Defense News: U.S. Navy Launches USNS Cody

Source: United States Navy

Capable of transporting 600 tons of personnel and cargo up to 1,200 nautical miles at an average speed of 35 knots, each EPF vessel includes a flight deck to support day and night aircraft launch and recovery operations.  The ships are also capable of interfacing with roll-on/roll-off discharge facilities, and can load and off-load heavy vehicles such as a fully combat-loaded Abrams Main Battle Tank.

“Today’s launch marks another successful milestone for the EPF 14, and it demonstrates the strength of the Navy-Austal USA partnership,” said Strategic and Theater Sealift Program Manager, Program Executive Office, Ships, Tim Roberts. “EPFs provide capability and capacity for a variety of missions, when and where our fleet needs support.”

Launching an EPF is a multi-step process, conducted over two full days.  The ship is moved from the Modular Manufacturing Facility where it was constructed to a docking barge, and then transported to a floating dry dock. Submerging the dry dock into the water then launches the ship to float on its own.

EPFs operate in shallow waterways. These versatile, non-combatant transport ships are used to quickly transport troops, military vehicles, and equipment needed to support:

  • Overseas contingency operations
  • Humanitarian assistance
  • Disaster relief
  • Special operations forces efforts
  • Theater security cooperation activities
  • Emerging joint sea-basing concepts

As one of the Defense Department’s largest acquisition organizations, Program Executive Office, Ships is responsible for executing the development and procurement of all destroyers, amphibious ships, special mission and support ships, and special warfare craft.

Defense News: Commander, Navy Installations Command Rolls Out Maintenance QR Codes to Unaccompanied Housing across the Shore Enterprise

Source: United States Navy

All 10 Navy regions have introduced maintenance QR code reporting to unaccompanied housing facilities. Instead of walking to the building quarterdeck to report maintenance issues in-person or writing them down in a logbook, Sailors can scan their building’s unique QR code, posted in the living spaces and common areas, to fill out a brief online form and report maintenance problems that require attention from building management.

“The maintenance QR codes are just one of the Navy’s ongoing efforts to improve housing and other quality of life services for Sailors,” said Carol Hurd, manager of unaccompanied housing at CNIC, which is responsible for Navy installations’ unaccompanied and family housing. “We strive for continuous improvement and always look to share the best practices and innovations that improve processes to Sailors’ benefit.”

Donna Wilson, the family and unaccompanied housing installation program director at Naval Submarine Base (SUBASE) New London came up with the idea to utilize QR codes for reporting maintenance issues in unaccompanied housing.

“We piloted the program in one barracks for a three week period,” said Wilson. “Results showed the new system to be highly effective and a much better form of communication between resident and management.”

Upon finding success with the pilot program, SUBASE New London’s unaccompanied housing team expanded the QR code initiative across all seven of the installation’s barracks. Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic (CNRMA), SUBASE New London’s parent command, took notice and implemented QR codes at Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island and Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia.

CNIC has since rolled out maintenance QR codes across the shore and as of February 2023, QR code reporting now accounts for nearly 30% of all service calls across CNIC’s installations – with an average 39% increase in service calls reported month-to-month.

“QR codes have made reporting maintenance issues at unaccompanied housing faster and more convenient, which has led to an increase in reporting overall,” said Carol. “This has allowed issues to be addressed early on, before they become larger problems, which will help to maintain the condition of the unaccompanied housing facilities.”

The only Navy bases that will not see UH QR codes for maintenance issues for the time being are Naval Station Guantanamo Bay and Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, due to their remoteness and unique service conditions.

Commander, Navy Installations Command is responsible for worldwide U.S. Navy shore installation management as the Navy’s shore integrator, designing and developing integrated solutions for sustainment and development of Navy shore infrastructure. CNIC oversees 10 Navy regions, 70 bases, and more than 43,000 employees who sustain the fleet, enable the fighter and support the family. Follow CNIC on social media: Facebook, Facebook.com/NavyInstallations; Twitter, @cnichq; and Instagram, @cnichq.

