Information Technology Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Connolly for his leadership on this, on FITARA, and on so many efforts to bring technology to our government. I thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia and the bipartisan committee that has helped bring this legislation to the floor, including the majority and minority staffs.
Mr. Speaker, we worked with the White House Office of Innovation and Matt Lira on this. The idea was very simple. We in the Federal Government should have cutting-edge technology in our Federal agencies. As a representative of Silicon Valley, it has always perplexed me why the world's greatest institution, the strongest institution, the United States Government, can't adopt the latest technology.
What this bill does is says that we need to have digital expertise in the General Service Administration, about 50 to 150 individuals who will help all of our Federal agencies adopt cloud computing, adopt artificial intelligence, adopt the latest technology modernization and infrastructure, adopt the best digital practices for customer service.
We want our Federal Government to be user friendly. We want our Federal Government to use all the tools of technology to be competitive, to be the leader in the world. That is what this bill does.
I want to applaud the bipartisan spirit in which this bill came to the floor. It was originally the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who was the cosponsor of the legislation. I thank him, as well as the cosponsor, now the ranking member, Representative Rice. On the Senate side, we have bipartisan commitment from the leadership of Senator Portman and Senator Maggie Hassan. So I am hopeful that this will actually become law and allow us to continue to compete.
I just want to end by thanking Geo Saba, a staff member who was extraordinarily helpful on this; as well as, again, the committee staff that has been excellent to work with; and, of course, Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, who helped bring this to the floor.
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