MD’s Bridges Get $400M for Repairs

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

In a news release from US Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin and Congressman Steny H. Hoyer, the Maryland Democrats laud more than $400 million in federal funding earmarked over the next five years for Maryland to repair and replace deteriorating bridges. There are currently 273 bridges in Maryland that have been rated poor or structurally deficient, including the Gov. Thomas Johnson Bridge. The FY22 budget also included $1 million toward designing the widening of MD 4 and a Thomas Johnson Bridge replacement. The funds come from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Marine Corps is considering abandoning Parris Island amid rising extreme weather threats, reports Military Times. “I’m aware that there are conversations in the Marine Corps about the possibility of moving bases right now,” Meredith Berger, the assistant secretary of the Navy for Environment, Installations and Energy, said Monday. “We are seeing some real impacts there … water impacts … [Parris Island is] usually in the path of a storm there.” The Navy’s Climate Action 2030 report was issued this week.

Russian troops plunge through Ukraine lines in Donbas as fighting enters a decisive week, reports Military Times. A month into Russia’s Donbas offensive, Moscow’s troops were still searching for a breakthrough. That may have finally arrived. On May 18, Russian forces broke through Ukrainian lines west of the town of Popasna. Russia massed units there after capturing the town on May 8, preparing for a larger assault to drive into the open terrain to the west. Their primary objective appears to be cutting the highway leading from Bakhmut to the cities of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, the last remaining Ukrainian outposts in Luhansk Oblast and the scene of fierce urban fighting for weeks.

A newly declassified US intelligence document shows that a Russian naval blockade has halted maritime trade at Ukranian ports, reports The Washington Post. World leaders call it a deliberate attack on the global food supply chain raising fears of political instability and shortages unless grain and other essential agricultural products are allowed to flow freely from Ukraine. Russia’s navy now effectively controls all traffic in the northern third of the Black Sea, making it unsafe for commercial shipping, according to a US government document.

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak has announced his country is launching the second phase of its mid-range air defense program by requesting the US government to sell it six Patriot batteries with related gear, reports Defense News.

Customs and Border Protection bulletin: American fighters headed to Ukraine questioned at US airports. US officials, worried about domestic security issues, have been questioning Americans at airports as they travel to Ukraine to fight Russia, according to an intelligence bulletin reviewed by Politico. The document shows that the US government is gathering information about Americans traveling to Ukraine and is interested in their activity after they return. But critics say the focus on “violent extremist-white supremacists” echoes one of the Kremlin’s top propaganda points: that supporting Ukraine means also supporting neo-Nazis.

North Korea launches three missiles, including ICBM: Seoul, reports UPI. One day after US President Joe Biden concluded his trip to Asia, North Korea launched three ballistic missiles eastward into the sea, including one probable ICBM, the South Korean military said on Wednesday. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff detected the three launches from the area of Pyongyang’s international airport at roughly 6 am, 6:37 am, and 6:42 am, it said in a text message sent to reporters.

 

 

The search for who leaked the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade draft opinion falls to a former Army colonel Gail Curley, reports Navy Times. Curley began her job as marshal of the US Supreme Court less than a year ago, a mostly behind-the-scenes job overseeing the court’s police force and operations of the courthouse. This month, however, she began investigating a leak to Politico of a draft document suggesting a court ready to overturn the 1973 decision that women have a constitutional right to abortion. The leak has sparked protests and around-the-clock security at justices’ homes, demonstrations at the court, and concerns about violence following the court’s ultimate decision.

Navy officials say they have saved $150 million by consolidating IT systems, reports FCW. They hope to save more by 2025 as the Navy ramps up its Cattle Drive effort launched in 2020 to reduce duplication. The idea caught on and sparked consideration of a Defense Department-wide effort, which later made its way into the latest annual defense policy bill.

John Sherman, DoD’s chief information officer, reported to the House Armed Service Committee that certain highly classified, limited access programs would sunset legacy desktop hardware known as “Chinstrap” to be replaced by a virtual desktop called Compartmentalized Enterprise Desktop, reports FCW.

Some 150 veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder will participate annually in a pilot program to train service dogs, Stars and Stripes reports from The Journal of the American Medical Association. The five-year program is designed to determine whether the training increases the veterans’ feelings of self-worth and sense of a purposeful life, according to the article in the May 24 edition of the journal. The free, once-weekly training program will last eight weeks and be conducted at veterans centers in Anchorage, AK; Palo Alto, CA; San Antonio, TX; and West Palm Beach, FL.

