[Senate Hearing 107-148]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 107-148
S. 803--E-GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2001
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
on
S. 803
TO ENHANCE THE MANAGEMENT AND PROMOTION OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT
SERVICES AND PROCESSES BY ESTABLISHING A FEDERAL CHIEF INFORMATION
OFFICER WITHIN THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, AND BY ESTABLISHING
A BROAD FRAMEWORK OF MEASURES THAT REQUIRE USING INTERNET-BASED
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE CITIZEN ACCESS TO GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION AND SERVICES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
JULY 11, 2001
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
75-470 WASHINGTON : 2002
_____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman
CARL LEVIN, Michigan FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee
DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii TED STEVENS, Alaska
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio
MAX CLELAND, Georgia PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah
MARK DAYTON, Minnesota JIM BUNNING, Kentucky
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Staff Director and Counsel
Kevin J. Landy, Counsel
Hannah S. Sistare, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Ellen B. Brown, Minority Senior Counsel
Robert J. Shea, Minority Counsel
Darla D. Cassell, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Lieberman............................................ 1
Senator Thompson............................................. 3
Senator Carper............................................... 5
Senator Bennett.............................................. 22
Senator Voinovich............................................ 25
Senator Carnahan............................................. 28
Prepared statement:
Senator Cleland.............................................. 65
WITNESSES
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
Hon. Conrad Burns, a U.S. Senator from the State of Montana...... 6
Hon. Sean O'Keefe, Deputy Director, Office of Management and
Budget......................................................... 8
Anne K. Altman, Managing Director, U.S. Federal-IBM Corporation.. 31
Costis Toregas, Ph.D., President, Public Technology, Inc......... 33
Aldona Valicenti, President, National Association of Chief
Information Officers of the States (NASCIO).................... 35
Greg Woods, Chief Operating Officer, Student Financial
Assistance, U.S. Department of Education....................... 38
Sharon A. Hogan, University Librarian, University of Illinois at
Chicago, on behalf of the American Library Association, the
American Association of Law Libraries, and the Association of
Research Libraries............................................. 48
Barry Ingram, Vice President, EDS Global Government Industry
Group, on behalf of the Information Technology Association of
America (ITAA)................................................. 50
Patricia McGinnis, President and Chief Executive Officer, Council
for Excellence in Government................................... 52
Hon. Joseph R. Wright, former Director and Deputy Director,
Office of Management and Budget, and Vice Chairman, Terremark
Worldwide, Inc................................................. 54
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Altman, Anne K.:
Testimony.................................................... 31
Prepared statement........................................... 72
Burns, Hon. Conrad:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Hogan, Sharon A.:
Testimony.................................................... 48
Prepared statement........................................... 114
Ingram, Barry:
Testimony.................................................... 50
Prepared statement........................................... 124
McGinnis, Patricia:
Testimony.................................................... 52
Prepared statement........................................... 130
O'Keefe, Hon. Sean:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 66
Toregas, Costis:
Testimony.................................................... 33
Prepared statement........................................... 82
Valicenti, Aldona:
Testimony.................................................... 35
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 86
Woods, Greg:
Testimony.................................................... 38
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 101
Wright, Hon. Joseph R.:
Testimony.................................................... 54
Prepared statement........................................... 135
Appendix
Copy of S. 803................................................... 147
Prepared statements for the record:
American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, Bobby
L. Harnage, Sr., National President........................ 242
American Chemical Society, Attila E. Pavlath, President...... 246
Center for Democracy and Technology.......................... 250
Citizens United for Excellence in E-Government, Marc
Strassman, President....................................... 256
The Industry Advisory Council, Shared Interest Group on
Electronic Government...................................... 267
Information Renaissance, Dr. Robert D. Carlitz and Barbara H.
Brandon.................................................... 269
Information Renaissance, ``Online Rulemaking: A Tool for
Strengthening Civil Infrastructure,'' by Barbara H. Brandon
and Robert D. Carlitz...................................... 275
Institute of Museum and Library Services, Beverly Sheppard,
Acting Director............................................ 303
Interoperability Clearinghouse, John Weiler, Executive
Director................................................... 305
OMB Watch, Dr. Patrice McDermott, Senior Policy Analyst...... 307
Software & Information Industry Association.................. 323
U.S. General Accounting Office, ``Electronic Government:
Challenges Must Be Addressed With Effective Leadership and
Management,'' by David L. McClure, Director, Information
Technology Management Issues............................... 332
U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science
(NCLIS), Martha B. Gould, Chairperson, with an attachment.. 371
S. 803--E-GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2001
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 11, 2001
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I.
Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Lieberman, Carper, Carnahan, Thompson,
Stevens, Voinovich, Cochran, and Bennett.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN
Chairman Lieberman. We will now convene the hearing on
electronic government. The bill before us is S. 803, the E-
Government Act of 2001.
I want to welcome our witnesses and guests and thank you
for joining us today to examine the new universe of
possibilities that the Internet and other information
technologies are providing for government and the people whom
we serve.
I think we have a strong consensus in this country, in both
parties, as President Clinton said about 5 years ago, that the
era of big government is over. Our goal is not to make
government bigger but to make it smarter, less wasteful, and
more efficient. That clearly is the responsibility of this
Committee as the Senate's major oversight committee, and it is
the purpose of the bill that is the subject of this hearing,
because today and in the years ahead, I think there is no
better way to make government smarter and more effective than
by using the Internet and information technology (IT).
The reach of the Internet and the speed with which that
reach was achieved may be the big story of the last decade and,
notwithstanding the falling fortunes of dot-com stocks, I think
it may be the big story of the next decade and beyond.
In order to get ahead in today's world, you pretty much
have to be plugged in and powered up, connected and ready for
business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The result is that just
about every aspect of society in America is undergoing major
transformation, and it is our obligation to see that government
does not lag behind in that transformation.
Information technology offers an unprecedented opportunity
to redefine the relationship between the public and its
government just as it has redefined the relationship between
retailers and consumers, teachers and consumers, and in fact in
a very different area, soldiers and their foes.
The idea is to apply the lessons of the on-line private
sector to the missions of government. That means providing
better services, more accessible information, and greater
accountability at significant cost savings.
At its best, next generation government would exchange what
is now cumbersome, static, and often bewildering for a dynamic,
interactive, and user-friendly government. In the end,
hopefully, a more efficient and more effective government will
emerge.
I think this Committee has an important role to play in
that transformation. Today we are going to be considering the
E-Government Act of 2001, bipartisan legislation that our guest
and friend and colleague, Senator Conrad Burns of Montana, and
I, along with 12 other cosponsors introduced 2 months ago to
bring focused leadership to electronic government. Our goal is
to use information technology to bring about a revolution in
current bureaucratic structures so that we can engage the
public, restore its trust, and ultimately increase
participation in the democratic process.
As it stands now, electronic government at the Federal
level lacks a unifying vision. Fortunately, though, we are not
beginning at square one. A variety of projects are underway,
and several agencies have created imaginative websites that
provide a wealth of information and numerous services on-line.
For instance, taxpayers may submit their income tax forms on-
line, and millions do so. Students may apply for loans
electronically. And some agencies have actually instituted
electronic rulemaking already.
But overall, progress in digital government at the Federal
level is uneven. We have a looseknit mix of ideas and projects
that are often poorly coordinated, sometimes overlapping, and
frequently redundant.
Remarkable innovations dreamed up by visionary Federal
Government employees can be found in some quarters, but
elsewhere, innovations are hampered by regulatory and statutory
restrictions, the inability to move beyond traditional models
of governmental management, and stovepipe conceptions of agency
jurisdiction.
The result is that the progress of electronic government at
the Federal level has been inconsistent, particularly in areas
that require intergovernmental coordination.
One of the most important impediments to progress is the
lack of concentrated high-level leadership on these IT issues.
That is why our bill creates a Federal Chief Information
Officer (CIO), inside OMB to implement information technology
statutes, promote e-government, and foster innovation.
The CIO would not replace the agencies' authority to pursue
their own IT programs but rather, would provide a much needed
strong, government-wide perspective. Among other things, the
CIO would address privacy and computer security issues, develop
e-government initiatives with State and local governments, the
public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and oversee a fund to
promote cross-agency projects which are central to the kind of
integrated service delivery and consolidation that will truly
transform government. We want people to be able to go to a
single site and do a host of different forms of business with
the Federal Government, and that requires interagency
coordination.
We also want information and services offered over the
Internet to be accessible to citizens through a single Federal
on-line portal, building on the progress that has already been
made by the existing FirstGov.gov website which was launched by
the Federal Government last year.
Based on the experience of the private sector, we expect
major cost savings from more efficient agency-to-agency
interactions. But progress in this area requires that we
establish standards for electronic compatibility between the
agencies and within the agencies.
As the government steadily moves information and services
on-line, I think we have to be wary of what Senator Thompson
has warned against, and that is automating existing
inefficiencies. If we take this moment of opportunity to
reexamine our existing processes, then I believe we must also
implement performance measures to determine which e-government
applications are successful and cost-effective so we are not
duplicating government's existing inadequacies.
The task is not going to be without some headaches, but
fortunately, we have excellent models in the private sector
that have transformed their practices and now serve customers
so much better while saving literally billions of dollars in
the process, and we are going to hear about two of those models
today.
As I said when we introduced this bill, and I want to
emphasize it again today, this piece of legislation is a work
in progress. It reflects the insights of many people and
organizations. But we are going to continue to seek comments
and feedback, especially from the administration, which is
represented here today by Mr. O'Keefe and also, of course, from
Members of this Committee.
I personally expect that the bill will change as we work to
achieve a broad consensus, and I hope everyone involved will
maintain an open mind as we strive for that compromise. This is
a step forward that is within our reach, and I think that if we
work together, we can take that step together for the benefit
of our government and all the citizens whom we serve.
Senator Thompson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON
Senator Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think that was an excellent summary of where we are. I
have certainly enjoyed working with you in regard to the
interactive website that we established a while back for this
Committee. You are absolutely right that we are all becoming
more and more aware of not only the need to move in the
direction that you suggest but the need to do it better.
I am struck by the fact that, according to the GAO, we have
809 initiatives right now to disseminate information, which is
the simplest facet of e-government; 88 initiatives to provide
downloadable electronic forms; 460 initiatives to allow people
to complete a transaction like submitting a patent application.
This is all going on right now, so there are an awful lot of
things going on out there, but we are not doing it well enough.
So the question is, what do we do about that, and where do we
put the management responsibility to handle all that; and I
think that is what your legislation addresses.
