State Department cyber, tech cuts deeper than previously known
'They have lost people with genuine expertise … in cyber, in 5G, in quantum, a whole group of people who had really exquisite skills,' Coons said. Asked to quantify the extent of cuts to the cybersecurity workforce, Coons said: 'My impression is: significant.'
The cuts to cyber and tech roles at State have gone beyond the CDP. Also laid off have been staff involved in ensuring the use of secure telecommunications infrastructure by allies; and those that worked to fix problems Cyber Command identifies in the networks of U.S. allies, said Annie Fixler, director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, who has been in contact with a number those laid off.
The congressional aide said that 'around half a dozen' of the staff from the Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technologies — which works on topics including AI and quantum computing — were given RIF notices, representing a 'sizeable proportion' of the small office. This aide said this office is now being merged into the CDP.
It has become increasingly clear over the past few days that the reorganized State Department will have very few cybersecurity positions.
The Washington Post first reported earlier this week that CDP personnel had been among those laid off, in particular those on teams that focus on global data policy.
The former official confirmed that Liesyl Franz, the CDP's deputy assistant secretary for International Cyberspace Security was among those laid off. Her departure was previously reported by NextGov. Franz did not respond to a request for comment.
The entire Office of Science and Technology Cooperation has also been shut down, according to a laid-off employee. Felicia Fullilove-Cashwell, a foreign affairs officer at the State Department, wrote on LinkedIn that her reduction in force letter included the words 'office abolished.'
Fullilove-Cashwell said in an interview that 'it has been suggested that regional offices may take over a lot of the functions of eliminated offices,' though she argued that eliminating OSTC still hurts the relationships between civil servants and foreign officials. The elimination of OSTC was previously reported by FedScoop.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
The US is sitting out the most consequential climate summit in a decade. It may offer a victory to China
The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America's withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China. The elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November. Without State's climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said. COP30 is intended to be a landmark summit, setting the global climate agenda for the next 10 years — an absolutely crucial decade as the world hurtles toward ever more catastrophic levels of warming. The US is 'abandoning its responsibilities in the midst of a planetary emergency,' said Harjeet Singh, a longtime climate advocate, COP negotiations veteran and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, a climate justice organization. The US role in climate negotiations has always been marked by contradiction, he told CNN. 'It has championed ambition in rhetoric while expanding domestic fossil fuel extraction.' But its absence creates a 'dangerous vacuum,' he said. One of President Donald Trump's first acts in office was to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement, which he also did in his first term. The elimination of the State climate office is yet another sign of the administration's hard line rejection of climate action. A State Department spokesperson said 'any relevant related work will be managed in other offices in the Department as appropriate.' They did not directly respond to CNN's question on whether it would send representatives to COP30. Experts fear the US absence may derail climate ambition. Wealthy countries, including those in Europe, may use it as a 'license to backtrack,' said Chiara Martinelli, director of Climate Action Network Europe, a coalition of climate non-profits. Poorer countries may lose faith in the process, she told CNN. But most significantly, it could hand a geopolitical advantage to China, allowing America's most formidable global competitor to position itself as a more reliable and stable global partner, experts told CNN. The State Department spokesperson did not comment on what the US withdrawing from Paris would mean for China. China is building out clean energy at a blistering pace, as the US takes a chainsaw to its wind and solar sectors and makes a hard turn back toward fossil fuels. 'It is likely that China's voice will be heard more loudly (at COP30), as they have identified growth in green technologies as a key pillar of their economic strategy,' said Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. In a statement to CNN, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called climate change a 'common challenge faced by mankind.' 'No country can stay out of it, and no country can be immune to it,' the Chinese statement said. The question is whether China will make good on the strong language, and lead by example without its world-power counterpart. All countries have until September to submit new goals to limit climate pollution over the next decade, and China has a history of setting weak targets for itself. Meanwhile, it continues to power plants that run on coal — the most polluting fossil fuel. These goals will provide a road map for climate action between now and 2035, and China, being the world's most-polluting country, will help determine the planet's climate trajectory. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer specific questions about its forthcoming goals, but said the country 'will work with all parties concerned' to 'actively respond to the challenges of climate change, and jointly promote the global green and low-carbon transformation process.' The US has traditionally pushed China to make more ambitious pledges, with varying degrees of success. Climate was the one bright spot in an otherwise strained US-China relationship under the Biden administration. The two nations struck a significant deal nearly two years ago, pledging to ramp up renewables and curb planet-warming gases. 'We were the country that put pressure on them more than any other,' said the source familiar with the process. But it's a very different world now. As COP30 looms, China will not be facing that same pressure. The Biden administration proffered an ambitious US target before leaving office, a cut of 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035. This would have been tough even under a Democratic administration that favors clean energy. It's vanishingly unlikely under the Trump administration with its 'drill, baby, drill' mantra. That leaves all eyes on China. Its target is by far the most consequential for the climate, experts told CNN. The country has a well-established pattern of under-promising and over-delivering. Its most recent target gave the country until 'around' 2030 to peak its climate pollution. Independent analysis shows it is likely this has already happened, five years ahead of schedule, and pollution is now starting to decline. Biden administration officials had encouraged China to put forward a sharp pollution cut of 30% by 2035. But some experts anticipate a much more tepid target giving China plenty of wiggle room. 'Beijing has been sending signals that those demands are just too high, rather unrealistic and unfair in their view,' said Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 'It is very safe to say there will be a gap. And potentially that gap will be rather significant.' Shuo and colleagues at the Asia Society believe China will put forward a high single-digit or a low double-digit figure for pollution cuts. The number matters, said former US climate envoy Todd Stern. A strong, ambitious goal from China 'would affect numbers all over the world and it would affect the perception of whether COP is making decent progress or not,' he added. Even if its climate pledges lack ambition, China is still leagues ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy. It is currently building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor. This will add to the eye-popping 1,400 gigawatts already online — five times what is operating in the US. The big sticking point is coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to which China remains wedded. 'They're building every five years as much coal as remains in the US,' Duke said. That's the paradox of the US withdrawal, Singh said. 'It could advance China's global climate leadership while simultaneously easing the pressure on Beijing to accelerate its difficult transition away from fossil fuels.'
