NASA has conducted a new study using a satellite instrument that orbits the Earth which observed the effect of environmental changes in polar food webs on the boom, bust, peak and decline cycles of polar ocean plants.

NASA said Tuesday the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Ortogonal Polarization instrument aboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation satellite was used as a “space laser” to monitor plankton in polar regions.

“It’s really important for us to understand what controls these boom-and-bust cycles, and how they might change in the future so we can better evaluate the implications on all other parts of the food web,” said Michael Behrenfeld, Oregon State University marine plankton expert.

The space agency noted that the findings will support commercial fisheries, ecosystem management and NASA’s understanding of the interactions between the climate and ocean ecosystems.

NASA added the study discovered year-to-year variations between predator and prey influenced changes in Arctic plankton stocks in the last decade.

A report from Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware) estimates that the Department of Homeland Security will save nearly $1.2 billion over 30 years if DHS completes the  consolidation of its headquarters at the St. Elizabeths West campus in Washington, D.C.

The report, titled “DHS Headquarters Consolidation at St. Elizabeths: Better Results for Less Money,” recommends the incoming administration to prioritize the construction of the consolidated DHS headquarters, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Monday.

Carper said the project will consolidate leadership and agency personnel as well as multiple DHS entities into one campus in an effort to boost national security and emergency response coordination.

He also urged Congress to fully fund President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget request or provide DHS and the General Services Administration with maximum flexibility over the use of available funds.

Obama’s budget request includes $225.6 million to support the St. Elizabeths construction project and another $266.6 million to build a federally-owned headquarters for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The DHS HQ consolidation effort has received approximately two-thirds of necessary funds and requires three years of additional funding to complete, the committee said.

The project could be completed in 2021 if fully funded and could incur $70 million in construction delay overages if not funded.

Andy Ozment, assistant secretary of the office of cybersecurity and communications at the Department of Homeland Security, will resign from his post on Jan. 7, MeriTalk reported Monday.

Morgan Lynch writes Danny Toler, deputy assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS, will replace Ozment in the role.

Ozment is responsible for the department’s cyber incident response initiatives and led a team of cyber professionals that responded to a data breach at the Office of Personnel Management, according to a report by Joe Uchill for The Hill.

Prior to DHS, he served as senior director for cybersecurity at the White House and helped draft national policies on data sharing, infrastructure protection and incident response management.

Ozment also held cybersecurity roles at the Defense Department, National Security Agency, Merrill Lynch, Nortel Networks and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory.

A House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report says the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security spent approximately $95 million combined on 434 cell-site simulation tools that turn cellphones into tracking devices from fiscal year 2010 through FY 2014.

In a report published Monday, the House panel also found that law enforcement component agencies of DOJ and DHS had different policies and methods for the deployment and use of cell-site simulators and depended on a “lower-than-probable cause standard” for the use of such tools in most cases prior to the start of the committee’s bipartisan investigation in April 2015.

DOJ spent at least $71 million over four years on 310 cell-site simulators, while DHS allocated over $24 million to the procurement of 124 devices, according to the document.

The committee released the report “Law Enforcement Use of Cell-Site Simulation Technologies: Privacy Concerns and Recommendations” in response to media releases about the widespread use of such devices.

The document showed that DHS requires state and local law enforcement agencies to use grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Preparedness Grant Program to buy cell-site simulators and that state laws continue to differ on the type of court authorization that agencies should obtain in order to field such devices.

The committee also found that a month prior to the October 2015 public hearing, DOJ and DHS released new policies that require component agencies to secure a warrant based on probable cause and implement a “measure of uniformity” with regard to the use of cell-site simulators by various agencies.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House committee, prepared the report with Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), a ranking member of the House panel.

Michael Johnson, Energy Department chief information officer, has left the agency following an almost two-year stint with the organization, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Steven Norton writes Robbie Green, principal deputy CIO for enterprise information resources management, has been named interim CIO following Johnson’s departure.

A spokesperson from the DOE told the Journal Johnson, a former assistant director for intelligence programs and national security systems in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was originally set to end his stint with the agency on Jan. 20, 2017.

Johnson led cybersecurity, cyber enterprise integration, enterprise information resources management, cyber supply chain risk management and DOE-HQ information technology operations of the department.

He has more than 25 years worth of experience on cybersecurity, information sharing and safeguarding, intelligence and national continuity policy from his stints with the Department of Homeland Security, Sandia National Laboratories and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.