EPA CIO Carter Farmer picked to be the new federal CIO, sources say

Carter Farmer, the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief information officer, is said to be the White House’s pick for the new federal CIO, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

Farmer replaces Greg Barbaccia as the federal government’s top IT official. Barbaccia left government and returned to Palantir at the end of August. 

“I’m thrilled to hear that Carter Farmer will be the next Federal CIO,” Barbaccia told FedScoop. “I’ve always enjoyed working with Carter, and I think he’s a great fit for the role. We share a very similar culture and approach to getting things done, and he knows his competencies exceptionally well. I’m excited to see what he accomplishes alongside the team at OFCIO and the CIO Council, and I know he’ll bring the same energy and focus to the job that I’ve seen firsthand.”

Farmer was added to the Technology Modernization Fund Board as a fully voting member last month, a position he would hold permanently as the federal CIO, along with General Services Administration CIO David Shive. 

The EPA posted its open CIO position on USAJobs-dot-gov on Monday.

Over the summer, Farmer said the EPA has been using artificial intelligence for several use cases under his direction and supports AI use with experts reviewing outputs.

“If you don’t give people the tools they need, you risk them going outside the bounds of what is available,” he said during the FedInsider webinar in June. “We don’t want people to go use some public tool — we have very strict guardrails around their AI tools internally. So we want people to have the tools they need to do their jobs, but also put some guardrails around what’s safe to use and what’s not safe to use.”

Farmer has also said that the federal CIO Council is reusing work on AI already being done across government, and advised others to lean into older versions of AI if appropriate.

“Anything you’re probably trying to solve in your agency has probably already been solved 10 to 20 thousand times everywhere else in the world,” he said in June. “There is no need for you to go out there and be a trailblazer on something that has already been done 20 times by different agencies.”

Farmer is a U.S. Institute of Peace alum and has been with the EPA since May 2025, according to his LinkedIn.

Last year during a different FedInsider event, Farmer said AI should not be seen as a solution to “any problem.”

“They just jump in there without asking the right questions first,” Farmer said. “Many times, the solution or the problem you’re trying to solve doesn’t need AI.”

Spokespeople for the White House Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to FedScoop’s request for comment on Farmer’s selection.