CNN
4 hours ago
- CNN
The US is sitting out the most consequential climate summit in a decade. It may offer a victory to China
The Trump administration fired the last of the US climate negotiators earlier this month, helping cement America's withdrawal from international climate diplomacy. It may also have handed a huge victory to China. The elimination of the State Department's Office of Global Change — which represents the United States in climate change negotiations between countries — leaves the world's largest historical polluter with no official presence at one of the most consequential climate summits in a decade: COP30, the annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, in November. Without State's climate staff in place, even Capitol Hill lawmakers who usually attend the summits have been unable to get accredited, a source familiar with the process said. COP30 is intended to be a landmark summit, setting the global climate agenda for the next 10 years — an absolutely crucial decade as the world hurtles toward ever more catastrophic levels of warming. The US is 'abandoning its responsibilities in the midst of a planetary emergency,' said Harjeet Singh, a longtime climate advocate, COP negotiations veteran and founding director of Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, a climate justice organization. The US role in climate negotiations has always been marked by contradiction, he told CNN. 'It has championed ambition in rhetoric while expanding domestic fossil fuel extraction.' But its absence creates a 'dangerous vacuum,' he said. One of President Donald Trump's first acts in office was to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement, which he also did in his first term. The elimination of the State climate office is yet another sign of the administration's hard line rejection of climate action. A State Department spokesperson said 'any relevant related work will be managed in other offices in the Department as appropriate.' They did not directly respond to CNN's question on whether it would send representatives to COP30. Experts fear the US absence may derail climate ambition. Wealthy countries, including those in Europe, may use it as a 'license to backtrack,' said Chiara Martinelli, director of Climate Action Network Europe, a coalition of climate non-profits. Poorer countries may lose faith in the process, she told CNN. But most significantly, it could hand a geopolitical advantage to China, allowing America's most formidable global competitor to position itself as a more reliable and stable global partner, experts told CNN. The State Department spokesperson did not comment on what the US withdrawing from Paris would mean for China. China is building out clean energy at a blistering pace, as the US takes a chainsaw to its wind and solar sectors and makes a hard turn back toward fossil fuels. 'It is likely that China's voice will be heard more loudly (at COP30), as they have identified growth in green technologies as a key pillar of their economic strategy,' said Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. In a statement to CNN, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called climate change a 'common challenge faced by mankind.' 'No country can stay out of it, and no country can be immune to it,' the Chinese statement said. The question is whether China will make good on the strong language, and lead by example without its world-power counterpart. All countries have until September to submit new goals to limit climate pollution over the next decade, and China has a history of setting weak targets for itself. Meanwhile, it continues to power plants that run on coal — the most polluting fossil fuel. These goals will provide a road map for climate action between now and 2035, and China, being the world's most-polluting country, will help determine the planet's climate trajectory. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not answer specific questions about its forthcoming goals, but said the country 'will work with all parties concerned' to 'actively respond to the challenges of climate change, and jointly promote the global green and low-carbon transformation process.' The US has traditionally pushed China to make more ambitious pledges, with varying degrees of success. Climate was the one bright spot in an otherwise strained US-China relationship under the Biden administration. The two nations struck a significant deal nearly two years ago, pledging to ramp up renewables and curb planet-warming gases. 'We were the country that put pressure on them more than any other,' said the source familiar with the process. But it's a very different world now. As COP30 looms, China will not be facing that same pressure. The Biden administration proffered an ambitious US target before leaving office, a cut of 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035. This would have been tough even under a Democratic administration that favors clean energy. It's vanishingly unlikely under the Trump administration with its 'drill, baby, drill' mantra. That leaves all eyes on China. Its target is by far the most consequential for the climate, experts told CNN. The country has a well-established pattern of under-promising and over-delivering. Its most recent target gave the country until 'around' 2030 to peak its climate pollution. Independent analysis shows it is likely this has already happened, five years ahead of schedule, and pollution is now starting to decline. Biden administration officials had encouraged China to put forward a sharp pollution cut of 30% by 2035. But some experts anticipate a much more tepid target giving China plenty of wiggle room. 