[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 2458 AND S. 803, THE E-GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2002
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY AND PROCUREMENT POLICY
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
H.R. 2458 AND S. 803
TO ENHANCE THE MANAGEMENT AND PROMOTION OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT
SERVICES AND PROCESSES BY ESTABLISHING AN OFFICE OF ELECTRONIC
GOVERNMENT WITHIN THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, AND BY
ESTABLISHING A BROAD FRAMEWORK OF MEASURES THAT REQUIRE USING INTERNET-
BASED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE CITIZEN ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION AND SERVICES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
SEPTEMBER 18, 2002
__________
Serial No. 107-184
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
______
86-062 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
BOB BARR, Georgia DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
DAN MILLER, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
DAVE WELDON, Florida JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DIANE E. WATSON, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia ------
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JIM TURNER, Texas
STEPHEN HORN, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
DOUG OSE, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director
Victoria Proctor, Professional Staff Member
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on September 18, 2002............................... 1
Texts of H.R. 2458 and S. 803................................ 6
Statement of:
Everson, Mark W., Deputy Director for Management, Office of
Management and Budget; Linda Koontz, Director of
Information Management, General Accounting Office; Mark
Forman, E-Government Administrator, Office of Management
and Budget; Pat McGinnis, president, Council for Excellence
in Government; Thomas Gann, vice president of government
relations, Siebel Systems; and Roger Baker, executive vice
president, CACI............................................ 188
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Baker, Roger, executive vice president, CACI, prepared
statement of............................................... 241
Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Virginia, prepared statement of......................... 3
Everson, Mark W., Deputy Director for Management, Office of
Management and Budget, prepared statement of............... 190
Gann, Thomas, vice president of government relations, Siebel
Systems, prepared statement of............................. 235
Koontz, Linda, Director of Information Management, General
Accounting Office, prepared statement of................... 203
McGinnis, Pat, president, Council for Excellence in
Government, prepared statement of.......................... 228
Turner, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Texas, prepared statement of............................ 186
H.R. 2458 AND S. 803, THE E-GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2002
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2002
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Policy,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Davis
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Tom Davis of Virginia, Jo Ann
Davis of Virginia, and Turner.
Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; George
Rogers, Uyen Dinh, and John Brosnan, counsels; Victoria Proctor
and Teddy Kidd, professional staff members; Ryan Voccola,
intern; David McMillen and Mark Stephenson, minority
professional staff members; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant
clerk.
Mr. Davis. Good afternoon. We are going to start with
opening statements. I am going to put my entire statement in
the record and try to be quick. We may have a series of votes
shortly, and I want to move through this as quickly as we can.
Today's legislative hearing is on S. 803 and H.R. 2458, the
Electronic Government Act of 2002. Both of these pieces of
legislation attempt to establish a new framework for managing
the Federal Government's information resources. Both create a
new position within OMB to centralize and coordinate
information management, and both bills authorize a number of
programs to promote or establish E-government within the
Federal Government.
For the last 20 years, the management of Federal
information resources has been governed by a set of laws
directing specific information functions, and one law, the
Paperwork Reduction Act, which is intended to tie them together
in a coordinated approach to information resources management.
Under that law, which is in effect today, OMB's Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs is responsible for
overseeing Federal agency information activities, including
information technology management. There have been many
complaints about OIRA and agency information resource
management. S. 803 does not address OIRA's job. Instead, it
carves out pieces of the information management puzzle and
identifies it as electronic government, and gives it to a newly
created OMB Office of E-Government. If this bill becomes law,
Congress will have created two overlapping information
management structures. The subcommittee will review the
effectiveness of creating such a structure, and will seek
whether or not we should examine current law in order to assist
agencies in the complex task of information management.
While the government continues to be the largest purchaser
worldwide of IT products, it is uncertain whether or not the
government is receiving its return on investment. According to
the JFK School of Government at Harvard, over 45 percent of the
government's IT projects fail. Recognizing these ongoing
management challenges, the President appointed Mark Forman,
Administrator of E-Government at OMB, to lead a more centrally
coordinated approach to IT investment and the deployment of E-
Government services to citizens. S. 803, if passed by the
Senate, will codify this new management structure for e-
government, but it does make the position Senate-confirmed; it
currently is not. The subcommittee will review the current
structure of the e-government Administrator and ascertain if
this is the appropriate management solution for the IT
challenges facing the Federal Government.
I want to thank Senator Lieberman and Congressman Turner
for their work on this legislation to date. I look forward to
working with both of them and with the administration on a
comprehensive information management bill that addresses the
government's need for more centralized and coordinated
management.
I would now yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee
for any comments he may wish to make.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis and the texts of
H.R. 2458 and S. 803 follow:]
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Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you
for holding this hearing on H.R. 2458 and S. 803. These bills
are companion pieces of legislation which was introduced in the
Senate by Senator Lieberman, and I introduced it in the House.
S. 803 is the result of the Senate action on the
legislation which was reported unanimously out of Senate
committee as I recall. And I'm very hopeful that we can move
this bill along for further action. We all understand clearly
the impact that information technology has had on our economy
and our government, and this legislation has as its underlying
purpose an effort to bring information technology to bear on
the activities and functions of the Federal Government in a
more effective and efficient way than we have been able to do
in the past.
I want to commend Chairman Davis for his attention to the
issue and his hard work on this legislation as well as other
bills that we have dealt with to try to promote the better
utilization of information technology in our Federal
Government.
I am looking forward to hearing from our distinguished
panel of witnesses today. One of our witnesses, Mark Forman,
who is the Associate Director for Information Technology and e-
government in the Office of Management and Budget, will find in
this legislation his position created statutorily. One of the
primary efforts of this bill was to elevate the stature and the
status of the individual in our government who would be in
charge of implementing and employing information technology.
And I appreciate the work that OMB did in negotiating
provisions of the bill in the Senate which is before us as S.
803.
When it comes to information technology, effective use of
the Internet, and other cutting-edge information resources, the
Federal Government clearly continues to play catch-up with the
private sector. It seems that we have been able to implement
great advances in the private sector while our government
continues to lag. And as a result, we are losing money in the
Federal Government, we are wasting the time of millions of
citizens who could be better served with a greater utilization
of information technology and the delivery of government
services, and most importantly, we have failed to provide the
kind of effective government that we are capable of providing
if we employ information technology.
It is for those reasons that Senator Lieberman and I
introduced this legislation. We are hopeful that it will move
forward in the legislative process and provide great promise
for improving the services of government to the American
people.
Again, I thank the chairman for holding the hearing on this
bill, which was joined when we introduced it in the House by 38
other cosponsors. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Jim Turner follows:]
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Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Mrs. Davis, any comment?
