[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7912-7915]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1700
     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,

[[Page 7913]]



     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.
  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

[[Page 7914]]

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 
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.

                              {time}  1715

  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.

[[Page 7915]]


  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.

                          ____________________