Leader Of $8 Million Medicaid Fraud Scheme Sentenced To 95 Months In Prison

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JULIO ALVARADO was sentenced to 95 months in prison for leading a sprawling scheme to defraud Medicaid of millions of dollars through the billing of fraudulent transportation claims.  ALVARADO previously pled guilty to one count of healthcare fraud.  U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood imposed today’s sentence.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “Julio Alvarado was the leader of a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud Medicaid by filing false claims for medical transportation services that were never provided.  He brazenly lined his own pockets with Medicaid funds meant to help the neediest New Yorkers.  Today’s sentence makes clear that this type of criminal conduct will be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law.”

According to court filings and statements made in court proceedings:

From August 2017 to February 2020, KJ Transportation C Services Inc. (“KJ”) was paid more than $20 million for providing transportation services for Medicaid enrollees in the New York City area.  A large volume of those claims were fraudulent.  In some instances, the Medicaid recipient was deceased or out of the country when KJ claimed it was transporting that person to medical appointments.  In other instances, the company used stolen identities, whereby the Medicaid recipient had never heard of KJ and had never taken any rides with the company.  In other instances, the Medicaid recipients had received unlawful kickbacks from defendants in exchange for either providing KJ their Medicaid information or for fraudulently scheduling trips they did not take.

ALVARADO, who supervised more than a dozen other participants in the scheme, was responsible for billing more than $8 million in fraudulent trip claims.

*                *                *

In addition to the prison term, ALVARADO, 63, of Yonkers, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $8,507,115 in restitution and to forfeit $8,507,115.

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding work of Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General.  He also thanked the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General for its assistance.

This case is being handled by the Office’s General Crimes Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kedar S. Bhatia and Brandon D. Harper are in charge of the prosecution.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Pleads Guilty to Conflict of Interest Violation

Source: United States Department of Justice News

An Assistant U.S. Attorney pleaded guilty yesterday to illegally steering contracts to her spouse, in violation of the federal criminal conflict of interest statute. 

According to court documents, Kathryn Drey, 55, of Pensacola, Florida, directed contracts from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida to companies in which her spouse had a financial interest, including while she served as chief of the office’s Civil Division. Drey concealed her spouse’s financial interest in contracts to conduct title searches in litigation defended by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Kathryn Drey committed a federal crime by enriching her family at the expense of her duty to the American people,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable public servants who act with unlawful conflicts of interest, prioritizing financial gain over their ethical duties.”

“The public trusts Department of Justice employees to act with the highest integrity. Instead, Drey acted in her own self-interest to improperly profit from her official position,” said Special Agent in Charge James F. Boyersmith of the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) Miami Field Office. “DOJ-OIG is committed to rooting out this kind of egregious misconduct and bringing perpetrators to justice.”

Drey pleaded guilty to one count of acting with a conflict of interest. She is scheduled to be sentenced on June 28 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The DOJ-OIG is investigating the case.

Trial Attorneys Lauren Castaldi and Nicholas Cannon of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Antitrust Division Delivers Remarks at Concurrences Antitrust Writing Awards

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Thank you for that kind introduction.

It is a pleasure to be with you this evening.

At the outset, let me congratulate Bill Kovacic and the teams at Concurrences and the GW Competition Law Center on tonight’s celebration. Lawyers are a somewhat distinctive group in that we learn primarily by reading. It is only fitting then that we hold an event like this one to celebrate impactful writing.

I also extend my sincere congratulations to all the honorees tonight. I was thrilled to see many friends and former colleagues among the nominees. And I am especially proud that two former Antitrust Division interns – Ariana Vaisey and Zaakir Tameez – made the list of nominees for best student article. Kudos to the esteemed members of the jury for their work to identify tonight’s winners.