I look forward to these hearings because hopefully I will
be able to put into a little better context for myself the
obvious need that you are addressing with an equally obvious
problem that I have been dealing with for some time. Just
before my last day as Chairman, we put out a report which was
basically a compilation of studies of the GAO, Inspector
Generals, and others, as to the management situation in our
government, and we have a pitiful situation as far as
government management is concerned that has developed over
several years.
We have a list of areas, government-wide areas, that the
GAO delineates as high-risk areas that continue to be endemic
problems that we seemingly can do nothing about. One of them is
information technology. We have shown a remarkable inability to
manage large information technology projects. We have wasted
billions and billions of dollars in starting these big
information technology projects that either did not pan out or
were abandoned altogether. We have human resources problems
that are going to be much greater in the future. Half of our
work force will be eligible for retirement in 5 or 6 years.
Many of these human resources problems are in the information
technology area. We need some sophisticated, knowledgeable
people to deal with these things that we are talking about.
Financial management--hardly any department of government can
pass an audit--waste and duplication, and so forth.
So that is the context in which the e-government initiative
finds itself. So the question is are we trying to arrange it so
that a citizen can get bad information from the government
faster; are we paving over the cow path? What do we do about
this circular problem of trying to come up with some new
information technology initiatives, when information technology
management itself is a major governmental problem; it is a
circular kind of thing as to how we break through that. Is it
essentially a management problem? I think that in large part,
it is. Where should that responsibility lie? That is what your
bill addresses with a new chief information officer. The
administration has some different views; they think it ought to
stay with the deputy director for management. That is a good
question we should discuss and debate.
The Clinger-Cohen Act decided at that point that for this
general area, the responsibility should be vested in the
various departments and that we could get more responsibility
and accountability that way.
We have just recently received a GAO report saying that the
departments are not doing it; they are not meeting this
legislative requirement as far as managing their information
technology problems.
But we do not want to create a new bureaucracy on top of
this mess and feel that just because we rearranged the boxes
this will cure the underlying systematic, endemic management
problems of government.
So I honestly do not know how all that relates to the
various components. Do we need to solve one before the other?
Will the other help solve the former? Do we need to travel down
the road of trying to do what, I believe, the administration is
committed to doing--better management in these areas--as we
proceed with a new e-government initiative?
Those are all questions that you have brought to the fore
with this legislation, and they are good questions that need to
be dealt with. So I look forward to this hearing.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson.
I wonder if any of my colleagues want to make a brief
opening statement?
Senator Carper. I do, Mr. Chairman. May I?
Chairman Lieberman. Go right ahead, Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. This is one that I wrestled with as
governor not too long ago, and unlike the United States, which
has over a quarter of a billion people, we have only 750,000
people in Delaware, and it is a small, manageable operation,
but we still struggled with this. In my last couple of years as
governor, we put in place the ability to provide folks the
chance to file their taxes over the Internet, to incorporate in
our State, to get many of their permits and licenses, whether
it is auto-related stuff, drivers' licenses, hunting licenses,
fishing licenses, and we made a fair amount of progress there.
This is such a rich vein for us to mine. Government has
many jobs and many responsibilities, but foremost among them is
serving people. It is so hard for people to get the kind of
service they want, need, and deserve. A lot of them come to us,
to our staffs back in our respective States, and that is all
well and good, but if we can do this right, we can do our
constituents, our taxpayers, a huge, huge favor.
There are 50 laboratories of democracy out across this
country to look to to see how are you doing this, how are you
doing it at your own level, and to see what lessons we can draw
from them. I do not know if we have reached out to the States
to identify just a handful of States, maybe larger States that,
given their size and scale, might serve as a better example to
us, but that is something that I would suggest we consider.
Two other points and then I will stop. One, if we come up
with an idea about how we think this should be organized and
structured and try to impose that on the Executive Branch,
which may not be supportive, welcoming, or cooperative, it will
die. We will have wasted our time and created turmoil for them.
The point that you made about inviting the full
participation of the administration in conceiving of the
structure, I think, makes all the sense in the world.
The last thing I would say is that I always felt that the
people who are best able to come up with some of these ideas
are the folks who are closest to our customers. The idea of
folks here in Washington, the people who are running the
operations, somehow figuring out what is best to serve people
down in the individual States and at the community level--that
is not going to happen. To the extent that we can avoid trying
to mastermind it from Washington, infuse and push down
incentives to the local level, to the folks closest to the
customer, to enable them to do that better--terrific.
Here in Washington, we need to keep in mind that there are
many different moving parts out there, and they need to be
coordinated, but to somehow coordinate them all without taking
away the incentive to be innovative and think outside the box
at the local level. It is a tough balancing act, and hopefully,
the hearing today will help us figure out how to do that
balancing.
Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Carper.
Senator Bennett. I have no statement, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Senator Burns, we are honored to have
you here, and I am honored to have you as a cosponsor. You have
become a leader on technology issues in the Senate, and we
welcome your presence here this morning.
TESTIMONY OF HON. CONRAD BURNS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF MONTANA
Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to respond to Mr. Carper. Even though Delaware is a
small State, I have a recommendation from those of us west of
the 100th Meridian. Several of you smaller States back here
should get together and make one real State; that would help
our situation out.
Senator Carper. When you have as many people as we do, we
might do that. [Laughter.]
Senator Burns. We have got that.
Also, responding to what Senator Thompson said about the
retirement of the work force and how close we are to a
turnover, I am not so sure that that is not a good idea,
because when we try to introduce new ideas on doing things in a
new way and using the tools of technology, we run into this
situation in the bureaucracy, whether it be corporate or
government, that ``I have done this ever since I worked here,
and my Daddy did it like this, and this is the way I am going
to do it.''
We are ready for a new generation, I think, whenever we
start looking at things. So I thank the Chairman for inviting
me to testify today on the E-Government Act of 2001. I have
enjoyed working with the Chairman on some critical issues on
technology, and of course, we have introduced the CANSPAM bill,
recently introduced, and we are looking forward to that.
I have long believed in the power of information technology
in general and the Internet in particular making government
more efficient to open up the public policy process to everyday
citizens.
I want to recommend a study which was released, and we
looked at it yesterday. The Marco Foundation released a study
which I would recommend to the Members of this Committee as you
consider this legislation, because it tells you a lot about the
Internet, the attitudes toward the Internet, what people think
about it, and how they use it, and who uses it, and some
challenges that we have in front of us.
Those challenges are the same today as they were a year
ago, and they have to do with privacy, security, and those
kinds of challenges. I would recommend that study, and you can
check with our office, and we will be happy to try to get it to
you in some fashion.
On June 12, 1996, I chaired the first ever interactive
Senate hearing which dealt with the need to reform the Nation's
then obsolete encryption policy. The hearing was cybercast so
that anyone with Internet access could follow it. Citizens were
also able to submit proposed questions, several of which the
members of the Commerce Committee were asked during that
hearing.
I have long shared the Chairman's drive to make government
more widely accessible on-line. In 1999, I launched a live,
first of its kind, weekly Internet video broadcast where I
answered questions from Montanans. For the past couple of
years, I have often posted drafts of my bills on-line so that
everyone has access to the legislative process.
I should add that it is only fitting that the e-government
bill itself is in many ways a product of a collaborative
process made possible through the use of the Internet. Several
key provisions were the result of feedback offered by citizens
over the Internet.
So that clearly, the Internet offers unique capabilities
which help break down the boundaries between government and the
citizens it serves.
The future of democracy is digital. It was with this in
mind that I included the e-government bill as an element of my
Tech-7 slate of high-technology bills I announced at the
beginning of the 107th Congress, and I am very enthusiastic to
be able to join forces with the Chairman to move this
particular bill forward.
The e-government bill's guiding philosophy is a simple and
practical one--the Federal Government should take advantage of
the tremendous opportunities offered by information technology
to better serve its constituents. The bill calls for the
adoption by the Federal Government of the basic best business
practice of the private sector--the creation of a chief
information officer. This Federal CIO would serve as a central
guiding force to coordinate information policy across agencies
and would allow the government to fully leverage the power of
the latest communication technologies. I should add that
industry has been fully supportive of the creation of a Federal
CIO and that the GAO has recommended the establishment of a
Federal CIO for several years. And I share some of the concerns
that Senator Thompson has--do we create another mess to deal
with a mess. I think that basically, this is one small step in
the right direction.
The second key aspect of the bill is the creation of a
centralized on-line portal to serve as a one-stop shopping
website for citizens. The Federal CIO would direct the
establishment of this portal, which would build on the work
done by the GSA in creating a single, simple website featuring
all available governmental resources on-line. The bill
authorized $15 million for the portal for the first year--
2002--which is a small investment in the Nation's interactive
future of digital democracy.
The third key component of the bill is the creation of an
interagency technology fund. This fund would help break down
the traditional and often arbitrary divisions created by agency
boundaries and focus government resources on meeting
constituent needs. I was interested in your statement about how
do we get rid of the turf wars; how do we get people working in
a single direction? A collaborative approach on information
technology issues is far more effective than the silo-by-silo
way of doing business favored by the traditional budgetary
process. The bill authorizes $200 million a year to accomplish
this aim for fiscal years 2002 through 2004.
In short, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership on
this particular issue. The e-government bill would bring the
Federal Government fully into the age of the Internet.
I thank the Chairman for moving this legislation with such
swiftness and enthusiastically support, his ongoing efforts to
address this critical issue, and I thank you for having me this
morning.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Senator Burns, for
an excellent statement. I do not believe I could have said it
better myself, and I probably have not, so it is good that you
were here to do it.
Senator Burns. Thank you very much.
I shall now go and spend your money.
Senator Thompson. Just make sure you spend it in the right
places; that is all I have to say.
Senator Carper. And do not forget the little States.
Senator Burns. It is ``pork'' to Tennessee,
``infrastructure'' to Montana.
Senator Thompson. You are excused. [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Conrad.
I will now call our next witness. We are delighted to have
the Hon. Sean O'Keefe, Deputy Director of the Office of
Management and Budget.
Good morning, Mr. O'Keefe. We welcome your testimony at
this point and appreciate that you are here.
TESTIMONY OF HON. SEAN O'KEEFE,\1\ DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. O'Keefe appears in the Appendix
on page 66.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you would permit me, I will submit my statement for the
record and just quickly summarize.
Chairman Lieberman. Without objection, please.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, sir. It is a pleasure to see you
and Senator Thompson and Members of the Committee. It is a
delight to be with you all again since my last opportunity to
appear here a couple of months ago.
I particularly want to thank you for your attention to a
very, very important initiative, one that certainly this
Committee and certainly the leadership of the Committee has
championed for several years. It is a critical element, I am
very proud to report, of the President's management agenda.
Indeed, the five elements of the President's management
agenda are designed to take advantage of the management tools
that Congress has enacted in the past and that this Committee
in large measure has been in the forefront of establishing the
parameters as well as enacting those tools over the course of
the last 10 years.
