Senate panel, with plans for AI-fueled efficiencies, waits on DOGE to call

Democratic leadership on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sees “real opportunities” for bipartisan artificial intelligence work that could unearth the kind of inefficiencies in government that the Trump administration says it wants to target. But contact with Elon Musk’s DOGE to move that ball forward hasn’t materialized so far.

David Weinberg, staff director for the Democrats on the powerful tech-focused panel, told FedScoop on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Elastic Public Sector Summit that ranking member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and other minority members are “hoping for more transparency” from DOGE and anxious to “hear more about what they’re thinking.” 

“We don’t hear much from them,” Weinberg said of DOGE, which has focused much of its early efforts on mass firings across the federal workforce, canceling contracts and funded programs, and overstating supposed cost savings. 

“We do hope that they look at more than just reducing headcount as they’re trying to find efficiencies,” Weinberg continued. “We do think that there are a lot of efficiencies to be had — in software purchases, consolidation, the harmonization stuff we’ve been discussing. We have just not been privy to much of that.”

Peters, who led a letter last month asking the White House chief of staff to pause DOGE’s work in federal agencies, has long been focused on government efficiency. In his role as the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Peters has championed legislation that would curb duplicative agency purchases of software and AI tools. 

“Democrats aren’t opposed to a more efficient government. We just have some concerns with how they’ve gone about this and what their focus is,” Weinberg said. “I do hope that we can kind of point them in a productive, bipartisan direction. But it does seem like they’ve had sort of a laser focus on [reductions in force], without thinking about some of these more structural issues.”

Some of those structural issues could be ironed out with a more focused approach to AI regulation. During an on-stage interview at Wednesday’s FedScoop-produced Elastic event, Weinberg acknowledged the challenges agencies and industry have faced in unpacking “three pretty different executive orders on AI” over the course of the past three administrations.

Having that “pendulum swinging back and forth” isn’t helpful for the federal workforce or the private sector, he added, so having “more legislative structure” in place “really makes sense.” 

“There certainly are real opportunities to use AI to find efficiencies,” Weinberg said. “We’re still getting our arms around what we expect to see from this administration as it comes to AI. We have seen some of their nominees and senior leadership talk about moving from a sort of risk-based to impact-based analysis for uses. We’re not really sure exactly what that means. We want to make sure we get conscious of the risks that are raised by some of these uses.”

Peters is interested in pushing two bills this Congress that are aimed at helping agencies be better prepared to use AI. The Promoting Responsible Evaluation and Procurement to Advance Readiness for Enterprise-wide Deployment (PREPARED) for AI Act, which Peters introduced with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. last year, would establish guardrails and risk assessments around agency purchases of AI technologies. Another piece of legislation deals with data modernization and harmonization, calling on agency chief data officers to essentially pursue a “whole of government” approach to AI purchasing decisions.

Weinberg told FedScoop that Peters wants to have discussions with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs HSGAC, and other Republican members before reintroducing both bills. 

“All roads on the committee now run through Chairman Paul,” he said. “So we’re in the early stages of those conversations with them, and I’m sure they’ll want to see what the new administration has to say as well. We are trying to do some of the lowest-hanging fruit from last Congress first. I’m hoping this stuff will be [in] the next tranche.”

For HSGAC Democrats, all of these tech-related legislative paths point back to Washington’s cause du jour: efficiency. In Weinberg’s view, that means hoping DOGE steers away from RIFs and toward transparency, and making sure agencies aren’t duplicating efforts in software buying or in AI development. Harmonizing across the federal government and letting the private sector lead the way with “cost-effective and efficient” tools makes the most sense for all parties, he said

“I don’t think we’re going to see a significant AI private sector-facing regulatory framework going forward or enacted,” Weinberg said during his panel interview. “That being said, setting some guardrails and rules around federal government procurement — the federal government, being the biggest purchaser in the world, can really help shape the market in ways that we think are productive and responsible.”