OK. Well, we are going to proceed to our panelists at this
point. I call our witnesses to testify: Ms. Koontz, Mr. Forman,
Ms. McGinnis, Mr. Gann, Mr. Baker and Mr. Everson. As you know,
it is the policy of this committee that all witnesses be sworn
before they may testify. If you would rise with me and raise
your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you. You may be seated.
Mark, I understand you may have to leave at 3 o'clock. Is
that right?
Mr. Everson. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Why don't we start with you, and
then we will go with Ms. Koontz and move right down. And I
think I will try to get everybody in, but if you have to leave
before questions we will understand, and we'll just submit them
to you later.
So why don't we start with you, and then, Linda, we'll go
to you, and then Mark, and go straight down. Thank you for
being with us.
STATEMENTS OF MARK W. EVERSON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR MANAGEMENT,
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; LINDA KOONTZ, DIRECTOR OF
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MARK FORMAN,
E-GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET;
PAT McGINNIS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT;
THOMAS GANN, VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, SIEBEL
SYSTEMS; AND ROGER BAKER, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CACI
Mr. Everson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members
of the committee. I think that you have already stated quite
correctly in the two opening statements the importance of this
legislation. I'm happy to comment on it.
I would like to provide a little broader perspective about
what we are trying to do within the administration. I think
it's already covered in my statement, but as to the details of
this whole area, obviously Mark is very competent to answer the
questions. I am a little concerned that if we elevate his
position, he will start to feel that he has to be held to an
even higher standard and do even more than what he is doing
today, which would be very hard, principally for me, to try to
keep up with him.
But the E-Government Initiative, as you know, it's a part
of our overall President's management agenda. We feel that
those five areas which we have identified within the
administration as being central to good management and
government are closely linked with strategic management and
human capital, improved financial performance, competitive
sourcing, budget and performance integration, and expanded e-
government. We are monitoring those centrally. They come out of
my office as the Deputy Director for management at OMB. They
are also very closely targeted and monitored within the
President's Management Council, which I chair, which is the
group of chief operating officers of the departments and major
agencies.
I think the E-Gov Initiative is off to a great start,
largely through Mark's leadership, but with the help of the
Congress and others who have identified the very real
potential--largely unmet, as has been indicated just moments
ago--up until this time in government.
Some of the challenges that you are well aware of are
working across agencies to eliminate redundant expenditures, to
harness technology in a way that supports missions, and also to
get it done, as I know the chairman knows, expeditiously
through good procurement practices and other areas that help us
make the government more efficient.
We do support this legislation. We think it will provide a
parity, if you will, to Mark's position that is important,
along with the position I used to hold, that of Controller,and
also that of Administrator for Procurement Policies held by
Angela Styles. We do not, however, favor the Senate
confirmation element of the proposal. We think that it's time
to try and make executive branch appointees able to get on the
job quicker. That whole process can be overly burdensome, delay
the effectiveness of getting someone on the job, particularly
in an area such as e-government where people coming from the
private sector are used to fast-moving changes and not 6-month-
long processes. And for that reason, and also the fact that my
own position is DDM, which would supervise this role if Senate
confirmed. We think that we are covered on that base. That is
really the principal reservation we would have about this area.
I will leave my written statement.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. The entire statement will be
made part of the record.
Mr. Everson. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Everson follows:]
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Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Ms. Koontz.
Ms. Koontz. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee,
thank you for inviting us to participate in today's hearing on
S. 803, E-Government Act of 2002. In my remarks today I would
like to briefly comment on some of the key provisions of the
bill.
As you know, the Federal Government faces many challenges
in effectively managing information resources and technology,
including improving the collection, use, and dissemination of
government information, strengthening privacy and information
security, and developing IT human capital strategies as 803
focuses on the critical goal of enhancing the management and
promotion of e-government.
To accomplish this goal, the bill's provisions address many
of these challenges. For example, the bill would make
government information better organized and more accessible to
the public through a variety of means, including establishing
an interagency committee to study these issues and make
recommendations to OMB. At the same time, the bill recognizes
that over 40 percent of the households in America are now
connected to the Internet, and includes provisions to ensure
that access to government information is not diminished for
these citizens.
The bill would also protect privacy by requiring agencies
to perform privacy impact assessments. This requirement would
provide a much-needed focus on privacy implications of
collecting personal information, and could help ensure that the
government collects only that personal information that it
needs.
The bill would also improve information security by
repealing the expiration of the Government Information Security
Reform Act, which, based on first-year implementation, has
proven to be a significant step in improving agencies' security
programs and addressing weaknesses.
In addition, Mr. Chairman, we note that the bill you
introduced, the Federal Information Security Management Act of
2002, also reauthorizes GSRA, and contains a number of changes
that would further strengthen information security.
The bill would also address the critical issue of IT human
capital needs by requiring OPM and others to analyze the
government's personnel needs, oversee training, and assess the
training of Federal employees in IT disciplines. This
requirement is consistent with our prior work that has found
that leading organizations identify IT skills, determine needed
future skills, and determine the right skill mix.
S. 803 would also establish an Office of Electronic
Government within OMB, headed by an Administrator appointed by
the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The
Administrator would oversee implementation of the bill's
provisions and other e-government initiatives. A strength of
this approach is that it would provide the benefit of putting a
high-level executive within OMB to focus full time on e-
government activities. However, a complicating factor is that
the Federal Government's information resources and technology
management leadership would be shared between two offices, the
proposed new office and OMB's Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs, which, under the Paperwork Reduction Act,
has existing responsibilities for these areas.
One alternative is to create a single position devoted
exclusively to the full range of information resources and
technology management functions. There are various ways to
accomplish this. One approach would be to establish a Federal
Chief Information Officer. Such a position could help address
the many challenges facing the government for effectively
implementing e-government and other major IT initiatives.
Nonetheless, this bill is an important step toward addressing
these issues.
That concludes my statement.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Koontz follows:]
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Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Mr. Forman.
Mr. Forman. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, Ms. Davis, thank you
for your leadership in making the Federal Government an e-
government. I recognize and respect that your efforts predate
my return to government last year, and I would also like to
recognize Senators Thompson and Lieberman for their leadership
in e-government.
We are pleased today to inform you of some of our progress
in electronic government as well as comment on S. 803. Recent
studies show that the Internet has become the primary channel
between citizens and government. Similarly, -e-business has
become the primary way organizations improve their
effectiveness and efficiency. For e-government a strategic
question is how do we leverage the more than $50 billion we
invest each year to make government more citizen-centered and
results-oriented.
The government uses modern secure technologies to make
government respond faster and better to the needs of citizens.
And e-government agencies use e-business tools to lessen
paperwork burdens and enable all levels of government--local,
State, and Federal--to work together. As e-government deploys,
conducting business with government becomes easier, more
private, and more secure. Citizens should need no more than
three clicks of a mouse to get what they want.