This year’s articles span the most interesting topics of the day. They reflect depth of thought, illuminating what is at stake in the current antitrust enforcement and competition policy landscape. And regardless of whether any of us agrees with a particular article, your writing will help sharpen our thinking and challenge our assumptions. Simply put, we are all made better by reading your work.

That’s what I’d like to focus on today.

I have spent some time thinking about why good writing matters. Here’s what I’ve come to believe.

At its core, good writing helps connect us, as government enforcers, with the People we are charged with serving. And as members of a pluralistic society, good writing allows us to see each other fully. Good writing in law and policy allows us to engage in the type of productive debate that progresses our society. It advances our knowledge and helps us make better-considered judgments. That is critical in a participatory democracy.

In my time with you today, I’d like to elaborate on these reasons that good writing makes us better – both as enforcers and as people.  

I. Good Writing Helps Make Antitrust Less Technocratic and More Accessible to the Public

First, good writing makes antitrust more accessible the public.

If we treat antitrust as the province of elites and experts – a set of values too complicated to be engaged and understood by the average person – our work can become misaligned with our Congressional mandate.

I first encountered substantive antitrust law as a first-year law student. The final assignment for my 1L legal writing class was to write an appellate brief about an antitrust dispute. The fact pattern went something like this: A fictitious state college began producing its own electronic textbooks. It offered deep discounts to students who were willing to purchase their textbooks as a bundle. An independent bookstore, which had seen its sales decline, challenged the practice as anticompetitive. In defense, the college asserted that it hadn’t violated the Sherman Act. And, in any event, it said, it enjoyed immunity from antitrust liability as a state institution.

For weeks, I waded in the details of cases like LePage’s and PeaceHealth. I learned about Parker immunity. I discovered the 2007 Antitrust Modernization Commission Report and reviewed it hoping for wisdom. I tried to make heads or tails of price-costs tests, volume discounts, discount attribution, and the like. I submitted my brief and later argued my position before a moot court-style panel of law clerks at the Third Circuit.

After the assignment, my younger self made a judgment: Antitrust might be great for some people. But I was not one of those people. Antitrust seemed overly technical. And sometimes too divorced from reality.

I was wrong on both fronts. As I have now learned through my career, my younger self fundamentally misunderstood what antitrust is about.

Let me explain.

The Sherman and Clayton Acts, properly understood, are about preserving free, open, and competitive markets. Congress gave us flexible tools to stop conspiracies and cartels. To challenge mergers in order to “brake th[e] force” of “concentration in American business … at its outset and before it gathered momentum.[1] To stop the abuse of monopoly power. Congress was so concerned with the trusts that it even declared the inchoate offense of attempted monopolization a violation of the Sherman Act.

Congress understood that the rivalrous interaction of firms yields better prices, higher quality, and more innovation. We know the second-order benefits of that competition can bolster our democratic, political, and social institutions.[2] And so Congress outsourced some of its authority over interstate commerce and enshrined the value of competition in the antitrust laws.

Some of the earliest proponents of an anti-monopoly law included farmers, merchants, and independent pharmacists. They were people who understood the intrusions of corporate power on American life.

Congress gave us our first antitrust law in 1890.

In enforcing it, we remain conscious that the People are the objects of the law’s solicitude.

That was the central thesis behind our merger guidelines RFI. We needed to hear from a wide swath of people. Not just the antitrust lawyers, economists, academics, and policy advocates who are skilled at advocating for their interests before the agencies. But people, including business owners, workers, and consumers, outside the beltway. People whose lived experience has been affected by mergers and acquisitions of different kinds.

We need to hear from people for whom Washington is actually and figuratively far away.

And what has stood out to me is that, today, just like in the 19th century, Americans understand abuses of corporate power. They understand what happens when independent and local pharmacies are acquired by large firms or when large suppliers and middlemen make it so they can no longer afford to compete. They feel the pinch of airline consolidation that increases airfares. They understand how meatpackers can squeeze farmers, growers, and ranchers while charging higher prices to distributors, grocers, and retailers. They endure diminished opportunity when employers make it harder to switch jobs or collude to suppress wages.

