Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Madam Chair, this amendment is a modified version of language that was incorporated in the House-passed NDAA authorization bill last year, and that was adopted again by the House earlier this year as a standalone bill, H.R. 1232, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act.

The amendment reforms--Government-wide--the process by which federal information technology is acquired and deployed.

It takes a streamlined and precise approach to solving a huge problem in Federal IT--the broken system by which the government procures and deploys critical IT infrastructure.

President Barack Obama, on Nov. 14, 2013, stated ``One of the things [the federal government] does not do well is information technology procurement This is kind of a systematic problem that we have across the board.'' I agree.

I commend the Administrations' recent steps to strengthen IT management by strengthening the eGov office and focusing on duplications via what is called PortfolioStat reviews.

In its annual reports to Congress, GAO has identified duplicative IT investments as a significant problem. Our oversight hearings confirmed that despite spending more than $600 billion over the past decade, too often Federal IT investments run over budget, become behind schedule, or never deliver on the promised solution or functionality.

Indeed, industry experts have estimated that as much as 25 percent of the annual $80 billion spent on IT is attributable to mismanaged or duplicative IT investments.

In terms of potential cost savings, some in the industry have estimated that more than one trillion dollars could be saved over the next ten years if the government adopted the ``proven'' IT best practices currently in use by the private sector.

We need to enhance the best value to the taxpayer by aligning the cumbersome federal acquisition process to major trends in the IT industry.

FITARA accomplishes this by--

1. Creating a clear line of responsibility, authority, and accountability over IT investment and management decisions by empowering agency CIOs;

2. Accelerating the consolidation and optimization of the Federal Government's proliferating data centers;

3. Increasing the accuracy and transparency of IT investment scorecards by requiring 80 percent of Government-wide IT spending be covered by a public website called the IT Dashboard; and

4. Ensuring procurement decisions give due consideration to all technologies--including open source--and that contracts are awarded based on long-term best value proposition.

This is a significant and timely reform that will enhance both defense and non-defense procurement. I urge all members to support this amendment.

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