[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 4121]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MODERNIZATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, I introduced the Information 
Technology Modernization Act, a bill that will make our government more 
transparent, more efficient, more responsive, and more secure.
  Dangerously, many Federal Government agencies, as we have seen, rely 
on technology systems that are decades old and hinder digital 
interagency collaboration. As a result, government services are less 
efficient than they could be, and Americans' personal data is put at 
higher risk every year that goes by without critical system upgrades. 
This was the experience for almost 2 million employees of our Federal 
Government.
  I am partnering with the White House and U.S. Chief Information 
Officer Tony Scott to propose a new way to invest in upgrading the 
government technology infrastructure that serves the American people 
and this institution.
  My bill authorizes a one-time investment of $3 billion into a 
revolving fund that will be overseen by an independent review board. 
The fund will invest in large-scale, rapid systems upgrades deemed to 
be in the greatest need and that would provide the greatest impact on 
serving the American people.
  Once an upgrade is completed, the receiving agency will then begin 
paying back the fund over time, using the savings achieved from greater 
efficiency. In such a way, this one-time investment of $3 billion will 
support at least a minimum of $12 billion--that is 400 percent more--
worth of upgrades in the first 10 years alone, after which it would 
continue to fund upgrades into the future.
  This is a novel approach for government, though it has been employed 
successfully in the private sector, where it has a proven track record. 
Tony Scott himself, Mr. Speaker, implemented a similar program when he 
was the chief information officer at Microsoft, which was successful 
and resulted in significant long-term savings.
  Additionally, the fund will ensure that upgrades make use of the 
latest and best practices from Silicon Valley, including shared 
services, cloud hosting, and agile development. This will enable 
agencies to create new user-friendly apps and services, and facilitate 
the sharing of data between agencies to root out fraud and waste. It 
will promote the use of systems that are secure and prevent 
cyberattacks.
  My bill will also ensure transparency by requiring all upgrade 
projects to provide regular status updates on a publicly available 
digital dashboard.
  I want to thank all those who signed on as original sponsors, Mr. 
Speaker, and I want to say that I had discussions last night with Mr. 
Issa, the former chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee. I think he is going to cosponsor this bill with me, and we 
want to see this bill be a bipartisan bill.
  I have also talked to ranking members on my side of the aisle in each 
of the relevant committees: Mr. Cummings, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Serrano, Mr. 
Connolly, Ms. Duckworth, Ms. Robin Kelly, and Mr. Ted Lieu, all of whom 
are excited to support this piece of legislation.
  Again, this is a totally nonpartisan bill looking for government 
efficiency and safety and transparency for the American people. I hope 
that my friends on both sides of the aisle who care deeply about making 
government as effective and transparent as possible, as well as 
eliminating fraud and inefficiencies, will partner with us by 
cosponsoring this bill and helping to bring it to the floor as a 
bipartisan measure overwhelmingly supported by this House.
  I am proud of the bipartisan work we have done together already to 
encourage innovation in the use of technology in Congress, particularly 
the hackathons I have hosted with Leader McCarthy and his predecessor, 
Mr. Cantor.
  Let's work together. Let me say that again. Let's work together to 
expand that effort to the executive branch and make sure that the 
Federal Government can and is serving the American people effectively 
and transparently.
  

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