Achieving this vision requires agencies to integrate and
simplify their operations while addressing six chronic problems
described in our written statement: paving cow paths, redundant
buying, inadequate program management, poor modernization
blueprints, islands of automation, and poor IT security.
As OMB's Associate Director for IT and E-Government, I've
led the work to achieve the President's e-government vision.
Twenty-four cross-agency e-government initiatives were selected
on the basis of the value that they would bring to citizens,
while generating cost savings or improving the effectiveness of
government. Agencies have since identified additional
opportunities for using e-government to work across boundaries,
to improve performance, and reduce costs.
Significant progress has been made on e-government
initiatives. I have a long list in the written testimony, but
for a few examples: GovBenefits.gov provides access to
information and services of 110 government programs from 11
Federal agencies representing more than $1 trillion in annual
benefits. The government online learning center, golearn.gov,
is the first milestone of the e-training initiative, and has
provided over a million training courses and e-books to Federal
employees since its launch in July. The improved FirstGov Web
site selected by Yahoo is one of the 50 most incredibly useful
Web sites and now provides government services within three
clicks of your mouse as well as easy navigation and better
search capabilities.
EZ Tax Filing recently announced a unique private/public
partnership to provide citizens easy, secure, free
opportunities to prepare and file their taxes via the Internet.
And recruitment One Stop, expanding the existing capabilities
of the USAJobs.gov Web site to provide a one-stop streamlined
Federal employment application processes, improve service
delivery to job applicants, and enhance the government's
position as a competitor for top pound. Indeed, the new Web
site hosted the virtual IT Job Fair, which was initiated in
response to the chairman's request in that hearing of the
subcommittee late last year.
One of the most significant findings to emerge from the E-
Government Initiative came from a review of the Federal
Government's enterprise architecture. The purpose of this
effort was to identify opportunities to simplify processes and
unify work across the agencies and within the many lines of
business of the Federal Government. The foundation is the
business reference model which describes the government's lines
of business and its services to citizens, independent of the
agencies and offices involved. The outcome of our efforts in
the Federal enterprise architecture will be a more citizen-
centered and customer-focused government that maximizes
technology investments to better achieve mission outcomes.
Separate agency appropriations for e-government make it
difficult to budget for, fund, and manage cross-agency
projects. To help overcome this barrier, the President included
in his fiscal year 2003 budget proposal a $100 million e-
government fund for innovative inner-agency project. The fund
the President proposes leverages cross-agency work in e-
government and improves citizens' ability to access Federal
services and Federal information online. We have made great
strides in implementing this fund in 2002. Our intent for 2003
is to fund cross-agency initiatives that achieve consolidation
of redundant IT investments.
We are pleased that S. 803 matches both the amounts
proposed by the President's budget for fiscal year 2003 and
2004. Currently, however, the appropriations bill passed by the
Senate Treasury-Postal Appropriations Committee also provides
$45 million in fiscal year 2003, while the companion
legislation in the House stands at just $5 million. Fully
funding the administration's request as authorized by S. 803 is
critical to achieving the promise of e-government.
We look forward to working with both the authorizing
appropriations committee to provide for full funding. We
believe that S. 803 as passed by the Senate Committee on
Governmental Affairs is much improved, as Mark indicated. We
are especially supportive of the alignment of several of the
activities' initiatives of the bill with the administration to
further e-government. We also support S. 803's strong
discussion of the importance of privacy.
The Senate's e-government bill also reauthorizes the
Government Information Security Reform Act. The first report to
Congress under that statute established a baseline, and
agencies have developed plans of actions and milestones to
close the security performance gap. Moreover, OMB has
integrated this into the budget process.
Mr. Chairman, your leadership in the development of FISMA
clearly indicates that we agree on this critical priority. The
administration looks forward to working with the House to
address final issues and secure enactment. However, we have a
concern with one element of the version of FISMA that was
attached to H.R. 5005, the House homeland security bill. We
have discussed this issue with the subcommittee staff and look
forward to your leadership in restoring the original language.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much.
Pat, we have a vote on the floor. We probably have a
couple. I'll wait until the end of this one. So I'm going to
recess the meeting, and we will get back as quickly as we can.
Mark, we are probably not going to be back in time to get
to you, so you can probably head out. We appreciate your being
here.
Look forward to hearing the testimony of you and Mr. Gann
and Mr. Baker in just a few minutes. So we will recess the
meeting, go over and vote and come back. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Mr. Davis of Virginia. The hearing will reconvene, and we
will proceed with Ms. McGinnis. Thank you for being here. Thank
you for your patience.
Ms. McGinnis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to join Mark in commending you for your leadership
in promoting E-government and also to commend the Senate
committee as well.
At the Council for Excellence in Government, as you know
well, we think about this ambitious mission both in terms of
excellent performance and also in terms of the American
people's understanding, participation and trust in government.
So we chose e-government as a strategic priority because we see
the potential it has to break down bureaucratic barriers and
leap ahead to a level of service protection and connection that
the American people want and need.
I would like to introduce you to someone I think you
already know, Dave McClure, who has joined the Council as our
Vice President for E-government. And so we----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Is that an elected position or an
appointed position?
Ms. McGinnis. It is not Senate confirmed, and so we were
able to do this----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. We could put it into our
legislation.
Ms. McGinnis [continuing]. And so we were able to do it in
a much faster time.
As you know, early last year the Council released a
blueprint that we call E-government: The Next American
Revolution. I know you know it, Mr. Davis, because you were
with us when we released that. It was developed through an
initiative that involved 350 leaders from government, business,
civic groups and the research community.
We put together a set of guiding principles to help frame
choices; and our recommendations focused on leadership, the
creation of a strategic investment fund, collaboration,
insuring an adequate and well-trained work force for e-
government, privacy, security, interoperability, access and
education. We are very pleased that all of these issues are
addressed in S. 803 which, in our view, provides a very
valuable framework for building e-government. So my main
message today is to urge you to complete your work on this bill
so it can be enacted during this Congress.
Because we have focused so much on the perspective of the
American people on the potential of e-government, we have
organized over the past few years a series of public opinion
polls conducted by Peter Hart and Bob Teeter to help us
understand that so that this could be citizen centered and
results oriented, as Mark Forman said.
The most recent poll was released last February and
provides some important insights. You can look at all of the
findings, but let me just highlight a few.
First of all, e-government has gone mainstream. More than
half of the American people are visiting government Web sites,
56 percent; and that number is 76 percent of all Internet
users.
They are very positive about the potential for e-
government, particularly as it relates to homeland security and
better integrating the collection and use of the data that we
need to protect us.
The--people are concerned about security and privacy,
especially identity theft and hackers getting access to
information. A large number of--a majority of people say they
are willing to give up some privacy if it strengthens homeland
security.