The Senate’s deal on the House’s toxic exposure bill includes more VA staff, dozens of new VA medical clinics, reports Military Times. Veterans Affairs officials would set up 31 major medical clinics across America and hire thousands more claims processors and health care staff under compromise toxic exposure legislation unveiled in the Senate. The provisions would be attached to the already massive Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act (or PACT Act) which passed out of the House in March. That measure carried a price tag of more than $200 billion over the next decade and would potentially affect as many as one in five veterans living in America today.

Before the submarine Connecticut and its crew collided with an undersea mountain last fall, red flags abounded. Seven months before grounding on the undersea mountain, Navy Times reports crew saying things weren’t right on their elite and secretive boat. Released this week, Big Navy’s command investigation into Connecticut’s nearly fatal grounding on the floor of the South China Sea last fall echoes those sailors’ morale concerns, while raising troubling questions about the readiness of the boat and its leadership as higher echelons pushed the ship out onto deployment in spring 2021.

More than 80 senators urge Biden to expedite Sweden and Finland NATO admission, reports UPI. Sens. Jean Shaheen (D-NH) and Thom Tills (R-NC) led a bipartisan group which sent a letter offering their “full support for the United States to provide mutual security assurances to the governments of Sweden and Finland,” adding that expanding NATO would put Russian President Vladimir Putin on alert amid his nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Pentagon’s Naming Commission will push for Fort Bragg to be renamed Fort Liberty, reports Army Times. The commission has offered its recommendations for renaming nine Army bases that currently have Confederate figures as their namesakes. The suggestions would rename locations after African-American soldiers and women soldiers for the first time. Officials with the Defense Department Naming Commission said the changes were designed to guarantee that prominent military locations have names “that evoke confidence in all who serve.” The panel will issue its final report to Congress later this fall, and the defense secretary will be charged with implementing the changes by January 2024.

Contracts:

Deloitte & Touche LLP, Arlington Virginia, was awarded a firm-fixed price and time and materials contract (HQ0034-19-F-0238) in the amount of $11,234,303. The total if all options are exercised is $50,255,745. The purpose of this contract is to provide financial improvement and audit readiness and remediation, data reconciliation, audit remediation, and managers’ internal control program to support the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA). The service goal is to improve DSCA’s existing audit readiness infrastructure by strengthening internal controls and financial management practices; instituting sustainable business processes; implementing Federal Identity Credential and Access Management requirements for existing IT systems; and driving effective change throughout the Security Cooperation community. Work will be performed in Arlington, Virginia. Operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $11,234,303 have been obligated for this action. The expected completion date is Nov. 14, 2024. Washington Headquarters Services, Arlington, Virginia, is the contracting activity. (Awarded May 12, 2022)

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $9,726,488 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N0002417C5410 to exercise options and incrementally fund existing contract line items for engineering and technical support of Standard Missiles 2 and 6 (SM-2/6). This contract combines purchases for the US government (23%); and the governments of Japan, Germany, Spain, Denmark, South Korea, and Chile (77%) under the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (82%); Huntsville, Alabama (5%); Joplin, Missouri (5%); Middletown, Connecticut (3%); Andover, Massachusetts (2%); Westminster, Maryland (1%); and various other locations (each location less than 1%) totaling 2%, and is expected to be completed by February 2025. FMS funds (Japan) in the amount of $3,019,200 (31%); FMS funds (Germany) in the amount of $2,762,038 (28%); fiscal 2022 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,875,000 (19%); FMS funds (Spain) in the amount of $583,500 (6%); FMS funds (Denmark) in the amount of $485,000 (5%); fiscal 2022 research, development, test and evaluation (Army) funds in the amount of $350,000 (4%); FMS funds (Korea) in the amount of $331,750 (4%); and FMS funds (Chile) in the amount of $320,000 (3%) will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity. 