Let me briefly describe those five initiatives and then
talk about the relevance of the e-government initiative in that
regard.
The five specific issues that the President has elected as
the primary focus of his time in this administration of the
management agenda that will be focused on and that has been
handed to the Office of Management and Budget for the purpose
of shepherding through this particular administration are to be
found in the February blueprint that was initially the basis
upon which the President's budget was organized, as you will
recall, and were fleshed out very specifically in a Cabinet
session that he had with each of the Cabinet officers about 6
weeks ago where we delved into these five particular questions
at great length.
Each of them are interrelated, and e-government is an
essential element or mechanism to accomplish the tasks that are
designed.
The five specific focuses or issues are, first and
foremost--and all of them will have resonance with this
Committee again, given the leadership that you all have
demonstrated over the years in enacting a range of different
management tools to specifically implement these particular
management agenda items, and they have been selected with that
set context in mind, with the purpose of taking advantage of
those tools and this unique opportunity now that they have
fully matured to the point where we can actually utilize them
in a different and more creative way.
The first one is a specific, very concerted effort to
integrate performance criteria into the budget format.
Beginning with the fiscal year 2003 budget, you will see a very
specific outline of performance criteria relative to budget
requests that are made to Congress in the fiscal year 2003
budget request that will be identified by programs and within
select agencies and departments, depending on very specific
criteria for how we are going to accomplish that.
The second one is very much in line with that--and again,
all of these are in concert and designed to be complementary
for the purpose of achieving the agenda itself--is to focus
very specifically on the strategic management of human capital,
an issue again that this Committee has delved into at great
length and has concerned itself with very specifically. The
actuarial tables tell us that indeed we are going to see a
dramatic change in the work force over the course of the next 3
to 5 years even if we do nothing at all to shape that work
force very actively--but we intend to do just that, to actively
deal with those particular questions, and again, e-government
has a specific applicability that I will get to in a moment.
The third one is to look at competitive sourcing
procedures, which again is an element that this Committee has
delved into and worked with many different provisions of the
law over the course of the last several years that you have
been championing, as a means to specifically attain the most
efficient delivery of public service and accomplishment and
administration of public programs by competitive means, be that
through public or private accomplishment. So our agenda and our
focus in those five issues, this third one, is to very actively
pursue an effort to accomplish those particular tasks by
whatever the most efficient, most cost-effective, and most
appropriate method would be.
The fourth is to tackle a series of issues that, again,
this Committee has been in the forefront of in dealing with
financial systems. That is at the very locus of every matter
that we are ultimately going to be dealing with because
heretofore, the approach has been to look at financial
management as a series of accounting systems as opposed to a
more comprehensive management decisionmaking tool for the
purpose of examining all those. That in turn leads to the
propriety of the fourth, which is the e-government initiative
itself.
There are three primary features of the e-government
initiative, which is the fifth feature and is encompassed in
all five of these particular approaches. It is an essential
mechanism to accomplish three primary agenda items in addition
to all the other aspects of the President's management agenda
as well.
First and foremost is that it be citizen-centric; that it
be focused, as I think several of the opening statements have
very strongly suggested, that it has to be a transparent system
that facilitates the means by which Americans can access
information, not just facilitate the faster accomplishment of
looking at poor information, but that we organize it, as you
suggested Senator Thompson, in a more comprehensive way.
Second is that it facilitate the means for business-to-
government transactions and mechanisms to simplify that process
and make it far more efficient as well as expeditious.
Third and most important among all is to look at the
intergovernmental relationships between and among agencies,
departments, and the State and local communities which in turn
are interacting with those agencies and departments in a more
complete way.
Forty-five billion dollars is what we spend every single
year on information technology, and in large measure, the
attempt in this particular initiative and in all the other four
that accompany these five in total of the President's
management agency, is to specifically focus on how to leverage
that $45 billion to accomplish something that you referred to,
Mr. Chairman, very succinctly in your opening statement--to
accomplish interoperability, transparency, and standards and
applications that are at present, at best, uneven. And as a
consequence of that, we see a wide-ranging set of circumstances
that we seek to standardize through this approach.
The e-government fund that we propose and that the
President's budget incorporates is an attempt to start that
effort to leverage, and certainly that is an effort which is
encompassed in S. 803 as well.
I think the Chairman's and Senator Thompson's description
of the circumstances that exist today on this was quite
accurate. It is a very uneven, very disparate set of
initiatives which need to be pulled together in a more
comprehensive way.
Indeed, today's objective, and I guess part of the
management focus I can report to you today, is that this
afternoon, we intend to meet as part of the President's
Management Council, which is the deputy Cabinet officers across
the Federal Government, on an agenda which incorporates the
information technology and e-government initiative, one of
these five major issues, to lay out an aggressive management
plan to implement the President's vision which has been
outlined very briefly here and in the statement in a more
comprehensive way.
I urge the Committee's support of the President's
initiative in this regard and look forward to working with the
Committee to fashion S. 803 in a manner that facilitates the
realization of that vision, and I appreciate the opportunity to
be here today, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you very much, Mr. O'Keefe, both
for the detail and the content of your remarks.
As I said before, I am very eager to have a dialogue and a
good working relationship with the administration in developing
this bill, because it is obvious that we have common interests
and common goals here. So I appreciated your comments, those
that were positive and those that were more skeptical, in your
prepared testimony.
Let me say, for instance, that your testimony mentioned one
area of concern, which was that the legislation as proposed
lacks sufficient performance standards. I want you to know that
I absolutely agree with that comment. It is a point that we
have heard now from others since the bill was introduced, and
we are going to address that shortcoming.
I think that perhaps the major point of difference that we
have at this juncture is in how to organize and place and
define the responsibilities of the Federal Chief Information
Officer. The bill that Senator Burns and I have proposed, along
with others, as you know, creates a separate Federal CIO within
OMB, reporting directly to the director of OMB. In doing so, it
builds first on the very broad experience in both the private
sector and in State government, where enterprise-wide CIO's has
been, as I think we are going to hear from some of our
witnesses later on.
I think it also builds on the statement of policy in the
Clinger-Cohen Act that requires each agency to establish a CIO
and specifies that the CIO has information resources management
as that official's primary duty.
So my concern with the model that the administration thus
far seems to have established here, which is by naming Director
Daniels' naming of Mark Forman as Associate Director for
Information Technology and E-Government. While he is not
explicitly a CIO, his responsibilities at this point, as I
understand them, appear to encompass all the things that we
would expect the Federal CIO to do, yet he would then report to
the deputy director for management and CIO, who would then
report to the director of OMB.
This leads me to a series of questions which relate to why
that choice has been made and, more particularly, why that
choice, when in the private sector, the choice generally has
been to elevate and separate the position of chief information
officer.
Mr. O'Keefe. Indeed. Well, first and foremost, we concur in
your assessment that the focus on information technology needs
to be elevated within the context of the larger management
agenda. And certainly, within OMB, that is part of our charge.
As you correctly cited, Director Daniels, by selecting and
establishing the position of Associate Director for Information
Technology and E-Government, I would argue is very, very
compatible and comparable to how most corporate industry
standards, that I have been familiar with, have operated for
the following reasons.
First and foremost, the President's very strong statement
about this question over the course of the last year or so has
been to focus very specifically on identifying the deputy
director for management as the Federal CIO, to reside within
that office coordination of the Government Performance and
Results Act, the Chief Financial Officers Act, Clinger-Cohen--
all of those particular efforts, those tools for management are
all means to facilitate better decisionmaking. In and of
themselves, they become stovepiped.
My personal experience in this matter is that each time we
seek to look at either financial systems or information
technology or procurement systems or anything else as an
individual, separable function with direct reporting
requirements to the chief executive, it inevitably becomes
treated as if it were a program element as opposed to a tool or
a management process for the purpose of facilitating better,
more comprehensive decisionmaking.
So in that regard, having that locus for the purpose of
residing within the deputy director for management, the
attention of all those particular issues and coordination
across all elements of the Federal Government is the primary
objective of this particular approach to this.
It also has the practical effect, too, I think, of avoiding
what is again a propensity on the part of any large
organizational entity to focus on information technology as if
it were a set of stand-alone systems and programs for its own
use. It is there; it is a means, as you appreciate better than
anybody, to facilitate better management information and,
therefore, decisionmaking to accomplish those tasks, and that
is what we are focused on.
In that regard, on par with information technology is the
focus on financial management incentives as well as Federal
procurement policy, regulatory focus. All of those issues are
ultimately tools for larger management objectives, which is the
primary reason we have organized in the manner that we have.
Chairman Lieberman. I hear you, and I guess I would say
that my concern about locating this activity with the deputy
director for management, apart from what I have already said
about that, is that is a busy office already, and I fear that,
therefore, the unique opportunities here in the chief
information officer may be lost because of all the other
responsibilities that the deputy director for management has
and that we would be better served if we separated the office
but gave it wide-ranging governmental authority to coordinate
with other offices and then bring it all together under the
director of OMB.
So I am going to consider what you have said, and I am
going to keep my mind open. I hope you will keep your mind
open. I think this is a point that we will have to continue to
see if we can work out as we go forward.
Mr. O'Keefe. If you will permit me, Mr. Chairman----
Chairman Lieberman. Please.
Mr. O'Keefe [continuing]. I guess the plea I would make in
this case is that this was very much an administrative and
management kind of attention question, and as a consequence,
given the initiative that the President has launched in a very
comprehensive manner for the President's management agenda, of
which this is an essential element, our intent is to follow
through. We have some very specific guidance from the President
on how to conduct this. And as a consequence, to the extent
that you see that there is a deficiency in the management and
administrative functions in accomplishing that task within some
period of time that you would consider to be a reasonable
gauge, then by all means, let us reenjoin on this question. But
we are quite confident that this is going to be the
organizational approach that will accomplish this particular
vision and do it in a way that is most efficient as well as
integrated so as not to create a separate, stand-alone,
potentially difficult circumstance of a stovepipe management
focus, which I think is always the most dangerous element. But
your indulgence on this point would be most appreciated.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, we will have to work closely
together on this. My hope has been that we could move this
legislation fairly rapidly. I know that Senator Daschle has
listed this as one of the items on a longer list, all of which
is not possible to take up in the fall, but he has listed it as
one of the priority items for taking up on the Senate floor in
the fall. So we will continue our discussions.
Let me briefly, in the minute and a half or so that I have
left on my time, ask you about the e-government fund. We, both
in our approaches to this, have the idea of an e-government
fund. The numbers are a bit different. Senator Burns and I
include $200 million for each of the next 3 years; the
administration has proposed $100 million over 3 years, with $20
million available in fiscal year 2002.
