Geographic Information Spans Borders

eographic information systems have offered the seductive promise of linking up all sorts of information now maintained in stovepiped systems. Rapid technological advances offer equally enticing opportunities for combining and giving the public access to spatial data; fostering cooperation among agencies, levels of government and the private sector; and reducing costs to the taxpayer. However, progress in reaping the full potential of these advances seems painfully slow and the outlook for overcoming major structural and behavioral barriers is not promising, at least in the near future.

Many federal agencies, state and local governments, and private firms produce and maintain spatial data. Usually the data are collected and arrayed to meet the specific mission needs of these organizations. The Census Bureau needs street addresses. Commercial fishermen, merchant vessels and recreational boaters need charts of harbors and coastal waters. The military needs intelligence and battlefield maps. States need highway maps to maintain their transportation systems. Local governments need maps for city planning and property records, and some are managing spatial data in new ways.

Fixing Overlap

Policy-makers have been concerned about overlap and duplication among surveying and mapping organizations for more than 100 years. Studies have been commissioned periodically since the late 1800s to find more efficient ways of producing and maintaining spatial data.

These concerns came to a head in 1994 when the newly elected Republican Congress launched plans to eliminate several departments and agencies. Those plans included shutting down the U.S. Geological Survey-the federal government's chief map maker-and a host of smaller units, some with spatial data responsibilities. The 104th Congress also mandated greater use of private firms to carry out federal spatial data functions. The House Appropriations Committee urged the USGS, in cooperation with the Office of Management and Budget, to identify options for consolidating federal mapping functions.

Leaders in the spatial data professions were concerned that Congress would take precipitous action to consolidate or eliminate these functions without a solid base of empirical data. In early 1995, the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping chartered a study to identify opportunities to streamline spatial data functions. The National Academy of Public Administration conducted the project, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In January 1998, a NAPA panel concluded that new institutional arrangements and a legislative charter were needed to fulfill the Clinton administration's promise of a computerized spatial data infrastructure. But the administration instead chose a "virtual government" approach for coordinating spatial data functions, opting for the status quo on organizational responsibilities.

Efforts have been under way for years to better coordinate federal geographic information functions. Various committees were formed by the Office of Management and Budget, the most current being the Federal Geographic Data Committee, to coordinate agency activities and develop common standards for spatial data. FGDC is chaired by the Interior Secretary and composed of representatives from about 15 federal agencies. Recently, the panel has included representatives from state and local government and professional organizations and has reached out to private-sector firms.

The administration also examined spatial data issues in its 1993 National Performance Review. An NPR report urged the federal government, given the limited resources available, to seek innovative ways to build a national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI). The goal was to promote cost-sharing and data-sharing partnerships rather than create a bureaucratic organization. The Federal Geographic Data Committee was to be "significantly strengthened by specifying enforcement authority and setting clear policy goals."

The NPR became a proponent of virtual government, which promoted cross-agency arrangements centered on customer needs. By 1996, about 25 cross-cutting initiatives, such as better coordination of governxment statistics, had been started.

Avoiding Legislation

Virtual government-an array of cross-servicing arrangements between agencies to promote cost- and data-sharing-as seen as an alternative to formal restructuring. NPR had recommended that the President seek authority from Congress to reorganize agencies, but such authority was elusive because of fundamental differences with the Republican Congress over the size and scope of government. Instead, the President turned to executive orders and joint executive agency arrangements to streamline operations and achieve efficiencies.

The NAPA panel endorsed the NSDI concept and acknowledged that remarkable progress had been achieved in the early stages. However, the panel said there were enormous challenges in achieving a spatial data infrastructure with a common foundation, easy access, broadly accepted standards and widely shared responsibility for creating and maintaining the data--ideals expressed by a cross-section of the professional community. The report said multiple governments and agencies have jurisdiction over and provide services for the same geographic area, often with independent administrative infrastructures of offices, personnel and systems. Differing and sometimes conflicting data often need to be reconciled to be useful.

The panel concluded that legislation was needed to provide a stronger policy base and make other changes needed to achieve a national spatial data infrastructure, but neither the administration, major agencies, nor Congress have proposed new laws. Program officials are reluctant to even explore the possibility of legislation because they believe the end product would hardly resemble any bill submitted by the administration.

The panel's report made about 40 recommendations that included limited restructuring of the agencies engaged in spatial data functions. The goal was to make NSDI the national endeavor its name implied, not just another initiative agencies could ignore. The panel sought:

• A stronger voice for and participation by state and local governments and the private sector.
• Better coordination among domestic and national security agencies.
• Limited consolidation of federal civil spatial data functions to provide a critical mass for meeting the challenges of building an NSDI.
• A national council, not just a federal committee, to provide strong participation in policy-making by all levels of government and the private sector.

  By the time NAPA's report was released, the legislative climate had changed dramatically. The sponsoring agencies no longer felt threatened with extinction or major funding cuts. In fact, most opposed any restructuring of spatial data functions, and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, chair of the FGDC, took all such options off the table before the broader spatial data community could respond to the report.

  Since then the state of North Carolina and the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing have endorsed the NAPA report, and other organizations are following suit. Meanwhile, the administration continues with its virtual government approach. The sponsoring agencies are still maintaining their program-focused and idiosyncratic methods for managing spatial data while cooperating at the margin through an FGDC that's insufficient for building the NSDI.

  The United States has been surveyed and mapped in many ways. The visibility and glamour of the time-honored professions of collecting and maintaining spatial data have diminished. But the challenges of building and maintaining comprehensive inventories of these data are still with us. The frontier today involves the consolidation of data sources and full realization of opportunities a host of evolving technologies provide-mass communications and the Global Positioning System, to name but two.

  Roger L. Sperry is a consultant in public management and was co-director of the National Academy of Public Administration study of geographic information.