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$500 million modernization bill passes the House
452 of 557 key Senate-confirmed
positions still lacked a nominee as of May 15
example, tasks agencies with produc- ing risk management reports on their systems. Those reports will “show us where we should go...on the shared services that are probably going to be the most advantageous and to show
The Modernizing Government Technol- ogy Act passed the House on a voice vote on May 17. The bill would estab- lish a $500 million central fund to sup- port rapid IT modernization and would authorize working capital funds at 24 large agencies that could be used to pay for IT modernization. Agencies can bank any savings they enjoy for use on further IT projects.
“This approach eliminates the tra- ditional use-it-or-lose-it approach that has plagued government technology for decades,” said lead sponsor Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) in remarks in support of the bill.
Co-sponsor Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said updating legacy systems will help the federal government avoid “the chaos and havoc that sophisticat- ed cyberattacks can and do wreak.”
“Bad actors repeatedly target our federal government,” he added. “Those attacks often succeed because feder- al computer systems are so outdated that they cannot implement network defenses as basic as encryption. Some legacy systems go back half a century.”
The bill now moves to the Sen- ate. Two appropriators — Sens.
Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) — are sponsoring a compan- ion version. It’s unclear whether or when the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will take up the bill.
“Attacks often succeed because federal computer systems are so outdated that they cannot implement network defenses as basic as encryption.”
If the bill becomes law, it will need the support of appropriators and the White House to designate money for the central fund and the agency funds.
Acting U.S. CIO Margie Graves said the MGT Act cleared a major hurdle by getting a favorable Congressional Budget Office score, but she declined to speculate on the bill’s prospects in the Senate.
She did say, however, that other efforts within the administration are laying the groundwork for modern- ization and will be ready if the MGT Act becomes law. The recently signed executive order on cybersecurity, for
— REP. GERRY CONNOLLY
which cloud services we should pursue first,” Graves said.
Similarly, the Office of Manage- ment and Budget has been working with agencies for months “to develop criteria of what a good business case looks like,” she said. That effort has been tested at five agencies.
“We’ve been preparing for this for a long time,” Graves said. “And regard- less of whether there’s ultimately a central fund or efforts must be funded agency by agency, you’re still going to have to do it.”
— Adam Mazmanian and Troy K. Schneider
FCW CALENDAR
6/7 Enterprise IT
Machine learning, hybrid IT, workload automation and
infrastructure capacity management are all on the agenda at BMC Exchange Federal 2017. Washington, D.C. fcw.com/bmcexchange
6/13 Acquisition
Presenters at ACT-IAC’s Acquisition Excellence event include
the Treasury Department’s Iris Cooper, the IRS’ Shanna Webbers and DHS’ Soraya Correa, Chip Fulghum and Richard Staropoli.
Washington, D.C. is.gd/FCW_actiac_ae
6/20 Analytics
DOD’s Mark Krzysko, NGA’s Peter Highnam and the Air
Force’s Mark Tapper are among the speakers at this FCW event on how advanced analytics can support national security.
Arlington, Va.
fcw.com/Analytics
June 2017 FCW.COM 3
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