I just wonder if you could speak for a bit about whether
the administration believes there is value in setting aside
money specifically for interagency projects that might not
otherwise receive funding; and more pointedly, whether under
the administration's plan, the fund that you have in mind,
leaving aside the amount of money in it, will be used primarily
for those interagency projects or for something else.
Mr. O'Keefe. Well, first and foremost, the objective is to
utilize the fund for the purpose of leveraging the $45 billion
that we have budgeted across the entire Federal departments and
agencies.
Again, I could not agree with your assessment more, that
what we have is a very uneven application of standards; so
until we complete the review this fall, I cannot attest to the
fact that the $45 billion is on comparable standards. If
anything, some agencies and departments just anecdotally that I
can see are definitely on cutting-edged, current-generation
technology acquisition efforts. Others are still trying to
wrestle their way into the 20th Century on some of these
issues.
So as a consequence, there is no relative measure of merit
on how much or how little needs to be spent across the board.
The e-government fund, we believe, is going to be a great
opportunity to leverage those opportunities which have greatest
interoperability and interface between and among different
systems across Federal agencies and departments--and my
personal obsession is within disciplines, so that we do not
have a stand-alone procurement system, a stand-alone financial
system, or a stand-alone personnel system. To the extent that
they are more integrated, those are the kinds of things that
will qualify best for financing under the e-government
initiative.
The difference that we have between the amounts is again
certainly arguable. This is not a point of great contention. I
think we are about in exactly the same framework, which is to
use it as a leveraging mechanism against that larger set of
resources involved. And with all deference to the ranking
member of the Appropriations Committee, the determination of
exactly how much that will be is certainly more within the
Appropriations Committee's jurisdiction, and we will certainly
negotiate with them for the maximum amount we can possibly
attain.
Chairman Lieberman. That is true. We propose and they
dispose.
Mr. O'Keefe. Indeed, sir.
Chairman Lieberman. Just out of curiosity, a quick
question. On first glance, to stress the positive, have you
seen one or two government agencies that you think are applying
information technology really well? Do you see any early stars
is what I am asking?
Mr. O'Keefe. Again, very preliminary; we just dove into
this here in the last few months. But I would say that the most
aggressive application of current technology that is there in a
way to try to get ahead of what has been an historically
difficult set of deficiencies is certainly the IRS. They have
aggressively gone after this, and certainly the commissioner
there has identified as contemporary an application of
information technology uses across a wider spectrum as opposed
to single dedicated purpose that I have seen.
Now, would there be better examples of that--I suspect
there certainly are--but the commissioner has identified some
of the visible examples of that.
Certainly within the Defense Department, there is a series
of locations where you can see the very best and, I daresay,
some of the very worst applications of information technology
utility, and some of the most historic kinds of stumbling
blocks that are created by what I would suggest is the same
kind of stovepiping approach that we have looked at and that
has been perpetuated in the past.
Certain elements of the financial community will be out,
aggressively attempting to implement current applications of
information technology whereas others will slavishly adhere to
what has been in place for so long because it is a so-called
legacy system that they cannot bear to give up.
So you have the range of those, and unfortunately, within
departments and agencies, there are both great examples of its
application as well as very poor ones.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks. That is very helpful.
I commend for your review--it just comes to my mind--the
Department of Transportation, which has put some of its
rulemaking on-line, inviting the public to comment on it. It
has been very interesting and very interactive.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you for jogging my memory on that one.
You are exactly right. That is a superb example of a system
that, frankly, many of us just ``dumbed onto.'' Just looking at
various systems around, it is one that really is a very
cutting-edge system at the Department of Transportation--not a
place where we would have naturally gravitated and said there
should be residing one, but it has done an extraordinary job.
Chairman Lieberman. Agreed, and to state the obvious, it
provides the opportunity, again 24 hours a day, for someone to
come home, log on, and offer a response to a proposed rule.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you for the prompt.
Chairman Lieberman. Senator Thompson.
Senator Thompson. I will give Senator Stevens 1 minute of
my time.
Chairman Lieberman. Well, since I have described him in
God-like terms, I think I will have to yield; of course.
Senator Stevens. That reminds me of the story about Lyndon
Johnson when the policeman stopped him, opened the door and
said, ``Oh, my God.'' Johnson said, ``Yes, son, and do not ever
forget it.'' [Laughter.]
I came because the person across the table here looks like
the gentleman who used to sit on my left hand as staff director
of the Defense Appropriations Committee, and I could not pass
up the opportunity to ask him a very pertinent question.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Senator. It is a pleasure to see
you.
Senator Stevens. I happen to be chairman of the Joint
Committee on the Library, the Congressional library, and we
have found that we have two libraries now. We have the printed
world, and we have the e-world libraries. And we are trying to
run them with the same amount of money we provided for the old
printed library. We have found that we cannot go too fast,
because there are generations out there that do not use the e-
world.
My question to you is are we going too fast in government?
We still serve a lot of people who do not have e-capabilities,
and yet we seem to be moving all of our people into the e-world
very rapidly, including the IRS. Very soon, everyone is going
to be asked to provide a disk, and that will be their total
submission for their taxes. But there are many people up my way
who cannot provide that, out in rural America--and beyond that,
even in the cities, who are of my generation.
Are we going too fast? Are you going to accommodate those
people in your planning, and will this bill push these people
too fast into the e-world?
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you for the question, Senator. I think
the approach that we are after here, I would characterize more
as an attempt to make up for a lot of lost ground of where the
commercial sector is now, which is by no means a fully e-
commerce-oriented kind of approach to things. If anything, we
are still moving through that process in society in a way that
is just beginning to tap the potential of what the information
technology can yield.
If anything, the government is probably more responsive
than most public institutions toward the more standard
requirements for information, and we certainly need to retain
those for exactly the reasons that you cite. To assure access
of all citizens to information, however the means and method to
accomplish that task, is what our objective ought to be.
But in this particular case, I think we are way behind in a
lot of respects in terms of an across-the-board kind of
application of where the electronic commerce and transaction
information process needs to go within the Federal Government.
Some have attained that standard that is as good as commercial;
others are so far away from it as to be not even generationally
in the same area.
So if anything, I think that our attempt is to at least try
to level that playing field a bit more, rather than try to make
a further expanse and eliminate access through more
conventional, traditional means. I think we are extremely
mindful of the point you mention and will continue to be so.
Thank you.
Senator Stevens. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Stevens. Let me point
out that the bill itself tries to respond to your concern by at
least stating the standard that no advances in e-government
pursuant to the bill should result in a loss of services to
those who do not have access to e-government. But my
understanding is that it continues to be a problem.
Senator Stevens. If you are not careful, you will have to
double the budget. That is why I am here, because you cannot be
fully prepared for both e-world and non-e-world. If you are
looking at internal management and saying we are going to push
them toward standards and toward total integration of the
Federal Government into an e-capability, I am for that; but if
you are saying that all services must be delivered and all
submissions must be received in terms of e-commerce, then I
think you are going too far.
I would like to work with you, and I would urge you to look
at the Library of Congress to see how we have staged this. They
are ahead of the rest of the world in terms of digitizing
materials, but they are still providing the world with our
printed word, and I think they have done that without doubling
their budget. They have had an increase in their budget, but
they have not doubled it.
So I hope it is a cost saving device rather than an
increase in expenditure.
Chairman Lieberman. That is certainly our hope.
Incidentally, we have a witness from the library community who
will testify later on.
Senator Stevens. Thank you very much, Sean O'Keefe.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Senator Stevens.
Senator Thompson. May I pick up from here, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Lieberman. Please.
Senator Thompson. Mr. O'Keefe, you heard my opening
statement, I guess.
Mr. O'Keefe. Yes, sir.
Senator Thompson. And I am sure it was very enlightening to
you.
Mr. O'Keefe. Indeed; always.
Senator Thompson. Picking up on what you said a moment ago
in response to one of the Chairman's questions about some
bright lights, you mentioned the IRS, which of course has spent
billions of dollars in times past trying to modernize its
computer system unsuccessfully. And you mentioned the
Department of Defense as having some of the best and some of
the worst; but it also has clearly some of the worst problems
in terms of financial management. GAO keeps reminding us of
that and remains on the high-risk list and so forth--which gets
to an overall concern of mine.
Your personal opinion overview--just sit back and tell us
what you think, big picture--how do these management problems
that we have and these year-after-year inabilities to get our
arms around these information technology problems and these
financial management problems--how do these relate to what we
are trying to do as far as e-government is concerned? I guess
it kind of relates to what Senator Stevens was talking about.
Strictly from a management standpoint, are we kidding ourselves
here? Do we really have the ability--regardless of whether we
have a chief information officer inside or outside or cross-
ways or wherever he fits in the box. Did you ever see the chart
that we had showing the Department of Defense acquisition
process, that maze?
Mr. O'Keefe. Yes, sir.
Senator Thompson. If we put that on-line, are we
accomplishing anything? [Laughter.]
What is the relationship between these problems and what we
are trying to do in terms of e-government?
Mr. O'Keefe. A range of responses to whether we would be
accomplishing anything by putting that on-line raced through my
mind, and I have elected to offer none of the answers I had in
mind.
I think in part what you put your finger to is, again, my
strongest bias on this particular question, and it is the basis
of the colloquy that the Chairman and I had a few moments ago.
Any time you set up a condition in which information technology
for the service of any individual community, be it financial,
personnel, logistics, acquisition--whatever--if it is set up as
a means to service that individual community in and of itself,
self-contained, you have created a marvelous stovepipe that
positively self-preserves and therefore----
Senator Thompson. Even if it works.
Mr. O'Keefe. Even if it works--that is exactly right. And
as a consequence, it realizes Senator Stevens' worst nightmare,
which is that you spend at least double--it is usually worse.
Again, thinking back to a previous incarnation in public
service, my greatest mistake in the financial management
community in an opportunity of dealing with financial
management question in the Department of Defense was not
looking at the integration of those individual information
systems and forcing, requiring, that there be an
interoperability. Instead, we perpetuated, permitted,
institutional concerns to continue to preserve individual
stand-alone systems as if somehow those communities were
sacrosanct for financial systems, for personnel, for inventory
control--whatever.
There is not a corporate around that survives today with
that kind of approach, at all--which I have subsequently
learned a lot more about. And if there is an opportunity to
really reinforce that in this initiative, that is the approach
we are taking to it.
So if anything, I see not necessarily e-government as much
as the application of information technology within an e-
government framework as being the approach we are looking at to
facilitate the accomplish of all those management agenda items
identified at the beginning.
Senator Thompson. Well, what does that say about having
standards, government-wide standards, best practice standards?