'Beijing has been sending signals that those demands are just too high, rather unrealistic and unfair in their view,' said Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. 'It is very safe to say there will be a gap. And potentially that gap will be rather significant.' Shuo and colleagues at the Asia Society believe China will put forward a high single-digit or a low double-digit figure for pollution cuts. The number matters, said former US climate envoy Todd Stern. A strong, ambitious goal from China 'would affect numbers all over the world and it would affect the perception of whether COP is making decent progress or not,' he added. Even if its climate pledges lack ambition, China is still leagues ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy. It is currently building 510 gigawatts of utility-scale solar and wind capacity, according to Global Energy Monitor. This will add to the eye-popping 1,400 gigawatts already online — five times what is operating in the US. The big sticking point is coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, to which China remains wedded. 'They're building every five years as much coal as remains in the US,' Duke said. That's the paradox of the US withdrawal, Singh said. 'It could advance China's global climate leadership while simultaneously easing the pressure on Beijing to accelerate its difficult transition away from fossil fuels.'
The Intercept
4 hours ago
- The Intercept
USAID Cuts Leave West Bank Water Supply High and Dry
DURA, OCCUPIED WEST BANK — As recently as Christmas, this small community near Hebron thought it had a deal with the United States to tackle one of its most pressing issues: water supply. In December, Dura joined the municipalities of Halhul and Hebron to sign a memorandum with the U.S. Agency for International Development to fund a $46 million program shoring up their local water systems. It was a project of tremendous local import. The three neighboring communities are among the most water-deprived in the West Bank. They rely on irregular water supplies from Israel. When water does arrive, some 30-40 percent is lost in distribution, chiefly due to leaks and theft. It's this 30-40 percent that the project meant to fix. But in late February, a month after President Donald Trump's inauguration, it was terminated. A State Department spokesperson said by email that it was 'determined to not fit within the standards laid out by Sec. [Marco] Rubio for U.S. foreign assistance, which must make the United States stronger, safer, or more prosperous.' Since taking office, Trump, with the help of Elon Musk, has eviscerated the U.S. foreign aid budget. In March, Rubio terminated 80 percent of USAID programs after a review by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The administration also said foreign aid would be shrunk and reconstituted under the State Department. On July 1, USAID formally dissolved. The consequences of this retrenchment will land on Palestinian communities like Dura, which for decades have counted on the U.S. as the preeminent funder of water infrastructure in the Occupied Territories. The water supply for Palestinians in the West Bank is already tight. While Israelis consume an average 200-300 liters per day, comparable to Americans, the West Bank average is 86 liters — an average that masks gigantic differences between the haves, in well-supplied areas, and the have-nots. A number of critical water projects in Palestinian population centers have been abandoned because of USAID's collapse. In Jericho, USAID was funding work to connect thousands of homes to sewer lines for the first time. Not only is the work unfinished, but the municipality has also had to reach into its own pocket to repave the roads that American taxpayers paid to dig up. In Tulkarem, where USAID was improving wastewater services for a community in desperate need of them, the sudden stop to work means sewage continues to build up in nearby lagoons, breeding mosquitoes. Subhi Samhan, director of research and development at the Palestinian Water Authority, called the abrupt pullout 'catastrophic.' 'There's no other actor in the context right now to fill the gap,' said a humanitarian worker who works in the region but requested anonymity to avoid Israeli or American retaliation against their organization's work. 'There's no Plan B on this.' In another part of the West Bank, Al-Auja Spring is shown almost completely dried up by Israeli forces in Jericho on May 2, 2025. Photo: Issam Rimawi/Anadolu/Getty Images That's evident in Dura, a hilly community of about 90,000 people on the outskirts of Hebron. Unlike some places in the West Bank, Dura has no wells or reservoirs. Its primary water supply is a single 24-inch pipe. It's operated by the Palestinian Water Authority, but the actual water comes from Mekorot, Israel's national water company, according to Dura municipal officials. (They requested anonymity to speak freely.) Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, Israel has also controlled the majority of its water resources. The Palestinian Liberation Organization signed agreements with Israel for rights to a fixed volume from the land's main aquifer in the 1990s, but the Palestinian population in the West Bank has grown 75 percent since then, making this share increasingly inadequate. In much of the West Bank, Israeli authorities keep a tight grip on Palestinian efforts to build wells, reservoirs, pipelines, or any other infrastructure. Today, West Bankers buy 60 percent of their household water supplies from Israeli water companies, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. In Dura, the water in the pipe is neither reliable nor sufficient for local needs. The municipality stores what they get in tanks, then parcels it around the city on a rotating, published schedule. Residents often gripe to the municipality about the meager flows. 