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GCN Home > September 11, 2000 issue

FEDERAL CONTRACT LAW

Davis bill would give IT czar carrots, but no stick

Barely five years after the demise of the Brooks Act, Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) has proposed a statute to govern federal information technology, HR 5024.

Given Davis’ background in the computer industry—he was a vice president at Litton PRC Inc.—and his Northern Virginia constituency, this bill deserves serious consideration.

HR 5024 would appoint a federal computer czar, a chief information officer for the entire federal government. This official would report directly to the president. As envisioned by Davis, this person is supposed to assume leadership over agency IT use.

CIO would bypass OMB

The bill seeks to establish the governmentwide CIO as a new focal point for IT policy, bypassing the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where this responsibility now resides.

Under the Davis bill, the federal CIO would develop and implement uniform policies for the management of information resources.

These duties would include the collection of information from the public and dissemination of information to it. The governmentwide CIO is supposed to make these processes more efficient by promulgating common standards for information collection, storage, processing and communication, including standards for security, interconnectivity and interoperability.

Not only that, the CIO would need to figure out how to archive information kept in electronic format, which is rapidly overtaking the volume of information on paper.

This is a tall order.

But there’s even more. The governmentwide CIO would have the additional pressure of an Oct. 1, 2003, deadline to ensure that when practicable, agencies provide for electronic filings and disclosures in lieu of paper, including, as the bill states, “the use and acceptance of electronic signatures.”

The CIO would also be asked to jump-start a stalled initiative supposedly mandated by the IT Management Reform Act, namely the use of performance metrics to assess systems costs, benefits and risks.

ITMRA’s framers intended that these metrics would be key factors in managing IT resources and justifying new investments.



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