We have also surveyed government leaders at the Federal,
State and local level and, again, a large majority are very
positive about the potential of e-government and the effect it
can have on how government operates. And most, 62 percent want
to proceed quickly, rather than deliberately and slowly, to
expand e-government.
So we think that S. 803 is a big step in the right
direction in terms of creating an Office of Electronic
Government, particularly, and the creation of the e-government
fund for the very important cross-agency initiatives that will
glue this together and create the kind of e-government platform
that we need.
We have a few suggestions for strengthening the legislation
which I have included in my testimony and won't go into detail
because they are fairly minor suggestions.
I guess, again, the main message is, in the interest of
time, we hope that you will be able to move this legislation.
One suggestion that I will highlight is that we think it
would be useful in this bill to set a specific goal of
universal on-line access to government within, say, 5 years,
building on the NSF study that's authorized in the bill. And it
may be advisable to call for that study within 1 year and
involve the Census Bureau, other Federal agencies, the private
sector and civic groups to determine specifically what it will
take to achieve the goal of universal access within 5 years.
Another suggestion that I would like to highlight is the
suggestion that we also made in the Senate, and that is that
you authorize a Congressional Office of E-government. This bill
calls for an Office of E-government in the executive branch.
You also suggest bringing the judicial system on-line, and
we think it would be very helpful as well to bring the whole
legislative process more directly to the American people with
the help of a congressional resource and that would be to
provide assistance to individual Members, to committees, not
only to make this connection but also to advise about the use
of E-government as a policy, as a tool to achieve the policy
objectives that you seek.
I would also like to challenge you to give, beyond this
legislation, serious attention to the more flexible
appropriation of funds for e-government. Because the biggest
barrier we see to realizing the potential that's there is the
lack of collaboration across departments and agencies among
levels of government and, frankly, across congressional
committees as well, perhaps joint hearings or meeting with the
Appropriations Committee to look at models for flexible funding
to consider how to not only encourage but perhaps even require
greater collaboration across agencies in underwriting the
infrastructure of e-government.
So I appreciate very much--I thank you, Mr. Turner, for
introducing this bill and your leadership on this issue. Thank
you for including me, and I'll look forward to the discussion.
Mr. Turner [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. McGinnis; and thank
you for your excellent suggestions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McGinnis follows:]
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Mr. Turner. Next, the Chair would recognize Mr. Gann, who
is with Siebel Systems, and I believe is here on behalf of the
Information Technology Industry Council, if I am correct.
Mr. Gann. Right.
Mr. Turner. Thank you.
Mr. Gann. Congressman Turner, I'd like to thank you on
behalf of the Information Technology Industry Council and also
Siebel Systems.
Is that better now? OK.
I'd like to thank you for welcoming us here.
The Information Technology Industry Council very much looks
forward to sharing its views regarding the importance of
establishing e-government as the central tenet for transforming
the role of government as we move into the 21st century. We
applaud the vital role being played by this committee and its
members as leading advocates of e-government and look forward
to working with you to help achieve a successful
transformation.
A little bit about Siebel Systems. We were founded in 1993.
We're a leading provider today of e-government and e-business
solutions. We enable corporations and public sector
institutions to sell to, market to and serve customers across
multiple channels and various lines of business. Today, we're a
$2 billion business.
Today, aging populations, declining government revenues and
rising expectations of government performance are colliding to
dramatically increase the pressure for change within
government. Government institutions at every level are facing
unprecedented demands to improve the quality of service they
provide. Increasingly, governments have responded with
initiatives to modernize government through the acquisition and
deployment of information technologies. While the resulting
gains in productivity have been substantial, it has become
increasingly clear that the mere accumulation of high-tech
tools is not sufficient to address the many challenges outlined
above. Rather, the process of government itself must be
transformed, as well as the way we think about government.
The business world has had to learn a similar lesson. One
of the consequences--and, we believe, distinct benefits--has
been a pronounced shift in the way companies are organized from
a product focus to a customer focus. This development has
produced many benefits including a deeper real-time
understanding of what the customer needs and wants. At the same
time, however, it has revealed a whole new set of challenges
for management.
For example, not so long ago, if a business wanted to
conduct a transaction with its financial institution, its
options were unlimited, so long as it took place at a branch
office Monday through Friday from 10 until about 3. Customer
expectations, though, have changed greatly since then,
requiring organizations to be ready to conduct business 24
hours a day, 7 days a week, across all channels. And by all
channels I mean the Web, e-mail, call centers, field agents,
branch offices, what have you.
This revolution in service was accomplished through the
effective deployment of networked information technologies,
which are enabling forward-thinking businesses to track and
coordinate each interaction, each customer's interaction,
recognizing and acknowledging customers every point of contact
while maintaining a seamless, ongoing dialog. These lessons
indeed don't just apply to business. They also offer important
insights for government organizations as well as a glimpse of
the promise of e-government in the future.
As businesses have transformed to adapt to this new multi-
channel world, four concepts have emerged as being quite
fundamental in this process. We believe government would
benefit from incorporating them into their own e-government
blueprint.
First, effective e-government solutions have been designed
around the citizen. Just as businesses have dramatically
improved their performance, governments can do the same by
focusing first and foremost on the citizen.
Second, solutions that have embraced the full range of
information technology and communications capabilities have met
with the most success. While the Internet has created many
efficiencies, it is worth remembering that still today
consumers and constituents communicate with organizations
through a broad range of channels. So any solution should take
that into account.
Third, governments are recognizing that reorganization can
best be done through the use of best of breed suppliers in such
a way that information flows can be enhanced.
Fourth, administrations are using e-government as a tool to
train, retrain and attract the best government employees, which
will in turn secure the future ability of them to continue to
serve constituents in the best possible way.
Finally, I would like to say that we believe the
administration's efforts in the e-government area have really
been very commendable. Mark Forman's effort with regards to
these 24 quicksilver projects really have been very good in
that they've focused attention on pilot projects such that deep
learning can be pushed through organizations to really promote
the kind of change and transformation that will truly enhance
e-government. And so we think it's a good effort and we think
investment in those efforts are worthy.
So, to sum up, ITI and Siebel Systems would like to thank
you for allowing us to share our views; and we look forward, as
an association, to playing a valuable, hopefully useful role in
working with the government and legislators to make the dream
of e-government a reality.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. [presiding]. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gann follows:]
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Mr. Davis of Virginia. I didn't mean to walk out on your
testimony, Ms. McGinnis, but we had a vote down the way in
Commerce, and I had to go vote.
So, Mr. Baker, thank you for being with us.
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Turner. Thank
you for inviting me to testify before the committee today.