And they understand the confluence of harmful mergers, monopolies, business practices, and collusion that allocate an increasingly large share of services, opportunities, and resources to the largest, wealthiest cities while hollowing out the middle of the country.

Throughout our history, journalists have memorialized and humanized life under abusive monopolies. Writing for The Atlantic in 1881, Henry Demarest Lloyd described in stunning detail the gloom of life under the Standard Oil monopoly. He described how it “achieved monopoly” by “conspiracy with the railroads.”[3] “It is the railroads that have bred the millionaires who are now buying newspapers, and getting up corners in wheat, corn, and cotton, and are making railroad consolidations that stretch across the continent,” he observed. “When monopolies succeed, the people fail; when a rich criminal escapes justice, the people are punished; when a legislature is bribed, the people are cheated.”

That’s why good writing remains critical today: To communicate what’s at stake in our enforcement and policy. When we write in technocratic ways, the law becomes too abstract, too divorced from the people who suffer when we do not fully embrace Congress’s mandate. When we write in clear and accessible terms, however, we can make the law accessible to the people we’re charged with protecting. 

And it opens up the tent. People – no matter who they are, where they live, or what they believe – feel like they can be a part of a conversation. When we make antitrust more participatory, we live up to the best of our ideals. We contribute to our more perfect union.

For those reasons, at the Antitrust Division, we are striving to make our actions and policies as accessible as possible. That may be easy for government when we’re talking about speed limits, but we have to work a bit harder as antitrust enforcers.

We have to be clear and plainspoken, even though the markets we police are dynamic and complex.  

Public accessibility to government action is important for its own right. But, in a democratic government, it’s even more critical.

That brings me to my next point.

II. Good Writing Furthers Democratic Governance and Legitimacy

Second, good writing can help advance rule of law principles.

It furthers democratic governance and legitimacy when we make ourselves and our actions more understandable to the people who live under the market structures and conditions that our enforcement and policy choices produce.

Every day, when I go to work, I walk through the gates of the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building. It is the headquarters of the Justice Department. It is a very special place. The building sits across from the National Archives, where anyone can go see the original Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. It’s a New Deal-era building, adorned with striking frescos and murals depicting law and justice.

Before I reach my office, I see two reminders.

Through the building gates, in the center of our courtyard, there is a sculpture of the scales of justice with an inscription that reads, in Latin: “Prīvilēgium Obligātiō.” It reminds us that with privilege comes obligation.

I then walk into the building and up a winding staircase to the Antitrust Division’s hallways. Just a few doors before I reach mine, I pass our ethics officer. Stuck to the middle of her door is a bumper sticker with a frank message: Public Service is a Public Trust.

I love these reminders.

As Justice Department lawyers, we are the lawyers not for any individual, but for the entire United States. We are always mindful of the privilege of public service and our obligation to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution is our north star that protects the rule of law in our country.

The rule of law refers to the principle that all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently and fairly adjudicated. The idea dates to the fourth century BC, when Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that “[i]t is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens.”

The rule of law protects people from government overreach. It gives us confidence to enter into enforceable transactions. It establishes a fair and neutral forum to resolve disputes. It protects us from crime.

At the Antitrust Division, we serve the rule of law by making sure that we are fairly and faithfully enforcing the laws as Congress wrote them while ensuring the respectful treatment of all whom we encounter.

Consistent with our rule-of-law tradition, the Division speaks through complaints and indictments. In them, we describe antitrust violations in appropriate detail to educate defendants, courts, and the public writ large about why the government is taking a particular action. We try to make plain to the public not only what a defendant did but why a transaction or conduct violates the law. We cannot hide behind a shield of legalese, double negatives, and inscrutable jargon because it can obscure the way we are exercising the power and obligation entrusted to us.

