[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 118 (Thursday, July 13, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E977-E978]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 12, 2017

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2810) to 
     authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2018 for military 
     activities of the Department of Defense and for military 
     construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for 
     such fiscal year, and for other purposes:

  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chair, I rise to speak in support of my amendment 
No. 41 to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 2018.
  My amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to develop a definition 
for the term Procurement Administrative Lead Time to be applied 
throughout the Department of Defense (DoD). Additionally, the amendment 
also requires a plan for measuring and publicly reporting data on 
procurement administrative lead time for DoD contracts and task orders 
above a certain threshold.
  Given the number and costs of contracts and task orders issued by the 
Department of Defense, it is important that the Department collect 
information on the amount of time between when a solicitation is issued 
and the initial award of the contract or task order. By establishing a 
uniform definition and collecting this data, DoD, the contractor 
community, and other stakeholders can better analyze the data and use 
it as a tool to reduce unnecessary delays.
  I am very pleased that the managers of this legislation recognize the 
need to find and address inefficiencies in the procurement process.
  Mr. Chair, I also rise to speak in support of my bipartisan amendment 
No. 43 to H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 2018, which I have offered with my colleague, Mr. Issa of 
California.
  My amendment would extend three expiring provisions of the Federal 
Information Technology Acquisition and Reform Act, which is better 
known as FITARA or Issa-Connolly. This bipartisan legislation 
represented the first major reform of the laws governing federal IT 
management since the seminal Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, and it was 
enacted as a provision of the FY2015 NDAA.
  When I meet with stakeholders in federal IT from government agencies 
and industry, I am constantly reminded why previous major IT reform 
efforts have fallen short of their potential--the lack of a robust 
implementation plan and congressional oversight. Through countless 
hearings and briefings, close coordination with the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) and Government Accountability Office (GAO), 
and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's work on the FITARA

[[Page E978]]

Scorecard, Congress is committed to the successful implementation and 
oversight of FITARA.
  In working with GAO and OMB on FITARA implementation, we have found 
that there are areas of FITARA that would benefit from an extension of 
their original sunset date. These areas include the provisions on 
federal data center consolidation, transparency and risk management of 
major IT systems (IT Dashboard), and IT portfolio, program, and 
resource reviews (PortfolioStat).
  Very simply, the federal data center problem is bigger than we 
initially thought. In 2009, when Federal Chief Information Officer 
Vivek Kundra directed agencies to determine how many data centers they 
had and begin to consolidate those centers, the government estimated it 
had roughly 1,100 data centers. That estimate grew to 11,700 by 2015.
  As GAO has recommended, we are potentially leaving money on the table 
when it comes to data center consolidation if we allow FITARA's data 
center reporting and planning requirements to expire in 2018. Twenty-
three agencies have reported roughly $656 million collectively in 
planned savings for fiscal years 2016 through 2018. This is $3.3 
billion less than the estimated $4.0 billion in planned savings for 
fiscal years 2016 through 2018 that agencies reported to GAO in 
November 2015. As of April 2017, 23 of 24 agencies have submitted a 
strategic plan for data center consolidation. Of the 23 plans, only 7 
included all required information. The remaining plans either partially 
met or did not meet the requirements.
  We need to let agencies know that they are not going to be able to 
run out the clock on FITARA's transparency and reporting requirements. 
A limited extension of the data center provisions of FITARA, scheduled 
to sunset October 1, 2018, could help us do that.
  Additionally, the IT Dashboard and PortfolioStat provisions of FITARA 
have allowed OMB to evaluate the efficiencies and risk of IT 
investments and would benefit from a permanent extension of the current 
December 1, 2019 sunset. These are valuable oversight tools, and we 
should continue to use them to reform federal IT procurement.
  The federal government invests roughly $100 billion in IT each year. 
I look forward to continued bipartisan collaboration on FITARA 
implementation to ensure these investments are efficient, effective, 
and in the best interest of the taxpayer.
  I want to thank the Chairman and Ranking Member for working with me 
on this amendment.

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