[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 7, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H3480-H3482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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MAKING ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE BY YIELDING TANGIBLE
EFFICIENCIES ACT OF 2016
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 4904) to require the Director of the Office of Management
and Budget to issue a directive on the management of software licenses,
and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 4904
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Making Electronic Government
Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016''
or the ``MEGABYTE Act of 2016''.
SEC. 2. OMB DIRECTIVE ON MANAGEMENT OF SOFTWARE LICENSES.
(a) Definition.--In this section--
(1) the term ``Director'' means the Director of the Office
of Management and Budget; and
(2) the term ``executive agency'' has the meaning given
that term in section 105 of title 5, United States Code.
(b) OMB Directive.--The Director shall issue a directive to
require the Chief Information Officer of each executive
agency to develop a comprehensive software licensing policy,
which shall--
(1) identify clear roles, responsibilities, and central
oversight authority within the executive agency for managing
enterprise software license agreements and commercial
software licenses; and
(2) require the Chief Information Officer of each executive
agency to--
(A) establish a comprehensive inventory, including 80
percent of software license spending and enterprise licenses
in the executive agency, by identifying and collecting
information about software license agreements using automated
discovery and inventory tools;
(B) regularly track and maintain software licenses to
assist the executive agency in implementing decisions
throughout the software license management life cycle;
(C) analyze software usage and other data to make cost-
effective decisions;
(D) provide training relevant to software license
management;
(E) establish goals and objectives of the software license
management program of the executive agency; and
(F) consider the software license management life cycle
phases, including the requisition, reception, deployment and
maintenance, retirement, and disposal phases, to implement
effective decisionmaking and incorporate existing standards,
processes, and metrics.
(c) Report on Software License Management.--
(1) In general.--Beginning in the first fiscal year
beginning after the date of enactment of this Act, and in
each of the following 5 fiscal years, the Chief Information
Officer of each executive agency shall submit to the Director
a report on the financial savings or avoidance of spending
that resulted from improved software license management.
(2) Availability.--The Director shall make each report
submitted under paragraph (1) publically available.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Oklahoma (Mr. Russell) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Cartwright) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma.
General Leave
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Oklahoma?
There was no objection.
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright) on
the Oversight and Government Reform Committee for introducing H.R.
4904, the Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible
Efficiencies Act of 2016, or the MEGABYTE Act of 2016, to improve the
Federal Government's management of software licenses. I am a proud
cosponsor of this straightforward legislation.
Importantly, this bill is the House companion to Senator Cassidy's
own MEGABYTE Act, S. 2340, and I am glad to see this proposal has found
bipartisan support in both Chambers and has moved forward.
H.R. 4904 requires the Chief Information Officer for each Federal
agency to maintain a software license inventory as well as analyze the
use of software to inform decisionmaking.
Mr. Speaker, the Government Accountability Office has expressed
repeated concerns on software license management and its costs. In
fact, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, listed IT software
license management as a potential cost savings area on its 2015
duplication report. In our never-ending effort to cut waste, I agree
with the GAO that it believes implementing sound, comprehensive
software management policies has already achieved at least $250 million
in savings to the Federal Government. But there is more work to be
done. There are other savings that the government could and should be
capturing.
A 2014 GAO report found that only 2 of 24 major agencies had
comprehensive software licensing policies in place. In fact, only 2 of
the 24 agencies had comprehensive license inventories. Agencies cannot
effectively manage the software licenses they have if they don't know
what they have in the first place.
Maintaining a thorough inventory is vital to ensure that agencies
make cost-effective decisions with respect to software licensing and
avoid duplicative measures.
The MEGABYTE Act will force agencies to focus on their software
license policies and their inventories, leading to savings to the
American taxpayer. These are straightforward steps that should already
be happening, and this bill ensures that they will.
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This legislation is about responsible stewardship of the tax dollars
of hardworking Americans. I thank my friend, Mr. Cartwright, and also
Senator Cassidy for their collective work on the MEGABYTE Act.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to not only support this
legislation, but all legislation in our continued quest to cut waste in
government.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4904, and I
yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let me first begin by thanking our chairman of the
Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, for bringing
this bill forward for a vote. I also want to thank the gentleman from
Maryland, Elijah Cummings, my friend and the ranking member; as well as
the other two lead cosponsors who are here, Congressman Will Hurd of
Texas and Congressman Steve Russell of Oklahoma who just spoke for
their support.