'The reality is, our water supply is not enough for our needs,' a Dura official said. The average Dura resident consumes about 45 liters per day, falling short of the 50-100 liters that's sufficient, according to World Health Organization experts, to meet water needs most of the time. But when supplies are limited, people's usage can drop as low as 26 liters per day. The USAID project planned, among other things, to shore up the 228 kilometers of pipe that make up Dura's water grid. It was hoped that by plugging leaks and reducing theft, the city could sell more water the legal way, strengthening its own finances. In principle, this would also spare Dura residents from buying triple-priced private water supplies — or just going without. Read our complete coverage Water has long been a pillar of America's policy in the Occupied Territories. From 1993 to 2023, the U.S. spent $7.6 billion in aid in the West Bank and Gaza, with about a third of that going to the category of economic growth and infrastructure — like water. Dave Harden, a former mission director for USAID in the West Bank and Gaza, reckons the agency spent 'probably hundreds of millions' on water and sanitation projects since the Oslo Agreements of the 1990s. The U.S. was well aware that water was choking Palestinian development. A 2024 State Department report on the territories' investment climate — since removed — listed water insecurity among the 'most immediate impediment[s]' for the Palestinian economy. As president, Joe Biden echoed the longtime U.S. foreign policy consensus when he argued that improving Palestinian living conditions could bolster support for the Palestinian Authority and improve chances for a sustainable two-state solution. Some pro-Israel groups agreed. The Israel Policy Forum, a U.S. NGO, specifically named improving the parlous conditions of water access in the West Bank as one of 50 steps to facilitate a negotiated peace. In the West Bank and Gaza, USAID has paid for dozens of wells and hundreds of miles of pipelines. It's built reservoirs, storage tanks, and sewage infrastructure. As of 2016, USAID claimed to have improved clean water access for 1 million Palestinians. While many countries fund water infrastructure in the Palestinian territories, none match the financial heft of the U.S., said Samhan of the Palestinian Water Authority. 'Most of the projects funded by USAID are major projects. Not all countries can organize these funds. USAID can do $60, $70, $100 million at once,' he said. Yet despite decades of work by the U.S. and other donors, the scope of need remains astronomical. Leaky water infrastructure is a common problem throughout the West Bank. The World Bank estimates that if the West Bank recovered all of its lost water, it would amount to boosting total supply by around 40 percent. Asked what they plan to do now that the USAID money is gone, Dura officials took a laconic attitude, saying they hope to find a European funder. What galls many Palestinians is the sense that while they scrounge for water, their Israeli neighbors have plenty. Water shortages are reshaping the West Bank countryside. Water insecurity is among the compounding pressures forcing people to leave rural areas for crowded, miserable conditions in cities. Climate change is putting this inequity into sharper relief. Last winter, precipitation levels in much of the Holy Land were about half of their historical average. Climate forecasts for the region anticipate soaring average temperatures, intensifying heatwaves, and nastier droughts. This will likely stress water supplies as more surface water gets cooked off into the air and aquifers are less fully replenished. In February, Israeli President Isaac Herzog pointed to the weak winter rains and warned Israelis could experience 'a summer of massive natural disasters.' But on water, Israel is well prepared. It gets most of its drinking water from state-of-the-art desalination plants on the Mediterranean Sea. It recycles much of this water, after it flows through Israeli homes, into its ultra-efficient agricultural sector. Its water grid has one of the world's lowest leakage rates. Samer Kalbouneh, acting director general for projects and international relations at the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority, said one of the West Bank's biggest climate-adaptation needs is interconnectivity: linking its water-rich areas with its water-poor ones. A trained water engineer, he said a logical move would be for West Bank cities to process their own sewage, then send the reclaimed water to desperate farmers and ranchers in the Jordan Valley. (Today, Palestinian cities send sewage to Israel, which reclaims the water and charges the Palestinian Authority $30 million a year for the service.) But in practice, Palestinian localities can't build the infrastructure for this. Kalbouneh said, 'You can't even build a 1×1-meter outhouse in the Jordan Valley without it being demolished,' as this qualifies as Area C, a zone controlled by the Israeli military. As for USAID, he said it tended to promote projects like the one in Dura, which asked Palestinian communities to work within the constraints of Israeli occupation — rather than releasing those constraints. Asked why, he said, 'The U.S. is managing the conflict, not ending it.'