This legislation has some requirements, as I recall. What does
that say about letting every department find its own salvation
with strong management at the top, versus having best practices
or different kinds of standards, or mandates that, government-
wide, everybody has got to do certain things because there are
certain commonalities with regard to the needs and problems.
Mr. O'Keefe. Well, again, I am extremely reticent to
dictate or to advocate that anyone dictate what a common system
ought to be. Instead--I think you put your finger on it exactly
right--if you identify with a degree of precision and real
clarity exactly what performance standards you expect, that in
turn will facilitate the decentralized management discipline
that you have outlined very succinctly.
A quantum, dramatic improvement that we could do that would
be a real order of magnitude change all by itself is just to
bring it up to commercial standards and to implement and
requirement that those performance standards across the board
for information technology be applied to commercial standards.
That would be a major improvement. It would be a cake walk for
some departments and agencies to accomplish. Certainly, as the
Chairman described, the Department of Transportation system
would be an ideal model for that kind of a case--and on the
other side of the equation, to elevate it to at least those
standards would be an improvement.
To look at cost savings objectives of what you anticipate
in business operations to meet commercial standards would be a
very enlightening approach to it, and to require that the
technology be no more than two generations behind, which as
this Committee well appreciates, we are therefore talking about
not more than 3 years old, because that is how fast the
technology moves, would be a major improvement in performance
standards all by itself.
But if you look across the government, you find systems at
the Health Care Financing Administration--until they changed
their name, I guess--where they are operating data collection
systems that trace their genesis back to the sixties and are
still maintaining those kinds of systems for those purposes. It
is incredible.
Senator Thompson. We are told by Silicon Valley that
technology is changing so rapidly that they cannot go through a
30-day licensing process, that that is too onerous for them,
and yet you are saying that our systems date back to the
sixties.
Let me move on to another question. We keep talking about
management. At OMB, the deputy director for management position
is still not filled; controller is still not filled; OIRA is
pending a Senate vote. We have spent quite a bit of time lately
addressing the Presidential appointment process, and I think
everybody agrees that that situation is badly broken, and we
are trying to do something about it. The Office of Government
Ethics testified that one way to improve the process would be
to simplify the financial disclosure requirements, and they
have come up with some suggestions. I understand that that is
within the bowels of the administration somewhere, over at the
White House for counsel's review, I suppose.
Do you know where that is and how fast we can expect some
kind of response so that we can move that initiative down the
road? We have got to have White House cooperation with regard
to the FBI background checks. We have got to have Senate
cooperation with regard to our forms. We need to review our
whole policy and how many nominations we really want to have
hearings on. But a key part of it is the ethics requirement,
and it has been a while since we have had a chance to look at
that.
Do you know where that is?
Mr. O'Keefe. First and foremost, I want to commend you for
championing that initiative. On behalf of all others who are
subjected to the confirmation process, that is a----
Senator Thompson. About 25 percent of top-level appointees
now are in place--25 percent--and some are saying that it will
be well into next year.
Mr. O'Keefe. Yes, sir. It is a slow, difficult process
which, again, you have shed a lot of light on through the
hearings you have conducted, and I think it prompted the Office
of Government Ethics to move to the legislative initiative and
the rules changes that you have suggested that are under way
right now on financial disclosure. As a result, they have
pushed that forward. It is in fact in the coordination process
now. I am advised it is with White House counsel, and they are
due to meet on it, I guess, within the next week to work that
through. So there are an awful lot of us who are very
enthusiastic about moving this along expeditiously, and who
thank you for your efforts on this issue.
Senator Thompson. Finally, let me ask you very quickly--the
Chairman mentioned the Associate Director for Information
Technology and E-Government. How is that going to relate to the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs that has statutory
responsibility for information technology?
Mr. O'Keefe. In concert with it, but probably not much more
so than what we see across all the statutory offices--for
Office of Federal Procurement Policy, within OIRA, as well as
the controller's position. I think all of those are going to
be, as we discussed a moment ago, the kinds of
interdisciplinary functions that will require a lot of
coordinated effort with an information technology focus to
facilitate greater decisionmaking and management coordination.
So in that regard, I think there is going to be as
extensive a degree of interrelationship with OIRA within the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs but also with
other elements of that as well. So it will be very extensive in
that regard.
Senator Thompson. I am not sure what that means, but it
sounds pretty good.
Mr. O'Keefe. Can I try again?
Senator Thompson. But if I were taking over OIRA, I would
be asking you some follow-up questions.
That is all I have. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Keefe. John Graham seems to be content, if he is ever
confirmed, assuming the Senate moves in a manner in which that
is successful.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson. Senator
Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. O'Keefe, welcome back. I think the last time you were
before us was for your confirmation hearing. We are glad that
you are where you are and delighted that you are joining us
today.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Carper. I want us to back up just a little bit.
Describe for me if you will the approach in the current
administration, the new administration, for e-government and
what--this is a three-parter--just as status quo, where are we
right now? What you have inherited?
Second, what would the administration like to do in this
arena?
And third, how does that mesh or not mesh with what is
proposed in the legislation before us?
Mr. O'Keefe. First and foremost, the e-government
initiative is part one of five in an interrelated set of
initiatives that the President has selected as his management
agenda for this administration and for this term. And it is an
integral piece of that; the sum of the parts is far greater
than any individual combination that would make that work, so
they all have to be interrelated in this regard.
It is primarily focused on three areas that the President
is committed to. First and foremost is a citizen-centric focus,
which is to facilitate the information flow with all Americans
who want to access through this particular means the
information that is available throughout the Federal Government
for that purpose and to make it available for transactions for
individuals as well.
Second, is to transact commerce between individual business
and government, to improve the efficiency in that regard as
well as make information reporting requirements and all the
other factors that we require of industry through Federal
regulation as well as through statutory compliance to be
reported through that mechanism.
Third, is to facilitate government-to-government
relationships, State and local transactions as well as the
Federal interrelationship with those offices for block grants,
for a range of different kinds of direct intergovernmental
kinds of activities that occur--reporting requirements, and so
on.
Senator Carper. What was the second one?
Mr. O'Keefe. Between government and business, again to
transact business as well as facilitate faster, more
comprehensive reporting compliance.
So those three areas are the means by which it leverages
the accomplishment of the other elements of the President's
management agenda very specifically, which I outlined at the
beginning.
In terms of where we are now, again, to borrow a term that
the Chairman used in his opening statement, it is an uneven
application right now. At very best, I think you can say that
we can see throughout the Federal Government some of the very
best examples of comparable commercial compatibility in some
agencies and departments, and it is not necessarily even
dependent upon whether you think they naturally ought to fit in
those agencies or departments; it sometimes turn on the
aggressiveness or the focus or the attention of the senior
management and leadership of those agencies and departments
more than any other variable.
We can also see some of the ultimate examples of
information technology Luddite throughout the Federal
Government in other areas. So I think it is an uneven
application across the board, and where we are now is an
attempt to at least raise all boats to at least that top common
standard which we experience within commercial enterprise. That
is a very ambitious goal in and of itself but one that is
achievable.
In terms of how do we intend to mesh this with S. 803,
which is as I understand the third part of your question, it is
to take the Chairman and Senator Thompson up on their very
gracious invitation to work with the Committee to fashion this
as a means to facilitate this larger agenda and vision that the
President has outlined as part of his management objective for
this administration.
Senator Carper. I want to revisit the structure that you
have set up within OMB. Is there a person who reports to you
who is in essence the CIO? I am sorry--you are the CIO; right?
Mr. O'Keefe. Well, the approach that the President has
outlined is that he will delegate and seek to have the deputy
director for management serve as the Federal CIO, and we are in
the active process right now of recruiting for a deputy
director for management. In that regard, that individual will
be the Federal CIO----
Senator Carper. And whom would that person report to?
Mr. O'Keefe. To the director and myself; the director, the
deputy director, and the DDM would all operate within that
process.
The Associate Director for Information Technology and E-
Government, Mark Foreman----
Senator Carper. Who?
Mr. O'Keefe [continuing]. Mark Foreman--who has been
brought on board and who is no stranger to this Committee, with
industry experience as well as a lot of time here----
Chairman Lieberman. Tom is new; you will have to forgive
him.
Senator Carper. Is he from Delaware? [Laughter.]
Mr. O'Keefe. One of those 750,000, sir.
Senator Carper. And counting.
Mr. O'Keefe. Yes, and counting.
The approach that we have taken there is again on par with
and comparable to the associate directors who have recognizance
for individual parts of government review as well as with the
Office of Information and Regulatory Administration, the Office
of Federal Procurement Policy, and the controller. So those are
comparable organizational standing for the purpose of
facilitating this initiative in information technology across
the Federal spectrum.
Senator Carper. I guess the person who you will get to fill
this position is the deputy for management?
Mr. O'Keefe. Right.
Senator Carper. You need someone who can actually reach out
to the other departments and get their attention, someone who
knows his stuff but can actually reach out and talk to Cabinet
secretaries, and they will listen. You need someone who has
your ear, who has the director of OMB's ear, and also to some
extent, the President's ear.
Mr. O'Keefe. We concur. That is exactly the job description
we are looking at.
Senator Carper. The idea of the approach that you are
taking here of putting this power in OMB, I find attractive,
because there is probably no agency as close to the Presidency
as OMB. You have the money; you control the budget in OMB, and
OMB has the clout to be able to reach out across the government
and get people's attention, and to the extent that we want
standards and adherence to those standards, that would seem to
work.
I would go back to a point that I made earlier. There is a
lot of innovation going on down at the grassroots that you may
or may not be aware of, and I am probably not aware of, but
there are some really good things going on down there, and part
of what we need to be able to do is to encourage and to incent
that innovation. To the extent that you have agencies that are
doing an especially good job--we alluded here earlier to some
things that are going on in Department of Transportation--to
find ways for them to serve as role models, to get other people
excited.
As my last point, I will just build on what you said
earlier. If you look at an agency, and you find that exciting
and innovative things are going on with respect to harnessing
the power of e-government to serve people and do our job more
effectively, the leader of that agency is really important in
that arena. And often in the case of the leaders of those
agencies, this is not their shtick. It is not something that
they have grown up believing in or really knowing about. We
find with our schools back in my State, that the schools that
do the best job of harnessing technology in the classroom to
raise student achievement are the ones where the principals
understand, and the principals get it. So that somehow, we have
to fashion a system here where not just the principals get it
but where the folks who are leading our agencies get it and
will say to the people who work to them: This is important; it
is important to me, and it is important for those whom we
serve.
Thanks very much.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate it.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Senator Carper.
