House committee votes to create e-gov administrator

A bipartisan bill to create an e-government office within the Office of Management and Budget won approval Wednesday from the House Government Reform Committee.

Approved by voice vote, the legislation, H.R. 2458, aims to improve coordination and deployment of information technology across the federal government and help agencies achieve the IT management reforms required under the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act.

Virginia Republican Tom Davis, who chairs the Technology and Procurement Policy Subcommittee that approved the bill, said federal agencies' efforts to comply with that law have revealed the lack of a centralized focus on information management and pervasive information security and IT acquisition problems.

"This bill includes language designed to improve the internal management of information, information technology and information security," Davis said. "Additionally, it includes a number of provisions intended to ensure greater citizen access to the federal government through the improved use of information technology."

The proposed e-government office is based largely on the administrative structure established in June 2001, when Mark Forman was appointed associate director of OMB for information technology and e-government.

As introduced by Jim Turner of Texas, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, the legislation called for a Senate-confirmed chief information officer within OMB. But a bipartisan substitute adopted Wednesday calls for an e-government "administrator" instead of a new CIO. The substitute would allow the administrator to be appointed without Senate confirmation.

Arguing that confirmation "imbues a position with prestige and power," Turner tried to restore that requirement. "We have, for a long time, fought for a strong leadership position on information technology within the federal government," he said. "Not requiring this position to be Senate-confirmed would, in my judgment, weaken the leadership of this new officer."

But Republicans opposed Turner's amendment, and the panel rejected it by voice vote. "We already have six officials at OMB who are subject to confirmation," said Committee Chairman Dan Burton, R-Ind. "So there is plenty of accountability built into the process, and I don't believe we need a seventh."

Democrats also raised concerns about language that would authorize federal agencies to acquire information technology through a limited number of "share-in-savings" contracts. Under such an arrangement, an agency could obtain a product or service from a contractor without paying large, upfront costs. Rather, the agency would agree to pay the contractor a percentage of whatever long-term savings are achieved by using the new product or service.

Davis said the provision would encourage industry to share creative technology and management solutions with the government while enabling agencies to improve efficiency without the big investments.

But Henry Waxman of California, the full committee's ranking Democrat, said analyses by some federal employee unions have indicated that the proposed share-in-savings provision could increase government expenditures.

"This is the exact opposite of what the bill is supposed to achieve, and I believe these concerns ought to be addressed prior to this measure going to the [House] floor," Waxman said.