I would like to thank my employer, CACI International, a
fine Northern Virginia company, for giving me the time to
testify here today but make clear that the comments are
strictly my own.
I was the Chief Information Officer for the Department of
Commerce for 3 years, beginning in 1998. During that tenure, I
was an outspoken proponent for the creation of a Federal CIO
for the reasons that I'll discuss.
For a private sector IT executive coming into the Federal
Government, the problems with government IT are readily
apparent: There is no cohesive strategy, there are too many
points of control, and there is a nearly complete lack of
standards and processes.
These root causes lead to fundamental, long-term issues:
There is tremendous duplication of effort and cost; and there
is widespread, poor performance in critical areas including
information security, disaster recovery, privacy protection,
runaway programs, e-government progress--which we will talk
about today, I'm very confident--service levels to internal
customers and services to citizens and businesses.
In my view, the need for a Federal CIO with sufficient
management power to drive change across all aspects of
government IT is compelling.
I've already mentioned cost. I believe that at least 25
percent of agency IT funds are wasted each year due to the
tremendous duplication of effort caused by the ad hoc
infrastructure.
I should note that without empowered IT management the
infrastructure of the Federal Government has grown in a chaotic
and ad hoc fashion. In my written testimony I've included four
specific examples from the Commerce Department that are
representative of the issues that exist on a much larger scale
across the Federal enterprise. Commerce, like the rest of the
Federal Government, operates far too many data centers,
networks, Web servers, help desks and a variety of other
infrastructure items. Consolidation just inside of Commerce
would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and
consolidation across the Federal enterprise would save billions
of dollars a year, which, frankly, could be applied to better
purposes like e-government.
Second, in this ad hoc structure, many IT organizations
don't have sufficient focus or expertise to adequately address
critical items like information security, disaster recovery and
privacy protection. Because these types of problems are often
viewed as nonessential to the accomplishment of the local
mission of the program office, policy issued by OMB, department
CIOs and others regarding mandatory information system
protections has been widely ignored for years.
Third, in the chaotic structure of government IT
management, it creates most of the problems encountered in
Mark's efforts and others' efforts to improve responsiveness to
citizens and create cross-government solutions.
Mark Forman's success at spurring the 24 cross-agency
initiative in his position at OMB is undoubtedly the best
argument for the creation of a strong Federal CIO. The first
technologist to hold such a position at OMB, Mark sees the
issues from a governmentwide perspective and in just over 1
year has made major progress in examining duplicative efforts
and getting agencies to work together. More importantly,
utilizing the existing authorities of OMB, Mark has been able
to compel a level of agency compliance with his programs that I
would have characterized as impossible less than 2 years ago.
But addressing all of the government's IT issues would take
both strong senior leadership and the creation of an effective
management structure through which change can be compelled.
While this legislation is a good first step, there are many
steps further required from this point.
Mr. Chairman, private sector companies have established
strong central CIOs for one reason, profitability. Reducing
cost, avoiding risk and better serving the customer are
compelling profitability issues that have forced private sector
conditions to deal with their internal politics and create a
strong central CIO. Though profit is not a motivation for
change in the Federal Government, cost reduction, risk
reduction, customer satisfaction are.
That's why we need a Federal CIO. We need somebody with the
charter to look at Federal Government IT as an enterprise
issue, to find the common problems and enforce common
solutions, to convince all parties that change is required and
to compel adherence for the good of the enterprise. We need a
strong, empowered leader who can galvanize the support
necessary from both the administration and the Congress to
address the hard issues, to find solutions to the root causes
of the Federal Government's IT malaise.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, thank you for providing me the
time to present my views on this important issue; and I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baker follows:]
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Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me start with GAO and OMB.
There have been many complaints about OIRA and agency
information resources management. S. 803 doesn't address OIRA's
job. Instead, it carves out pieces of the information
management puzzle and it identifies it as electronic
government. If this bill becomes law, Congress will have
created two overlapping information management structures. How
do we reconcile this? Any thoughts?
Ms. Koontz. Well, as--our major concern with the structure
that's created under S. 803 is that it does create a situation
where responsibility and accountability for the information
functions are shared between the E-Gov administrator and the
administrator of OIRA, who already has these responsibilities
under the PRA.
One alternative to doing this is to create a single
position that would have responsibility for the full range of
information functions and would have that as their exclusive
responsibility. That could be a CIO, and I'm sure there are
other models that could be followed as well.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Forman.
Mr. Forman. When the Office of IT and E-government was
created, we took a teamwork approach with it in OMB; and I
think we've been tremendously successful in working the team
approach between the information technology and policy issues
that relate to OIRA's role and my role, directing the Office of
IT and E-government.
I think you have to keep in mind some of the changes in the
world associated with putting things on-line. There are
information technology policy issues that are maybe little
``i'' and big ``T'', and there are some that are big ``I'' and
little ``t,'' but in the end we know that the Internet offers
us a tremendously new way to interface with the citizens, and
those won't necessarily have information policy issues. So
there's got to be overlap, and I think our approach has been
successfully to apply a teamwork as opposed to try and parse
that up into two different groups and then have to duke it out
or have to figure out how we work together as a team.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Section 207 of the legislation
contains an information collection and dissemination management
structure for the Federal Government. Do you have any thoughts
on the timeframe that's put forward in the legislation for
centralizing reporting on information collection by Federal
agencies?
You expressed some concern about the interagency committee
formulating the recommendations to an e-government
administrator based on past failures in this area. In your
view, what will it take to make this committee a success, or is
there an alternative structure that might be considered as we
review the legislation?
Ms. Koontz. Section 207 deals with a very important issue,
and that is dealing with accessibility of government
information to the public. We think it's quite reasonable that
the first step that could be taken here would be to form an
interagency committee and study what it would take in order to
better organize and categorize government information.
The thing I would like to underscore about this particular
provision is the difficulty of implementing this kind of
initiative. Just as the Senate report that accompanies S. 803
talks about previous initiatives that have really provided sort
of mixed results, and it will be really important for the
interagency committee to look at these lessons learned and to
incorporate it into their plans for moving forward.
The complexity of this undertaking and the difficulty in
getting agencies to implement something like this, I think it's
very difficult to say how long it would actually take to
accomplish all the things in Section 207. But, at the same
time, I do understand the need to put definite timeframes on
initiatives in order to get things to move forward and hold
people accountable for them.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Mr. Forman, S. 803 largely puts
into statute OMB's current IT organizational structure and the
sharing of IT duties between the administrator of the Office of
Electronic Government and the administrator of OIRA. What
challenges have you faced in addressing this sharing of duties
and how do you overcome them?