This is critical.

When the public can understand our actions – how we are exercising the authority that Congress gave us, why what we are doing matters, and how their government is working to protect their economic liberty – it reaffirms their faith in our democratic institution and in the proper functioning and legitimacy of government itself.

III.  Good Writing Strengthens Society

Finally, good writing strengthens society.

The way we engage with each other matters. This is especially true in times of intense social, political, and economic polarization. In antitrust, as in life, we have no shortage of difficult issues to work through. And people come to the table with different viewpoints and strong opinions.

Too often, our ideas – and the representation of the world around us – gets reduced to soundbites and 280-character posts. While that can be an effective way to capture fleeting attention in the virtual world, it makes it difficult to fairly portray divergent opinions.

When the world operates this way, it’s not hard to see why polarization flourishes. If an idea can only be as long as a sentence or thirty second video, there’s little room for real dialogue. It invites two choices: opposition or agreement. And, as a result, we see each other as binaries: Red or blue, pro-enforcement or anti-enforcement, and so on.

Worse, it can invite intellectual tribalism and ideological purity tests, like the sorting hats in Harry Potter. These tests, by their nature, do not allow for gradation or complexity. If you’re a Slytherin, you cannot be a Gryffindor.

When the world becomes this two-dimensional, we reject ideas, not because of the merits, but because of the person who said it. Suffice it to say, this approach does not advance productive debate.  

I do not pretend to have easy answers to this problem. But, as you might guess, I will share why I think engaging with good writing, even from surprising sources, can help improve our discourse.

Several years ago, when I was a counsel in the Front Office, I spent a lot of time thinking through labor competition enforcement and policy issues. That work led me to read a newer body of scholarship that was focused on monopsony, non-competes, and employer collusion. It also led me to revisit some of the older works of our intellectuals forebearers. From Ibn Khaldun to Abraham Lincoln, there was a richness and depth of thought that I found exhilarating.

But in some cases, I was surprised.

I revisited The Wealth of Nations, for example, expecting to read plenty of criticism about government intervention in markets. But I was surprised by how much of Adam Smith’s writing was concerned with monopolies and the incentives of employers to engage in wage collusion. The father of free-market economics had written beautifully and extensively about his concern for the poor, the dangers of monopolies, and the ability of business to engage in legislative capture.

You might draw two lessons from my experience: First, received wisdom is no substitute for engaging original text. When we do otherwise, we risk dulling out the nuance of interesting ideas. Worse, we can overstate or incorrectly ascribe ideas altogether. Perhaps that is why lawyers focus on original sources of law. While oral traditions have endured throughout human history, ours is a written tradition. No matter what is said about a work, it is no substitute for the work itself.

Second, as the late Alan Krueger observed, revisiting the writing of our intellectual heroes and titans makes clear that they were capable of holding and exploring complex ideas at the same time, even when they are in conflict.

Perhaps, in recognizing this, we can give ourselves the grace to do the same – and in so doing, reject the tribalism and reductive dialogue that invades our discourse.

When we write well, we convey our depth. It invites us to accept the complexity of people and their ideas. It raises us off the screen into something we can understand.

It makes us three dimensional again.

*          *          *

To everyone being honored tonight: This is what you’ve done. You’ve written terrific work that communicates important ideas and advances our dialogue.  

If there’s one thing I’d like you take away from my remarks, it’s this: Good writing matters. Both for its own sake and the ways it can help us advance our democratic ideals and governance in our messy, beautiful, and pluralistic society.

Once again, I congratulate all the honorees.

Thank you.

 


[1] Brown Shoe Co. v. United States, 370 U.S. 294, 317-18 (1962).

[2] N. Pac. Ry. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 4 (1958).

[3] H.D. Lloyd, The Story of a Great Monopoly, The Atlantic (March 1881), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1881/03/the-story-of-a-great-monopoly/306019/  (last accessed March 27, 2023).