Senator Bennett.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNETT
Senator Bennett. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate the opportunity to be involved here. I have been
writing down questions, and my staff have been writing down
questions, and I am going to ignore all of them--well, not all
of them--and go to an area that has become something of an
obsession with me, because I think the other questions that I
would ask are being adequately asked by Members of the
Committee.
As you may know, Mr. O'Keefe--we have had this conversation
privately--I am very concerned about security, and not just
cyber attacks and terrorism and the kinds of things that give
rise to those sorts of scenarios, but let me talk for just a
minute about interruption-in-service attacks. We have seen the
``love bug'' virus which cost the economy $8 billion or more,
depending on whose estimates you read. We have seen the
interruption-of-service attacks that hit Amazon.com and some
other commercial entities. The vulnerability that the
government might have if there were an interruption-of-service
attack levied by someone who was more than a hobbyist--and the
attacks that I have described have been very unsophisticated
and almost sophomoric in their technology level--the exposure
that the government would have if you moved to the level of e-
government activity that you are talking about here would be
pretty high.
Could you address that general question, and then I would
like to get down to specifics about the role of the CIO and so
on in dealing with that. But first, if you become as accessible
for e-government as, say, Amazon.com is accessible for e-
commerce, what kinds of vulnerabilities are there for someone
who wants to create mischief?
Mr. O'Keefe. I guess my personal bias is that we are going
to be vulnerable; there is just no question about it. There are
just so many steps that you can take to be preventive in these
cases; there are defense mechanisms that you can create for
those purposes. But I think the key to the problem is to remain
as attentive as you have suggested we need to be to the fact
that it is a vulnerability that is out there all the time.
There is no question that that is going to be a real challenge.
The approach that we have taken to this, rather than simply
say here are the defensive mechanisms that we think are
necessary or the particular approaches that ought to be used
for security, given the fact that there are lots of different
ways to go about this, and the nature of those attacks are
varied, is first and foremost what we have done in development
of even this first budget submission. But it will really be
aggressive in the 2003 submission, and that is to require the
agencies and departments to demonstrate how they have built in
both security and privacy features in the information
technology initiatives that they are championing prior to our
advancement of those requests to the Congress for funding of
those initiatives, so that at least we can identify what their
plan is, how they intend to deal with it, and be cognizant of
what the problem is. Because again, I think the lion's share of
the problem in this circumstance is to be aware of the fact
that that vulnerability exists and that it is a fairly easy
proposition to break. Given the fact that we are looking for
transparency, that opens us up even further. So we need to be
more cognizant of that, and work on it very hard.
The second one I would offer to you is that our greatest
challenge in this case is, again, back to some organizational
stovepiping that exists. If it is not in some department's
jurisdiction, they consider it to be somebody else's problem.
So part of the approach that has been taken on is to create an
interagency effort in this regard that is about to be codified
in an executive order that the President will consider that has
been in the vetting process for several weeks now, through the
National Security Council and all the appropriate players
involved.
Senator Bennett. I am very familiar with that one.
Mr. O'Keefe. OK. That is the two-prong approach we are
trying to take with this.
Senator Bennett. We held a hearing in the Joint Economic
Committee on the vulnerability of the economy as a whole, and
just to repeat as background for my next comment, 85 percent of
the things that are vulnerable in our society are in private
hands; so even if we had the very best of security on the
government level, we would still be vulnerable to someone who
wished us ill by attacking the phone system or some other key
infrastructure circumstance in the United States. I have had
some preliminary conversations with Chairman Lieberman about
this, and I understand that he wants to pursue it further, as I
do.
One thing that came out of the testimony before the Joint
Economic Committee is that the witness from--I believe it was
the CIA, but there were enough other witnesses that I may have
it confused in my mind--he said we are approaching this
challenge tactically, and we are not thinking strategically. We
are not backing away from it to get the whole picture and
understand the strategic vulnerability and opportunities that
are there for the United States with respect to this world.
And let us understand, as Chairman Stevens has indicated,
that we are living, whether we like it or not, in a full new
world, and we have the old paradigms that are constricting us.
So if we are talking about a Federal CIO, wouldn't the
responsibility to view this whole question strategically lie
primarily with him or her, and would OMB be in a psychological
circumstance where they could accept that kind of a strategic
view, so that we are not just talking about from one agency to
the other, but we are talking about the whole economy here and
some Federal leadership that says, OK, we have to recognize the
new world in which we live; it has potential for enormous
productivity increases, enormous increases in sharing of
information, enormous increases in efficiency, but at the same
time, concomitant increases in vulnerability. And someone who
either wants to shut down the government because they do not
like us or steal money--organized crime is finding that unlike
Willie Sutton, who robbed banks because ``that is where the
money is,'' they can rob the Internet sites, because that is
where the money is, and we have had examples of organized
crime, not in this country but from other countries, trying to
break into American banks and steal money electronically. You
are talking about putting an enormous amount of Federal
information now available on the Internet and the vulnerability
of people coming in and saying, OK, let us screw up the Federal
Government by coming back at it.
Are any of these concepts on OMB's radar screen or are you
saying, as you did in your earlier comment--and I am not being
critical about it; I am just pursuing it--that this belongs to
Condoleezza Rice's level----
Mr. O'Keefe. Oh, no.
Senator Bennett [continuing]. And she has spent a lot of
time thinking about it--I have had several conversations with
her about it--so we at OMB can stovepipe to the extent that we
can say no, our mission is just to get it efficient, and we
will leave this other--or are you and your potential CIO
thinking in these strategic terms?
Mr. O'Keefe. I appreciate the further clarification. I did
not mean to suggest that this was something that we considered
on somebody else's table. If anything, OMB has this as a
dominant issue in the equation. I can assure you that just in
the last couple of weeks, having spent several hours with an
intergovernmental group co-chaired by me and Condy Rice's
deputy, Steve Hadley, working through the very issues you are
talking about here--so if anything, I associate myself with
your remarks very directly, because I think we have failed to
consider this on a strategic level and consider it to be more
of a coordinative function and one that requires a lot more
proactive stance to it. That is part of what the President's
initiative--the executive order pending that you are familiar
with--is intended to deal with.
So we spent a lot of time vetting through that, and again,
really pushing through the colander the kinds of requirements
that I outlined on what the department and agencies have in
mind, at OMB looking specifically at how they intended to
address security and privacy issues, is a criterion we have
pursued there.
So if anything, Condy Rice has done a tremendous job of
leading the charge in this regard, convening the National
Security Council sessions, with Steve Hadley as the deputy, but
it is one that we have a very active part in at OMB and in
which we are involved very closely in accomplishing that task.
That is a lot of the reason as well why our effort to
recruit the Associate Director for Information Technology and
E-Government was so essential, is to coordinate this on a more
strategic level as opposed to continually looking at it as
individual programmatic kinds of questions that fail to have
that interrelationship.
So we concur with your assessment entirely.
Senator Bennett. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Senator Bennett, for
raising this subject. You and I have talked about it, as you
said. I appreciate your interest and concern, and I share it.
The obvious fact is that the Internet and information
technology open up extraordinarily exciting new possibilities
to communicate in every way, and the more we do it, the more we
become dependent on it and the more, also, there is a
vulnerability. And of course, it provides people outside the
United States who may for one reason or another wish us ill an
unprecedented opportunity to strike at us directly. This evokes
some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around here for a
while about homeland defense, but we have become vulnerable in
a very different kind of way.
So I hope the Committee can find a thoughtful and
constructive way, and I look forward to Senator Bennett playing
the leadership role in it, to pursue these issues and again, of
course, to work with the administration. So I thank you.
Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee that oversees the
management practices of the Federal Government, I am very
interested in discussing the future of electronic government
and how information technology can improve the delivery of
services.
I think we all agree that the Federal Government lags
behind the private sector, but Mr. Chairman, one thing--and
maybe it is because I was a mayor and a governor--that I have
noticed in Congress is that we have a tendency to mandate on
the administrative branch of government how we think the
management side should get the job done. I think the most
positive thing I have heard today is that the administration is
going to work with this Committee to try to figure out how we
can best help. And I would hope that the final result of that
is not that we impose something on the administration that it
does not think it needs to get things done. So we will be
anxious to hear from Mr. O'Keefe how he thinks we can help.
I think we also cannot forget the fact that e-government is
going to require a technologically savvy work force and that we
would be remiss if this hearing did not include a discussion of
how the Federal Government is going to recruit and retain the
high-tech work force of the future. I would suspect that one of
the reasons why many Federal agencies are not as competitive as
the private sector side is the fact that we have not been able
to retain and attract the kinds of people that you need in
those agencies. I would respectfully suggest that hiring
somebody to be the top person to run this show is in itself not
going to get anything done unless you have capable troops out
in the agencies.
I think I have talked to Mr. O'Keefe about this before, but
I really think that the most important thing the administration
should be doing is doing an inventory of the human capital
resources that you have in respective departments, including
the status of your capacity in the information technology
arena, trying to make sure that you keep the folks that you
have and also try to figure out how you can attract the folks
that you do not have.
One of my first legislative priorities when I came to
Congress was the passage of the Federal Financial Management
Assistance Act. This act streamlines the application process
for financial assistance by consolidating Federal paperwork
requirements.
I would really like to receive from you a status report on
the implementation of that Federal Financial Management
Assistance Act. It is my understanding that OMB has designated
the Department of Health and Human Services as the lead agency
to coordinate the efforts of the various grant-making agencies
and that a joint implementation plan has been drafted by the
agencies that promotes the use of electronic grant projects.
My questions are: Do the agencies have sufficient resources
and training to administer these grants electronically? What,
if any, barriers prevent this act from fully implemented? And
what assistance can this Committee give you?
The only reason I bring it to your attention is that here
is an initiative that we started a couple of years ago, and I
know that when we were talking about implementing that
legislation, I had an argument--or, let me say a discussion--
with the House sponsor about how fast the agencies would be
able to move forward, and as we looked at the time line, part
of it went from one administration to the next, and I suggested
that the next administration might be going through a
transition period, and it might be difficult to reach the time
line.
But I think that if you looked at that legislation and
where it is at, it would give you a very good insight into just
how difficult it may be to do some of the things that this
Committee thinks can be done if we had some person who was just
dedicated to making it happen.
You have mentioned in your testimony that ``E-government
initiatives must be linked with other management reform
initiatives such as the strategic management of human capital,
budget and performance integration, competitive sourcing, and
improved financial performance.'' I would be interested in how
the administration proposes to integrate these various
management reform initiatives.
The other thing that you talked about was the issue of
standards, that you felt this proposed legislation does not
provide the performance standards to be effective.
So if you could, in the few minutes that you have left,
share with me--maybe the best way to start off is with the
standards. What are your suggestions on how those standards
could be put in place?
Mr. O'Keefe. As usual, Senator Voinovich, you have posed an
extremely challenging set of questions that I will try to tick
through quickly.