Mr. Forman. I really haven't faced any challenges. John
Graham and I get along terrifically well. Our staffs get along
terrifically well and work very closely as a team. As Mark
Everson said, maybe that's a function of the personalities; and
we are very sensitive of the fact that you can't run a
government or an organization just based on personalities. So
there may be issues and we believe it's worthwhile to discuss
those as we look toward the future, what should that permanent
structure be.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. What do you think some of those
issues might be? If you didn't get along, what could you see as
potentials?
Mr. Forman. Well, I could see potentially different issues
with respect to the question of certain information policy
issues related to what content should be presented at the Web
site; how to reduce the paperwork burden, for example, by
leveraging electronic reporting versus by leveraging the data
items that are actually reported on. And today by leveraging
the same staff it's very easy to work through those issues.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. What benefits do you see in
establishing the CIO Council in statute? Do you think the
Council has the resources that it needs to fulfill its mission?
Mr. Forman. Well, we've established the CFO Council in the
statute. There are four basic management councils that we're
using to associate with management agenda and support the
President's management council. So it does give us some
parallel structure with the CFO Council.
The intent is--in the past, we've relied on kind of a pass-
the-hat approach to fund the CIO Council and in the future we
want to incorporate that into the actual budget request of the
President. So it's consistent with that.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. FISMA was included in H.R. 5005.
You can appreciate we had to work quickly to negotiate
provisions that would be acceptable to other committees with
limited jurisdiction. In your testimony, you made reference to
a concern that OMB has with the current version of FISMA. Could
you elaborate? I mean, we still have to go through a conference
on this, and we want to----
Mr. Forman. Sure.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. --we may have more flexibility in
the conference than we did getting it through the House.
Mr. Forman. I understand.
In your original version of the bill, appropriately you
recognized the policymaking responsibility has to rest at a
governmentwide level. Much like the other issues that we're
addressing today on why you need a governmentwide focus for e-
government, we have a similar issue with security; and it would
be very difficult to have one department essentially setting
the policies and try to enforce that in others. We've seen even
with the standards process concerns about NIST or the Secretary
of Commerce trying to issue standards and get compliance from
other departments.
The appropriate structure we believe is what you laid out
in your original version of the bill with that resting at OMB
under the Director's authority.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. I thank you.
Pat McGinnis, let me ask a couple of questions.
A couple of years ago, the Council recommended the
establishment of a Federal CIO. Is this still your position,
and do you think S. 803 helps or hinders the establishment of a
Federal CIO? And if you could elaborate on that.
Ms. McGinnis. S. 803 is really consistent with our
recommendation. We recommended that the Deputy Director for
Management of OMB be designated the Deputy Director for
Management and Technology, to be clear that this is an
overarching, strategic part of the management of the Federal
Government and that an Office of Electronic Government be
created which would be headed by someone who we gave in our
recommendation the title Federal CIO. It's very much the
concept of the office as provided in S. 803, and we did
envision that the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
would continue, but that there would be an important need for
coordination there.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. You also mentioned that the bill
could be strengthened by the addition of language relating
performance management and evaluation more explicitly to the
Government Performance and Results Act, and you call for a road
map for the Federal Government's e-government strategy that
clearly outlines where we are going, what the priorities are,
action steps required, etc. Could you elaborate on how the two
bills can better address these two areas?
Ms. McGinnis. Well, I think in the case of relating to
GPRA, simply making that connection explicitly in the
legislation would be desirable so that when the agencies are
putting together their strategic plans they are focusing on
these performance measures and especially these as cross-
cutting performance measures. So that's a simple change in the
bill. The road map doesn't necessarily need to be required in
the legislation.
It strikes us as a very important management tool to bring
people together from across agencies and across sectors to go
through this process, and I think Mark would welcome this and,
in fact, is really engaged in it. We would just like to see it
mapped out in a very explicit way: Where are we in terms of
some of the problems that Roger has suggested with
infrastructure and security and privacy, where do we need to
go, what resources do we have, and what's the path. It's just
logical.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK.
Mr. Forman. Mr. Chairman, if I may.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Sure.
Mr. Forman. I think this is one of the key issues that I've
seen since I've been in my job a little over 15 months, and
it's one of the reasons we focused on the Federal enterprise
architecture. You know, GPRA was put together to focus on
program budgets--and we do. We've got several thousand or over
1,000 programs in the Federal Government. But when we look at
the way we've set up agencies and organizations there are clear
functions. As we've tried to lay out the functions of the
agencies and departments in the business reference model, we've
found that we'll have to figure out this road map or this
relationship between programs and the business functions of a
department.
So disaster management, for example, we've looked at having
perhaps three core functions, and we call them subfunctions. We
can lay out the performance measures for disaster planning,
disaster response, but then you overlook or overlay that
against the programs. We have grant programs, and the grant
programs in some cases is supposed to help with disaster
planning. But the business function that we have as a
government is managing a grant program, and so that overlay or
that road map has another set of performance measures.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you. I am going to yield to
Mr. Turner for questions. I have got to cast another vote in
the Commerce Committee, and I'll be right back.
Mr. Turner [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Forman, I would like to have you elaborate a little bit
on the position that OMB took in the Senate regarding the
Federal CIO. I mean, it appears to me that the opposition to a
Federal CIO centered more on a turf battle than it did
substantive objections to that position; and I would like for
you to really lay out for us what the OMB position is on that
and give me a clear indication of why we ended up with what we
now have after negotiations in the Senate.
Mr. Forman. Well, the first part of the puzzle is trying to
figure out what's in a name. So whether we call it an
administrator, an associate director or a CIO, the key thing to
focus on is what are the functions. And, indeed, when Mitch
Daniels crafted my job, he took the job functions right out of
a GAO report--a very good report I'd ask you to take a look at,
if you haven't already done so--that says what the best
practices for CIOs are and what should their responsibilities
be. And that was the basis for coining my job. I think that's
the basis for a lot of responsibilities certainly in our
negotiations in working with the Senate side on what that
administrator, associate director, CIO would do.
Now, the question I think remains, where do you put it in
the executive office of the President. And my power, my ability
to drive change absolutely is associated with my ability to
affect the budgets, pure and simple. You hear the same thing in
any large corporation. If you can get control over the budgets
you can get control over the investments and the
infrastructure, etc.
So it was critical for us that my position reside within
OMB so that we can work the management and budget integration,
the same reason that OMB was set up and structured in general
in the legislation, the Clinger-Cohen Act and other authorizing
legislation for OMB. In other words, we know that we invest
redundantly in lots of information technology; and we know that
there are ways to fix that. It's not rocket science. It's
management. But in order to make that occur you have to be able
to work the resources both within a department and across
departments.
I compare my situation to my counterpart in the U.K.,
Andrew Pinder. My daily discussions, if you will, are with
different departments to get them to go along. His daily
discussions are with his budget director to get his budget
director to go along with a governmentwide or cross-agency
approach. That's not an issue for me. So any other position,
outside of being within the Office of Management and Budget, we
would not be able to have that management budget decision
integration. And that's how we ended up in our position, at
least.