Additionally, I also want to join him in thanking Senator Bill
Cassidy--lately our colleague here in the House, but now over in the
minor leagues--for his support and his authorship of this bill.
Mr. Speaker, we are always looking for ways to curb waste in the
Federal Government, and sometimes it is surprising the places you find
it. It is a changing world. Fifty years ago, nobody used the acronym
IT, but now they do, and there is waste to be found in the IT
procurement mechanism.
Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government spends $82 billion a year on
information technology. Right now, for the second year in a row, our
GAO has identified IT software license management as a top priority in
its annual duplication report. A duplication report is something that
is really good at identifying waste because duplication means what it
says: you are duplicating purchases in the Federal Government.
Of the 24 major Federal agencies, as you just heard, only two have
implemented policies of comprehensive and clear management of software
licenses. It is like this: anybody in the private sector knows that
when you go to buy a suite of software from a major vendor, they sell
it in blocks with a price point. So you might buy a block of 25 copies
of a particular brand of software even though your office only needs 19
copies. That means you have six extra licenses left over.
The Federal Government buys software the same way. What we found is
they are not doing a good enough job of keeping track of the unused
licenses. This bill codifies current administration efforts to do
things like that to save the Federal taxpayers their tax dollars.
Right now none of the 24 agencies have fully implemented all of these
industry best practices recommended by the GAO, and that ends now with
this legislation.
The Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible
Efficiencies Act, the MEGABYTE Act, is comprised of necessary reforms
to the Federal Government's management of IT software licenses. In
particular, the MEGABYTE Act achieves cost savings by seven action
items:
Number one, it requires the Office of Management and Budget to issue
directives requiring agencies to identify clear roles,
responsibilities, and central oversight authority for managing IT
software licenses;
Number two, it requires having agencies establish comprehensive
records of software license spending and inventories of enterprise
licenses in the agency, as I just mentioned;
Number three, regularly track and efficiently and effectively utilize
software licenses to assist the executive agency in implementing
decisions throughout the software license management life cycle;
Number four, analyze software usage and other data to make cost-
effective decisions in the purchase of software;
Number five, provide relevant training for software license
management;
Number six, establish broad objectives and targeted implementation
strategies of the software license management program of the agency;
And, finally, number seven, consider the software license management
life cycle phases, including the requisition, reception, deployment and
maintenance, retirement, and disposal phases in order to implement
effective decisionmaking, again, in the purchase and handling of
software.
The GAO found that when implementing these oversight and management
practices reflected in the MEGABYTE Act, a Federal agency--one Federal
agency--saved 181 million tax dollars in a single year. Enacting
MEGABYTE across the entire executive branch promises potentially
yielding billions of savings to the American taxpayer footing the bill
for all of this.
Mr. Speaker, improving the management of agency contracts and
licensing for commercial software is critical to ensuring the
procurement process works effectively for both the Federal Government
and industry that provides the software.
An obvious example of how effective software management could save
not only dollars and cents, but improve the lives of Americans is in
the health records of our servicemembers.
Mr. Speaker, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee has held
hearings on the failure by the Department of Defense and the Department
of Veterans Affairs to implement a fully integrated electronic health
record system for our Active Duty soldiers and our veterans. As early
as 1998, DOD and VA began an effort to create health records that could
work together, with an initiative to create a joint system--an
integrated electronic health record system. But after nearly two
decades and spending over $560 million toward that effort, DOD and VA
ditched the plan and continued on with their separate systems.
Now, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who are making their
transition from DOD to VA health care are told to print out hard copies
of their medical records and bring them to the VA. That is an enormous
sum of money to have spent with absolutely nothing to show for it.
Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that the MEGABYTE Act is the first in a
series of steps we can take to minimize wasteful software spending and
to promote efficient procurement of technology. Our software and
technology must promote interoperability across multiple platforms--and
this starts with effective decisionmaking. By encouraging the use of
open standards that are technology neutral, we can encourage innovation
when we create connected, interoperable components and systems, driving
down costs and avoiding unnecessary lock-in to any one particular
technology platform.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the bipartisan and bicameral effort behind
this bill. I thank, again, our chairman, Jason Chaffetz, for advancing
the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hurd), my friend and colleague.
Mr. HURD of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government spends more
than $80 billion a year on IT procurement, and 80 percent of that is on
legacy systems, old and outdated systems that all of us would think
should be gone. Every time I hear this stat, I get upset because it is
outrageous. This is a waste of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.
In 2015, the Office of Management and Budget noted that Federal
agencies spent about $9 billion on software licenses alone. But guess
what? Many agencies are not managing these software licenses properly.
I know--nobody is surprised.
The Government Accountability Office did a report last year that
explained agencies could achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in
governmentwide savings if they managed their software licenses better.
Agencies should already have a comprehensive inventory of what software
they use. Agencies should already be utilizing their spending power to
get good deals on software licenses. Agencies should already be getting
rid of old software they don't use. But this isn't happening, so
Congress is acting.
In 2015, Congress passed landmark IT reform legislation called
FITARA, which gave agency CIOs greater authority over IT decisions and
changed the way that the Federal Government procures technology.
The MEGABYTE Act, H.R. 4904, builds upon the important work that
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FITARA started. When enacted, this bill would require CIOs to develop
comprehensive inventories on their software license agreements.
Additionally, this measure would require agency CIOs to provide OMB
with annual reports on any realized savings, which OMB must make
publicly available.
It is simple, it is straightforward, and it makes sense. IT
procurement is not a sexy topic. Nobody goes to a rally for IT
procurement. But getting this right will save money, and when we cut
waste, we allow hardworking Americans to keep more of their money in
their own pockets.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his
leadership on this issue, and I look forward to continuing our work
together. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4904.
Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Connolly.)
Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania
(Mr. Cartwright) especially for his leadership on this bill, the
MEGABYTE Act.
Mr. Speaker, as has been indicated, we spend over $80 billion a year
on IT procurement across the Federal Government, 80 percent of which
maybe is used to maintain old and legacy systems, some of those systems
going back to the 1960s. We are still funding COBOL, DOS, and many
multiple systems that aren't integrated and aren't interoperable.
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My friend, Mr. Cartwright, gave what I think is one of the most
glaring examples of how, even when we move to update, because of the
stovepipe nature of decisionmaking all too often in the Federal
Government, bad decisions get made.
The Pentagon has one system for medical recordkeeping and the
Veterans Administration has another. When one individual moves from
Active Duty to retired status, they have to take their records with
them, physically, because the two systems, upgraded recently, are not
compatible. A third procurement contract had to be issued for the
private sector to try to see if they could bridge these two systems,
and the taxpayer had to pay a third time. Why couldn't we get that
right the first time?
Making sure these investments serve the purpose for which they are
intended is really critical. This act helps codify that.
My friend, Mr. Hurd from Texas, was gracious in bringing up the
FITARA, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act,
which I think sets the construct, the structure, for every Federal
agency to modernize itself to improve efficiency, to streamline
management, and to make sure that these investments are efficacious.
The MEGABYTE Act is a wonderful complement to that when it comes to
software. I think it will help transform how the Federal Government
procures and manages its information technology portfolio. I urge its
passage, and I am proud to be an original cosponsor.
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I urge my fellow Members of the United States House of
Representatives to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 4904, a commonsense,
bipartisan, bicameral effort to save the American taxpayers money in
the purchase of software. It is our chance to nip this problem in the
bud before it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It is an opportunity
to save a whopping amount of money for the American taxpayer.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I also urge not only support and adoption of this bill, but I think
it is crucial, as we continue to fight and combat waste in government,
that we look at measures that are so ripe and so effective, if we pass
them, that they will have an immediate impact on tax dollars that are
wasted. Here we have a measure that literally will save billions of
dollars in the very short term. It is very, very important that we pass
it. I urge adoption of the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Russell) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 4904.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
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