A bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and designed to improve how the federal government purchases information technology systems will be included in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015.
The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), first introduced in 2013, would give chief information officers at various agencies more authority over IT investments. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has frequently found that IT programs underperform despite their $80 billion annual price tag.
Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) co-sponsored the bill in the Senate while Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) joined Issa in co-sponsoring legislation in the House of Representatives.
“By giving decision makers the ability to make changes appropriate for their agency, we can ensure that the most knowledgeable will now be able to enact solutions that had otherwise plagued their agencies,” Issa said. “As technology changes, chief information officers were previously prevented from adopting new technologies, and often the American taxpayer missed out on more cost effective options. FITARA fixes this crisis of leadership and ensures that the contracting standard is modernized to handle a changed tech landscape.”
The bill would also require IT investments to be more transparent to the public, require the creation of a government-wide software purchasing program and consolidate the more than 9,000 federally owned data centers.