Mr. Turner. Well, I'm not sure you have convinced me. It
does seem that there are some very obvious things that are in
that Senate bill that detract from the stature of the position
that was created. For example, you would think that the--a
Federal CIO or a person with that responsibility should clearly
be designated as the Chair of the CIO Council; and yet the only
way you get that, as I understand it--and I guess this is
current law--is you're designated as the Chair by the Deputy
Director for Management, who is actually the Chair.
It seems that when you look at the--and you're familiar, of
course, with the debate that occurred in the Senate over Senate
confirmation. Senate confirmation always seems to add some
stature to a position. And I believe I'm correct that the--
under the current law, the administrator of OIRA is a Senate-
confirmed position; and yet we did not make this--I gather
you're opposed to making this position Senate-confirmed in the
Senate.
So it just seems that there has been a diminution in the
status of the position which I think most observers, no matter
what they call the individual--I mean, we say, many times,
maybe it doesn't matter what the name is, it's just what your
statutory responsibilities are. But, in truth, in fact, the
title ``Chief Information Officer'' has a meaning in the
private sector that gives that position status; and yet we seem
reluctant to give that title to an individual within
government. So I'm a little bit concerned that we have
diminished the role in several particulars that I regret that
has occurred in the Senate.
I know Mr. Baker is a strong adherent to a strong Federal
CIO. Do you agree with me on my observations?
Mr. Baker. Mr. Turner, I would tell you that 18 months ago
I 100 percent agreed with you. I agree with Mark on one key
component, and that is the ability to leverage the budget is
everything inside a government. His ability to apply a carrot
and a stick to programs inside the government to compel
adherence has been very vital to his success.
The key--I believe you hit on the other key thing, though,
which is stature. The person must be viewed as carrying a
substantial amount of weight, both by the Congress and by the
agencies.
You know, I haven't worked in the environment that Mark is
in, but I remember the John Koskinen period.
And John did a very good job of going around to the
Secretaries and making certain that they were focused on Y2 K
because of his stature inside of the organization and the
knowledge that he had the full attention of the President on
the Y2K issue.
I think that full attention is a key thing, but I also
believe the budget is important. I think if I were to tell you
my thinking today on this, knowing what I know today, it would
be yes probably inside of OMB, but probably at least at a par
with the Deputy Director for Management, if not, as Ms.
McGinnis said, actually being the Director of Management with
the technology focus. It must be--in my view, it has to be
someone who has managed technology before. We have had lawyers
in the DDM job who have said, my job is to be the Federal CIO,
and they didn't get it.
Mr. Forman. I would ask to think of a couple things here.
First of all, the statute that we confer on my position, or for
that matter any of the other management agenda elements, is how
we are managing the Federal Government, and we treat the five
management agenda leaders as equals, and that's important.
Also a key part, one of the reasons why I think it's
important, you know, as Mark laid out, to understand, e-
government in and of itself is not going to change this
government. It's not going to fix the human capital issue we
have. It's not going to fix the performance-based budgeting or
performance management issue that we have. But, by the same
token, they all go hand in hand. They're all interrelated. I
think Mark understands that and has brought tremendous tools
and capabilities to the administration of the government in
using those five key levers to improve management.
So there is some danger in focusing on just one management
agenda item and ignoring, for example, the human capital issue,
you know, but by the same token I would never ask for my own
department--you know, that would not be productive. And by the
same token, I think it makes sense Director James heading up
the human capital initiative, because that is their focus.
There is a substantial body of law and authority that goes
along with that.
One of the key issues I think to be sensitive to is while
in government management, management issues vary with the
times, with changes in society and technology. What may be
right for this period may not be right 2 years from now. And so
I think you also have to consider it's always easier to lock
things into statute than it is to change them or take them out
of statute. So how much of that you want to actually lock in in
terms of titles versus authorities is a careful balancing act,
and we are very willing and open to working with the committee
to work through that.
Mr. Turner. Mr. Baker, one other question for you. From
your experience as the CIO at Commerce, do you have any
suggestions to offer for this legislation now that we have put
the CI O Council in statute? Any other improvements that we
might make?
Mr. Baker. I was almost afraid that you would ask that one.
I just tell you that, from my experience, the problem with the
CIO Council is that it doesn't have any authority. A good
example. It was my committee--my Privacy Committee of the CIO
Council that brought the privacy impact assessments out of IRS
and made them a CIO Council--I guess I would call it a policy
or recommended process. We are able to give them some altitude,
but in no way could we compel their use.
I think the fact that they are now in the legislation is a
good example of the inability of the CIO Council to make any of
their recommendations actually stick in any of the agencies.
It's a volunteer organization. Following anything that it--any
of its recommendations is strictly voluntary inside of the
agencies.
I believe it's good to bring the CIOs together. My
preference would be to have an organization that is part of the
management structure for the Federal CIO, someone that both
brings recommendations on how to manage, but also is to an
extent beholden to the Federal C IO.
I would just tell you that one of the biggest problems with
the CIO Council was getting people to show up. There are only a
few CIOs that really put a lot of effort into what the CIO
Council is doing, And I think it's good for them in their
careers, but it's nowhere in the performance plan of a CIO in
an agency.
I would like it as an organization, but as Mark said,
codifying things in the statute makes them more difficult to
change in the long term. I'm afraid to say I'm not sure it's
productive enough to be something that you put in statute right
now with the way that it operates today. I just didn't make any
friends out of a lot of people I've worked with that statement,
but that's what I think.
Mr. Turner. So I gather that among the problems you
mention, if we had a stronger CIO to chair the Council, the
Council members might have a little more interest in attending
the meeting and feel like they had somewhat greater empowerment
to be able to accomplish some of their goals.
Mr. Baker. Right. I also believe it's important somewhere
along the path to give the Federal CIO some level of management
control over those CIOs, whether it's hiring and firing,
whether it's a yearly report to the Department head on how's
your CIO performing, or whether it's 50 percent of their
performance basis.
In my written testimony, I can refer you to General Motors
and IBM. You know, they've wrestled with the strong central CIO
and dual reporting, and I think that's a way to think about it.
We also thought--we also have implemented at Commerce that same
sort of thing. If you--you need to have a management structure
if you really want something to change.
Mr. Forman. Mr. Turner, if I may. We have got, I think,
some changes under way with the CIO Council. I guess the terms
that I used to hear right before and when I came to government
was CIO Council was a hobnobbing group. You know, it's a few--
group of folks that control the whole thing. And I think there
was that general sentiment among a lot of the CIOs. Attendance
has always been good at the meetings we've had at either every
quarter or every other month, but now there is a focus on how
can we do something with the committee, and hence we
restructured it into three groups, a group that works on work
force, IT work force, and we have, as you know, some major,
major issues there. And I think they have been doing an
increasingly good job, but we are going to look at this as one
of the major budget issues, and we may need to do more in terms
of a leadership role on IT work force. It's one of the things
that we highlighted in our testimony that is appropriately
highlighted in the bill.