PNH Resources Pte Ltd., Singapore (N40084-22-D-0066); KRD Enterprise Pte Ltd., Singapore (N40084-22-D-0067); King George J&J Pte Ltd., Singapore (N40084-22-D-0068); and HB-DB JV LLC, Hyattsville, Maryland (N40084-22-D-0075), are awarded a combined $100,000,000 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, design-build/design-bid-build multiple award construction contract for Public Works Department Singapore. Work to be performed provides for design-build or design-bid-build projects for office, industrial and residential renovation, new construction, building demolition, built-in equipment repair/replacement, piping repair/replacement, pipe lagging, electrical work, mechanical work, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning work, fire protection work, carpentry work, road pavement, fencing, roofing, painting, site work, concrete work, masonry, welding, other architectural finishing work, other civil engineering work, environmental work, and incidental sampling and testing for and removal and disposal of lead based paint and asbestos containing material. PNH Resources Pte Ltd. is being awarded an initial task order at $1,418,151for conversion of Buildings 74-4, 75-4 and RSB-2 into Hazardous Material Facility Singapore. Work for this task order is expected to be completed by June 2023. The remaining three contractors are each being awarded $7,233 to satisfy the guaranteed minimum. Work will be performed in Singapore. The term of the contract is not to exceed 96 months with an expected completion date of April 2030. Fiscal 2022 operation and maintenance (Navy) funds in the amount of $1,418,151 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Future task orders will be primarily funded by operation and maintenance (Navy) funds. This contract was competitively procured via the beta.sam.gov with four proposals received. These four contractors may compete for task orders under the terms and conditions of the awarded contract. The Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Far East, Yokosuka, Japan, is the contracting activity.

AMG Healthcare Services Inc., Doral, Florida (HT005018D0001); Locum Inc., Cary, North Carolina (HT005018D0002); American Hospital Services Group LLC., Exton, Pennsylvania (HT005018D0003); Global Consulting International Inc. , Salt Lake City, Utah (HT005018D0004); Global Dynamics LLC, Columbia, Maryland (HT005018D0005); Quality Staffing Solutions Inc., Cary, North Carolina (HT005018D0006); Catalyst Professional Services Inc., Colorado Springs, Colorado (HT005018D0008); Dependable Health Services Inc., San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0009); Frontline National LLC, Milford, Ohio (HT005018D0010); Saratoga Medical Center Inc., Fairfax, Virginia (HT005018D0012); The Royster Group Inc., Atlanta, Georgia (HT005018D0013); Dilligas Corp., San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0014); Vighter LLC, San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0015); Angel Staffing Inc., San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0016); Concentric Methods LLC, Manassas, Virginia (HT005018D0017); Decypher Technologies LTD, San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0018); Enterprise Resource Planning International LLC, Laurel, Maryland (HT005018D0019); Federal Staffing Resources LLC, Annapolis, Maryland (HT005018D0020); OMV Medical Inc., Takoma Park, Maryland (HT005018D0021); Platinum Business Corp., Laurel, Maryland (HT005018D0022); Potomac Healthcare Solutions LLC, Woodbridge, Virginia (HT005018D0023); Quarterline Consulting Services LLC, Herndon, Virginia (HT005018D0024); Readiforce Government Solutions LLC, San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0025); Spectrum Services Group Inc., Sacramento, California (HT005018D0026); Akahi Ingenesis Partners LLC, Honolulu, Hawaii (HT005018D0027); Centralcare, Inc., Fairfax, Virginia (HT005018D0028); Distinctive Health Spectrum Care JV LLC, Bowie, Maryland (HT005018D0029); Donald L. Mooney Enterprises LLC, San Antonio, Texas (HT005018D0030); Giamed Alliance JV LLC, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (HT005018D0031); Luke & Associates Inc., Rockledge, Florida (HT005018D0032); Magnificus Corp., Lanham, Maryland (HT005018D0033); Matrix Providers Inc., Denver, Colorado (HT005018D0034); and The Arora Group Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland (HT005018D0035), were awarded a $1,402,646,753 modification with an effective date of June 1, 2022, to their existing Medical “Q”-Coded Services (MQS) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract. This modification provides an additional one year ordering period under the MQS strategic sourcing program. As a result of this modification, the total cumulative face value of MQS program is increased to $8,902,646,753. This action does not obligate any funds. Funds will be obligated at time of order placement. Orders will be competed among all eligible MQS contract holders. The award amount listed above does not signify an increase to each contract vehicle. The Defense Health Agency Enterprise Medical Services – Contracting Division, San Antonio, Texas, is the contracting activity. (Awarded May 24, 2022)