses and entrepreneurs aligned with identified marine-based climate resilience theme areas: ocean renewable energy; coastal and ocean carbon sequestration monitoring and accounting; Hazard Mitigation and Coastal Resilience; and ecosystems services, including change detection, change analysis, and change adaptation/mitigation. The accelerators will support entrepreneurs and startups with training, resources, mentorship, and funding to bring ocean-based climate resilience solutions to market. This funding opportunity announcement addresses Phase One of what will be implemented as a two-phase process. In Phase One, NOAA seeks proposals from qualified accelerator entities that define an approach for scoping, planning, and designing climate resilience accelerator activities according to the requirements defined in this announcement.

U.S. Department of the Interior; National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund- African American Civil Rights- History Grants applications due October 10, 2023

The National Park Service’s (NPS) African American Civil Rights Grant Program (AACR) will document, interpret, and preserve the sites and stories of the full history of the African American struggle to gain equal rights from transatlantic slave trade forward. The Historic Preservation Fund (HPF) will fund a broad range of history projects including survey and planning, research and documentation, interpretation and education, and collections conservation.

U.S. Department of the Interior; National Park Service Historic Preservation Fund- African American Civil Rights- Preservation Grants applications due October 10, 2023

Under the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), Preservation Grants will fund a broad range of preservation projects for historic sites including architectural services, historic structure reports, preservation plans, and physical preservation to structures.

Senate Appropriators Add $13.7 Billion Above Spending Caps

DWPA Staff on July 21, 2023

House and Senate Republicans Continue to Stymie the Biden Administration

Senate Appropriators on Thursday announced a bipartisan agreement to add $13.7 billion above the spending caps set by the Debt Limit Agreement to FY24 spending bills for both defense and domestic priorities. Senate Appropriations Chair Murray and Ranking Member Collins announced their intention to add $8 billion in defense spending and $5.7 billion in domestic spending. This decision comes as both House and Senate Appropriations Committees race to complete committee action on their respective versions of the FY24 appropriations bills before the August recess, a process which has seen increasingly heated debates in the House Appropriations Committee. As a reminder, the House has been marking up bills to spending levels well below the benchmark reached in the Debt Limit Agreement and adding numerous policy riders, so the gap continues to widen between the House and Senate with just weeks to go before the end of the current fiscal year on September 30, 2023. To track all the FY2024 appropriations developments please refer to the Congressional Research Service FY2024 Appropriations status table here.

Here’s what else you may have missed this week:

Republican Senators are blocking a growing list of Biden nominees. Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Rand Paul (R-KY) are taking a page from Senator Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) playbook (who is blocking Department of Defense nominations over abortion policy) and blocking dozens of Biden Administration nominees to serve as U.S. ambassadors to a variety of countries. Most of these nominees are career Foreign Service officers, the types of nominees who typically sail through the Senate unimpeded. But Senators Vance and Paul are blocking these nominations to protest diversity initiatives in the Department of State and a lack of investigations on the origins of COVID-19, respectively. Other Senators critical of these actions have said that it is weakening America’s position in the world as adversaries have better and more direct relationships to other countries than we do. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has even threatened to have Senators work through the August recess to clear the log jam and go through the parliamentary processes to get these positions filled. Perhaps the threat will be enough to move the needle, but Republicans have seemed determined to keep the Biden Administration from getting any easy wins this year.

Speaker McCarthy reportedly promised to hold a vote to expunge former President Trump’s impeachments. As first reported exclusively by Politico earlier this week, Speaker McCarthy may have made assurances that the House would vote to expunge Trump’s record perhaps as early as next week. These promises were made privately, apparently in response to a growing spat between the embattled former-president and Speaker McCarthy over him refusing an endorsement this early in the Republican Presidential Primary. See the full article from Politico here.

House investigations continue, including IRS whistleblowers and a review of the DOJ. On Wednesday, House Republicans continued investigating the Biden Administration, holding a hearing with IRS whistleblowers to look into alleged pressure from the Department of Justice in seeking reduced penalties for President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for tax fraud and gun charges to which he has plead guilty. The two IRS whistleblowers claimed during the House Oversight Committee Hearing that the investigation was slow-walked and given preferential treatment by the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case. This hearing in many ways was designed to build the case for an impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland or even President Biden, although many observers feel the hearing lacked any significant new revelations to make that outcome likely.

IHE G-News July 18, 2023

DWPA Staff on July 18, 2023

July 18, 2023
Federal Funding Opportunities

NEW: U.S. Department of Commerce; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ocean-Based Climate Resilience applications due September 11, 2023

Funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Climate Resilience Accelerators will fund accelerator entities that will support businesses navigating commercialization pathways for coastal and ocean-based reliance solutions related to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s mission to help communities prepare for, adapt to and build resilience to climate challenges. The accelerators will support entrepreneurs and startups with training, resources, mentorship, and funding to bring ocean-based climate resilience solutions to market. This funding opportunity addresses Phase One of what will be implemented as a two-phase process. Phase One seeks proposals from qualified accelerator entities that define an approach for scoping, planning, and designing climate resilience accelerator activities according to the program requirements.

Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grants for Libraries preliminary proposals due September 20, 2023

The National Leadership Grants for Libraries Program supports projects that address critical needs of the library and archives fields and have the potential to advance practice and strengthen library and archival services for the American public. Successful proposals will generate results such as new models, tools, research findings, services, practices, and/or alliances that can be widely used, adapted, scaled, or replicated to extend and leverage the benefits of federal investment. Specifically, the goals for this program are to generate projects of far-reaching impact that:

Build the workforce and institutional capacity for managing the national information infrastructure and serving the information and education needs of the public.
Build the capacity of libraries and archives to lead and contribute to efforts that improve community well-being and strengthen civic engagement.
Improve the ability of libraries and archives to provide broad access to and use of information and collections with emphasis on collaboration to avoid duplication and maximize reach.
Strengthen the ability of libraries to provide services to affected communities in the event of an emergency or disaster.
Strengthen the ability of libraries, archives, and museums to work collaboratively for the benefit of the communities they serve.

Institute of Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program preliminary proposals due September 20, 2023

The Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program supports the training and professional development of library and archives professionals; developing faculty and information leaders; and recruiting, educating, and retaining the next generation of library and archives professionals in order to develop a diverse library and archival workforce and meet the information needs of their communities. Specifically, the goals for this program are to generate projects of far-reaching impact that:

Recruit, train, develop, and retain a diverse workforce of library and archives professionals.
Develop faculty, library, and archives leaders by increasing the institutional capacity of libraries, archives, and graduate programs related to library and information science.
Enhance the training and professional development of the library and archival workforce to meet the needs of their communities.

NEW: National Science Foundation National Quantum Virtual Laboratory letters of intent due October 6, 2023

The new National Quantum Virtual Laboratory (NQVL) is a shared infrastructure designed to facilitate the translation from basic science and engineering to resultant technology, while at the same time emphasizing and advancing scientific and technical value. The NQVL aims to develop and utilize use-inspired and application-oriented quantum technologies. In the process, NQVL researchers will explore quantum frontiers, foster the Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) workforce education and training, engage in outreach activities at all levels, and promote broadening participation, diversity, equity, and inclusion in QISE, thereby lowering barriers at all entry points of the research enterprise.

Deep Water Point & Associates Names Brooke Smith New CEO

DWPA Staff on July 17, 2023

Deep Water Point & Associates, a federal management consulting, advisory, and growth firm and portfolio company of Renovus Capital Partners, today announced it has named Brooke Smith as its Chief Executive Officer.

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