Another committee is Best Practices. And one thing about
technology folks, and you see this elsewhere, if they come up
with good ideas, they want to share those ideas, and they want
to be annointed for those ideas. And we have given them that
forum, and we can take advantage of that. I like Rosabeth Moss
Canter's concept: We shouldn't call it best practices; we
should call it useful practices, because that's really what
they are. And so getting that word out is important.
And the third is the Architecture Committee, and that's
where we really are going to see some work. And we, both Norm
Lorentz, our Chief Technology Officer, and I, have talked about
it extensively. How do we organize that and get a process set
up for agreeing to key standards?
And so we are looking at essentially at, first round, some
of the key security-related components, if you will, that will
standardize on. It's a little different than the standards that
NIST develops. It's more adoption of standardized components.
That's going to be a different role for the CIO Council, but
they are all actively engaged, and that's where they want to
take the organization as we would like to see that.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Forman.
I didn't know, perhaps our witnesses had comments on
subjects we've been discussing here. I would invite your input
if you have thoughts on it. Otherwise, that concludes my
questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia [presiding]. Thank you very much.
Ms. McGinnis, let me get back to you. I know your support
for the Digital Tech Corp Act, which I think is very
thoughtful. Do you think passing S. 803 absent complementary
legislation for the IT Federal Government work force would
diminish the overall effectiveness of this legislation?
Ms. McGinnis. Well, I did suggest that strengthening those
work force provisions by considering perhaps adding the digital
tech corp to this bill, if it were possible to do that in the
time remaining. I mean, my main caution is--or message is, you
know, let's get this passed in this Congress if possible,
because it is a useful framework, and it does address the work
force issues, although it certainly does not go as far as we
need to. And I think everyone here would agree with that. So I
was suggesting that perhaps this could be added to strengthen
the bill.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
Mr. Gann, let me ask. S. 803 as it's currently drafted
doesn't contain many provisions that would improve the IT
acquisition process. I would like to include provisions to
expand the existing share and savings legislation, to allow for
cooperative purchasing on the GSA IT schedules, to remove the
Trade Agreements Act for IT products. In your view, will these
additions facilitate the rapid employment of technology by
government?
Mr. Gann. Right. I think you have brought a very important
set of issues. Speaking on behalf of the Information Technology
Industry Council, I think there is a great deal of concern in
the association and its members regarding the Trade Agreements
Act. There is a view that this act has served to be a
discompetitive incentive for a lot of our organizations in that
it puts all kinds of burdens, paperwork burdens, compliance
burdens to comply with the act, particularly at the time when
information technology companies are so competitive
internationally. So we think the costs of that system outweigh
the benefits.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thanks.
Mr. Baker, in your statement you paint a pretty dismal
picture of the current Federal IT environment in which
substantial waste and inefficiency is common. What actions
would you suggest that the current administration take to
address these problems? If you would rattle off several.
Mr. Baker. I would think that from my testimony that you
could read that I'm a very strong proponent of management.
Again, if you really want something to change, I think you have
to manage that change. Strengthening a Federal CIO with agency
CIOs, having a reporting relationship with that. I will just
tell you that a power that I think would be great for you to
have to give to Mark is the ability to take the savings from
some consolidations and use them for e-government and things
that he views as more productive.
You know, going back to your share and savings point, there
are a lot of things that the private sector would probably like
to do. Let's say a good private sector company might decide
that they could do networks much more cheaply in the Commerce
Department than the Commerce Department does them. In the past
it's been difficult for the agency to see a benefit from doing
a share and savings, and I think that's a primary thing that
you have to find is where are the carrots for the agencies and
for others to get it done.
I would just go back to the major piece. It's a management
issue. Those thousands of different organizations inside of
government don't see it to be in their benefit to have a common
enterprise architecture or to give up power to a more central
authority on the infrastructure issues. You have to overcome
that fundamental issue, and that by itself is a bit of a
management challenge.
I wish I had a real solution for you, Congressman. It's a
tough problem.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. I understand.
You also recommend against making the CIO Council
statutorily based.
Mr. Baker. Right.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Could you please explain what
problems you would foresee if the Council is established in
law?
Mr. Baker. Well, I guess a major reason for doing it, I
believe, is to provide them some funding. And right now, as Mr.
Forman said, it's a pass-the-hat funding for this.
It does--CIO Council does productive things. It brings good
practices to light for use across government, and it is a good
forum for getting together and exchanging information. But
again, I see its primary use really being advising that Federal
CIO and being a forum for pulling attention to certain issues.
The issue in making it statutory is I think it becomes more
difficult for it to be more at that point if it's in statute as
a certain thing. And frankly, as Mark pointed out, when he came
in, he saw a need for certain changes. It may well be that
those changes need to continue, and if it's in legislation, it
is obviously much more difficult to change.
I don't think it's such a valuable institution today that
it's something that needs to be created in statute, and I'm not
sure the statute really does anything more for it than give it
a funding pool, and there might be other ways to do that.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. OK. All right. I think those are
my questions.
Mr. Turner, do you have any other questions?
Anything else anyone would like to add?
Mr. Gann. Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the association, I
also wanted to address one other point as it relates to
procurement. We felt that the work that you and your committee
had done on H.R. 4629 to establish a technical innovations
program was really very sound, and we think that using the same
model language more broadly in any government would indeed be a
very good thing.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you. In fact, I was going
to ask you what you thought of that. Anybody else agree with
that? Are you alone there? You know what we are talking about?
Mr. Forman. No.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. That's OK. I know what you are
talking about. Go ahead. I appreciate it.
Mr. Gann. Would you like me to continue?
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Please.
Mr. Gann. Well, I think the big issue is there are huge
benefits to putting in place quick pilots such that quick
learning could take place that can be pushed out throughout
departments, and I think that's very helpful. I think the way
you've increased the threshold for allowing slightly larger
dollar procurements to be put in the fast-track process is a
good thing, so we applaud you and thank you.
Mr. Tom Davis of Virginia. Thank you very much. Thank you
all very much for being with us today. We are going to see what
we can get done before the end of this Congress, and I think we
have made an appropriate record here. I thank Mr. Turner for
his thoughtful comments and sponsorship legislation. If you
have any other thoughts you want to add, we will give you 10
days, keep the record open, if you would like to come back and
reflect on anything you have said, and the briefing paper will
be made part of the permanent record, and these proceedings are
closed. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]