Let me start with the standards question at your request
and then move through the balance of the other questions as
well. First and foremost, the standard that we are seeking is
to at least make an order-of-magnitude leap to a commercial
standard, which would be an improvement in and of itself; if we
could establish that again as a more level kind of approach to
things, that would be an accomplishment that I would be very,
very pleased with in and of itself, because there are so many
cases in which we are woefully behind even commercial
standards.
The second one is to think more in terms of how to achieve
cost-efficiency in just basic, garden-variety business
operations. To achieve a cost-efficiency target or objective in
that regard, which is a standard commercial practice anywhere,
to just adopt that approach would be a useful mechanism as
well.
The third one, very generically, is to look at the
accomplishment or the attainment of a generational condition
that is no more than two generations old which, by definition,
is no more than 3 to 5 years. As a matter of fact, given the
speed with which information technology advances are
introduced, 5 years is probably way beyond two generations--it
is probably much earlier than that--but I just use that as a
general benchmark. So that would be an approach to start with
and to flesh out even further than that, but it is one that the
Chief Information Officer's Council, the CIO Council, will be
charged with trying to establish what those standards ought to
be and agree to terms that make more specifically who would
apply in those three cases.
Let me work through a couple of other points you raised as
well, because they are very important ones, and they cut
directly to the issues that we are involved with.
First, in working with the Committee, I agree with you
whole-heartedly, there is no question that we are dedicated to
the proposition of making S. 803 a bill that will facilitate
and help accomplish the President's initiative in this regard.
So there is no doubt about it, this is a very helpful move and
initiative in that regard. We are anxious to work together to
do that and appreciate very much your sensitivity to the
administrative and managerial realities of how this has to be
done relative to legislative imperatives, and we seek to
combine those and make them as compatible as possible.
Second, as far as the work force and the overall strategic
management of human capital question, you are exactly right.
Our objective is to inventory, and we are about that business
right now. We have asked each agency and department to produce
a work force planning objective which, as a matter of fact, is
due right now; we are seeing it coming in from each of the
departments and agencies. They have been working on it for the
last 3 months, to produce exactly what their objectives and
targets are for not only overall personnel levels but
specifically what skill sets and expertise requirements and
training efforts are necessary, all of which we have asked for
now as a means to factor into the fiscal year 2003 budget
review and the 2003 budget presentation that we intend to make
before Congress next winter.
So this is our effort to try to accomplish that task, get
the information that is necessary, and try to factor that into
the budget itself.
Finally, on your question on the Financial Management
Assistance Act, indeed HHS has done a tremendous job of pulling
this together and taking a leadership role that I heard about,
as a matter of fact, just this morning in terms of an update of
where they are on that.
Secretary Tommy Thompson has really taken this on
personally, has been actively involved in it, and has, as I
gather, assembled some 26 different agencies for the purpose of
trying to pull together all the information necessary to comply
and to work through this----
Senator Voinovich. I might make a suggestion that just by
doing that, it will give you an insight into where those
agencies are in terms of the personnel that you need.
Mr. O'Keefe. Absolutely, and as I understand it, that was
one of his observations, that this has demonstrated some of the
glaring issues that are required there. And apparently, they
have worked through this in the course of the last several
months with the intent of developing a very comprehensive
response to the requirements of the act that will go through
not only what the training requirements are, what the funding
requirements are, but also identify whatever statutory as well
as administrative impediments and barriers may exist that we
will identify for you and accompany all of that as part of the
fiscal year 2003 budget submission.
So it was a very important initiative and one that has been
taken seriously, and I was delighted to learn that Secretary
Thompson has embraced this with a lot of enthusiasm.
Senator Voinovich. Thank you.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Voinovich.
Senator Carnahan, welcome.
Senator Carnahan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to take a brief moment to make a few opening
remarks, if that is all right.
Chairman Lieberman. Please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARNAHAN
Senator Carnahan. I would certainly like to applaud you for
your leadership on this very forward-looking proposal. The time
has come for government agencies to follow the example set by
the private sector. We must begin to use the Internet and other
information technology to increase efficiency, bolster
accountability, and cut wasteful spending.
E-government will enable users to interact with government
agencies at their convenience, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
This is exactly what Americans have come to expect on-line from
the private sector.
Electronic access provides a means to avoid trips to
government offices and to avoid the aggravation of standing in
line. We want to allow citizens to be on-line and not in line.
I am glad that one of today's witnesses will testify about
States' efforts in regard to e-government. I am proud to say
that the State of Missouri is engaged in an aggressive effort
to deliver digital government services, and I look forward to
hearing about the status of e-government in other States around
the Nation.
Mr. Chairman, I am extremely pleased that this initiative
contains provisions designed to protect users' on-line privacy
and security. I have just come from a Commerce Committee
hearing where the topic was the collection, use, and
dissemination of personal information by commercial websites.
I believe strongly, however, that government must take the
lead in guaranteeing on-line privacy protection. Especially as
we move government into the digital age, we must pay
particularly close attention to guaranteeing privacy and
security on-line. I believe strongly in the importance of e-
government. I am concerned, however, that the benefits that e-
government promises to deliver will only be available to those
Americans who have a computer and access to the Internet. As
such, today's discussion must also address the so-called
digital divide. Digital government must engage everyone, not
just those who have the means to access the Internet.
Your legislation today, Mr. Chairman, begins to address
this concern by calling for the Department of Education to
evaluate the best practices currently being used by Community
Technology Centers that receive Federal funds. These centers
focus on providing Internet access to all visitors with the
goal of making on-line services available to everyone. The bill
also promotes the availability of Community Technology Centers
through a variety of assistance measures.
But more needs to be done, and I am committed to finding
ways to bring the benefits of Internet access, particularly
high-speed access, to more Americans. E-government is a perfect
example of the type of opportunity that is unavailable to
Americans who do not have access to the Internet.
I am extremely supportive of your efforts to provide an on-
line government that is seamless and efficient and secure, and
I am convinced that digital government will provide countless
benefits for the American people.
I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, to ensure
that digital government is accessible to all Americans. I have
a question for the witness.
Mr. O'Keefe, we can create a solid e-government foundation
and a complex service network, but citizens will not use these
on-line services if they do not know how to access them or if
they are unaware of their existence. What can be done once
digital government is fully implemented to ensure that the
American people are informed of the new service that is
available to them?
Mr. O'Keefe. I think that first and foremost is to keep it
simple. Accessibility is in and of itself simplicity. I think
the information technology industry has evolved to the point
where they have emphasized accessibility. And again, its virtue
is the simplicity of it. If it is complicated, any of us as
humans then end up looking at the problem, whether we are
interested in information technology or not, and do not want to
go through the mechanics of making that happen. So it is one of
the greatest advances in the industry.
What has, I think, made the market for the products of this
industry so appealing to us as humans is that it is so much
easier, much more--the old shopworn phrase--``user-friendly.''
That has got to be the first guide, and that has got to be the
first fundamental premise, to make this as transparent and as
``user-friendly,'' to use that old term, as we possibly can.
That therefore means it has got to be more interoperable
with other systems. It cannot be a stand-alone proposition, and
it cannot be something that only a department or an agency can
maintain or operate or deal with for the purpose of advertising
its own objectives.
One of the great advances that this Committee was on the
forefront of initiating is the establishment of the
FirstGov.gov system. It is a nascent effort, it is a beginning,
but it nonetheless is intended for that purpose of portability,
interoperability with a number of different systems, and a
means to access a wide range of different government efforts
just be a very simple, basic accessing, click-on kind of
approach to things that they have designed in that site.
We have to take more and more of those kinds of cues to
make this a user product, one that citizens and citizen-centric
kind of focus can always emphasize but that also has the
sophistication to it necessary to make business and government
transactions and government-to-government transactions. All
those things are achievable, and the state of the industry, the
state of the commercial products that exist out there now, is
such that this is an attainable objective and one which we
ought to be able to aspire to.
Senator Carnahan. Thank you very much.
Mr. O'Keefe. Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Carnahan. I look
forward to working with you on this subject.
Mr. O'Keefe, we have no further questions. Thanks very much
for your testimony. It has been a good interaction.
I just want to repeat my commitment to working with the
administration on this, and I would really like to do it soon.
In other words, to state the obvious, this technology is moving
so rapidly, and we have great opportunities. If there are
differences--and there are some differences, but I do not
consider them by any means unbridgeable--we ought to try to
bridge them as quickly as we can so that the country can enjoy
the benefits of the best information technology in the Federal
Government that we can manage.
So we are going to be in touch with you real soon to see if
we can begin the process of going forward with the legislation.
Mr. O'Keefe. I am anxious to do that. I appreciate your
gracious hospitality as always, Mr. Chairman. It is nice to see
you.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. You, too. Have a good day.
We will now call the third panel, which includes Anne K.
Altman, Managing Director, U.S. Federal-IBM Corporation; Dr.
Costis Toregas, President of Public Technology, Inc.; Aldona
Valicenti, President of the National Association of Chief
Information Officers of the States; and Greg Woods, Chief
Operating Officer of the Student Financial Assistance of the
U.S. Department of Education.
Thank you all for being here, and I appreciate your
testimony.
Ms. Altman, why don't you begin?
TESTIMONY OF ANNE K. ALTMAN,\1\ MANAGING DIRECTOR, U.S.
FEDERAL-IBM CORPORATION
Ms. Altman. Thank you, Senator.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Altman appears in the Appendix on
page 72.
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Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, and Members of the
Committee, I am delighted to be here today to speak to you
about IBM's views on e-government.
I am Anne Altman, the Managing Director for IBM Federal. I
was really eager to testify today, because we believe the E-
Government Act of 2001 will truly speed the transformation of
the Federal Government to a more contemporary enterprise, a
government that can improve services for its citizens, improve
efficiencies, reduce costs, and continue the leadership of the
United States into this networked society.
S. 803 also hits very close to home for those of us at IBM.
We have gone through our own transformation out of necessity.
So I would like to spend a moment talking a bit about IBM's
transformation.
Incorporating Internet technology into our core business
allowed us to be successful in today's very global and changing
economy. We have become an e-business leader, and we have done
so by breaking down silos or the walls between our own
business; we have integrated across business through our
processes and systems, and we now approach the market as one
IBM, a single integrated organization rather than the 20
separate business units that we had several years ago. The
results of that transformation were well worth the risk and the
discomfort that we experienced along the way.
To regain control of our IT environment, we consolidated
155 data centers across IBM. We replaced segregated networks
into one global network. We appointed a single, enterprise-wide
CIO responsible for defining consistent architectures and
standards. And we restructured our IT strategy to be consistent
with the overall business strategy of IBM--and that is
something that has been brought up today--very important in
aligning that IT strategy with the mission and objectives of
the business of government.
These changes enabled a lot. We did $23 billion over the
Internet last year. That is nearly one-quarter of all of IBM's
revenue.
Chairman Lieberman. That was business-to-business or
business-to-consumer?
Ms. Altman. Both business-to-business and business-to-
consumer. That is up 350 percent in just 2 years.
We also provided a means to handle 99 million self-service,
self-customer service over-the-web transactions. That was up
from 14 million just 2 years ago.
But that is not all. We did 96 percent of all of our
procurement with paperless invoicing.
The benefits of these changes were truly significant. We
save now 70 percent of the cost of every service transaction
that we do over the web versus the old paper way. Seventy
percent is tremendous.
All told, we saved $377 million in 2000, and beyond the
hard savings is the actual cost avoidance. That was $2.4
billion for IBM, or nearly 2.7 percent of our revenue. If you
were to apply these metrics to government, you begin to focus
on the size of the opportunity that e-government offers.
Consider, for example, the discretionary spending in the
HHS budget alone, at $55 billion--2.7 percent cost avoidance
there would be nearly $1.5 billion; or for HUD, with
discretionary spending in their budget of $30 billion, that
cost avoidance would be around $810 million.
So for the Federal Government, transformation will not be
easy. There will be problems. We have talked about some of them
this morning--technical, political, bureaucratic problems. But
I assert that the results will be well worth it.
To create transformation, government leaders have to focus
on several critical policy issues and choices surrounding
leadership, integration, and infrastructure. In addition, you
have to address human resources, privacy, security, and
resistance to change. This bill successfully addresses the most
crucial of these.
Developing a transformation plan in the starting point. The
E-Government Act of 2001 begins the process and will address
the most important issues in creating linkages to integrate the
entire government enterprise--interoperability, funding, and
leadership.
The most fundamental aspect of the transformation is
creating a technical foundation that will enable the agencies
to communicate with each other and with the outside world. With
the breadth and size of the technology currently used in the
Federal Government, I think that this interoperability is key.
To that end, those serious about e-government must create
and maintain standard, spaced information infrastructure. The
speed of technological advancements in our networked world
demands this, and the technology exists today to do it.
The second major aspect of the bill is the e-government
fund. Once you recognize the need for connection between or
within agencies, you then have to get them to actually do it.
Our experience has shown that starting in small steps through
pilots projects such as those anticipated with the e-government
fund helps break down resistance to change.
Pilot projects reduce risk, they create momentum, and they
allow success to breed success. It results in providing an
example and raising the bar of success for everyone involved.
The fund will promote interagency cooperation, it will
provide an incentive for savings to the people doing the saving
themselves, it allocates money based on the value of a project,
not on the basis of a fiscal year time line. All are excellent
means to drive cooperation which is necessary for the success.
The funding level proposed in the bill is a start. It is a
minimum necessary to have impact. But I believe that to truly
implement transformation, agencies must have their skin in the
game within their ongoing IT budgets.
A third point regards the Federal CIO provisions of the
bill. In our experience, executive leadership is the critical
element in enterprise-wide transformation; without it, nothing
really happens. This is especially true in large organizations
with great inertia and the ability to wait it out, wait until
the next, less demanding leader comes along.
We believe that the title ``CIO'' is not as important as
the accountability and the strategic leadership of the
position. To move forward quickly with interagency cooperation,
visionary, aggressive, top-down leadership is required. This
leader must be appointed by the President, recognized by most
senior leaders in the government as a peer and a partner. This
leader must focus on cross-government IT infrastructure and on
implementation.
The E-Government Act of 2001 is a giant step toward closing
the growing gap between e-transformation in the public and the
private sectors.
Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, and Members of the
Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
IBM is ready and able to work with you on this issue.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Ms. Altman, for a
very thoughtful statement.
Dr. Toregas, thanks for being here. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF COSTIS TOREGAS, Ph.D.,\1\ PRESIDENT, PUBLIC
TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Mr. Toregas. Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, and
Members of the Committee, I am very pleased to be here
representing the voice of local governments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Toregas appears in the Appendix
on page 82.
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Public Technology, Incorporated is a nonprofit, tax-exempt
institution created over 30 years ago in the belief that
technology has a role to play for cities and counties--the very
rubric of our society.
Our mandate is to focus on technology, and you will not be
surprised to hear that cities and counties have been
experimenting around the edge of this e-government opportunity
since the early 1990's when the City of Palo Alto and the City
of San Carlos and a few other small communities set up what
they thought was an experimental thing called a ``website'' on
the Internet. This was 7 or 8 years ago, before most of us
appreciated the power that was to be an electronic government
potential.
I would like to share with you a couple of lessons that the
local governments, the cities and counties of this country,
have learned in the true hope and belief that we can learn from
one another.
First, we have found that in order for e-government to
work, there has to be an e-citizen. I think the Committee has
already heard quite a lot about the concerns about
accessibility. The only slightly different answer that I would
give to the answer that was given to Senator Stevens on the
question about how about the people who cannot access is that I
would just overturn the order and make that my priority. I
would make it my priority to make the system, the technologies,
become more and more accessible to those who do not have it
today.
I think that allowing the systems as currently existing to
separate people from their government is not right. So I would
urge the Committee and I would urge this bill, S. 803, to
enhance the opportunities for the elderly, for the young, for
those who do not have the financial resources to find access to
the Internet.
Second, the opportunity from e-government is massive in the
area of reengineering. The consultants would call it ``business
process reengineering'' or BPR. We have found at the local
government level that it is not as important to have a
beautiful website as it is to do the work behind the website
and to get the departments and agencies to begin to butt some
heads and change the way they have traditionally done their
business. I believe that Ms. Valicenti will also speak to that
from the State perspective.
That opportunity to reengineer is a tremendous opportunity,
speaking to Senator Thompson's concern about how can we get the
whole government mandate reformed. E-Government is an
opportunity and a tool for government reform.
The fund that the bill contemplates is a wonderful idea for
what I would call horizontal systems, where you try to
integrate systems across departments and agencies. But I would
add the little footnote that it is across departments and
agencies of the Federal Government. The States have exactly the
same concerns, and the cities and counties have exactly the
same concerns.
So what we have are three parallel platforms, each spending
billions of dollars, each committed to some kind of organized
and integrated approach. I would say that instead of thinking
only horizontally, we have to start thinking about the vertical
dimension, the intergovernmental dimension. And more important
is the diagonal dimension, because the citizen does not really
care whether it is the Federal Government, the State
Government, or a county or a city that provides the service;
they simply want the service, and they want it quickly,
cheaply, and efficiently.
So that imperative for diagonal systems development and
implementation I think is a tremendous opportunity that S. 803
has a great chance to focus on.
My final quick remark--and Mr. Chairman, I do have prepared
testimony, and I believe it will be made part of the record----
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, indeed, Dr. Toregas. We are going
to accept testimony from all the witnesses, and it will be
printed as part of the record.
Mr. Toregas [continuing]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman--the last
point I want to make is about the opportunity that e-government
offers us to learn how to work together in a more collaborative
fashion and in a nonhierarchical fashion.
The Internet is a very strange animal. If I have a website
and you have a website, and you attach my website to yours, you
do not lose control of your website, but all of a sudden, you
become enriched with what I have. It is that horizontal, that
networked feeling of connection between agencies, departments,
and levels of government that I think the American public will
really enjoy.
If I can, I would like to end with my own definition of e-
government, because it is very difficult to have a bill on e-
government without knowing exactly how you feel that e-
government should be defined.
Our own definition of e-government at the local level has
three very important components. The first one is service
delivery--making sure that the residents, the citizens, and the
taxpayers receive prompt and efficient service.
But there are two other components. The second one is
economic activity. I believe you touch on it when you speak
about the massive investments that we make in IT overall. Those
investments have to produce economic activity, jobs, happiness,
and food on the table. I think that e-government has a great
opportunity to do just that in the area of trade promotion, in
the area of job creation at the local level.
Finally, democracy is the third and most important
component that e-government has to begin to address. This very
hearing here today is a hearing done in old style. We are here
physically, we speak with you--but imagine the thousands of
people who would like to contribute.
I will tell you a quick story. In Des Moines, Iowa, they
set up a communication system for their city council.
Traditionally, they would get about 40 or 50 e-mails per week
from residents of Des Moines. One significant issue came up in
front of the council, and they received 5,000 e-mails in a
week. Now, that says two things. One, we had better make sure
that our democratic systems are able to accommodate that kind
of surge of people who want to become involved in democracy
once again. On the other hand, how do you deal with 5,000, or
10,000, or 100,000 e-mails in a week's time? The very
mechanisms of government that we have may not be quite ready
for it. So I would say that the e-government direction also has
to begin to prepare us to change the democratic principles and
institutions that we have.
Mr. Chairman, the localities and the counties of this
country stand very, very ready to work with you and the Members
of the Committee and with the private sector, which is an
important counterpart, and our friends at the State level, to
implement the results of your bill.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Dr. Toregas. That was
very helpful.
Next is Aldona Valicenti, who is President of the National
Association of Chief Information Officers of the States.
Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF ALDONA VALICENTI,\1\ PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS OF THE STATES
(NASCIO)
Ms. Valicenti. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for the opportunity to be here.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Valicenti with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 86.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Thompson, in this Committee, it is great to have an
opportunity to talk about what the States are doing.
I bring to you probably a blend of experiences, and as
President of the National CIO organization, very much about
what the States are doing. I bring to you the experience of
Kentucky, because I am the CIO for the Commonwealth of
Kentucky. And third, in my past, I come from the private
sector, so I bring to you a meld of experiences.
First of all, I very much appreciate the opportunity for
the organization to comment on this bill, because we in fact
have spoken out on various parts of the bill over the last few
years in terms of direction for the Federal Government.
I would like to do that by commenting in a couple of
areas--first, the leadership issue, the integration issue,
consultation and what has gone on in the last couple of years,
the investment part that is addressed, and last but by no means
least, that this is now a citizen-centric world, and we are in
the service business.
The leadership issue is one where I would like to draw from
my own experience. I was specifically recruited into the State
of Kentucky to become its first CIO, to sit at the executive
cabinet level. So I have enjoyed the luxury of actually
creating my position. The vision for the position in many ways
is very similar to what you have envisioned in this bill. It is
someone who will have not only the budgetary accountability,
but someone who will have the vision and the responsibility to
look forward at how to best manage the information technology
process.
Technology waits for no one. It turns over every few weeks
or every few months. It is our ability, though, on when we
invest in it to make it useful.
We have looked at various models, and I would suggest to
you that much of what I heard this morning was very interesting
discussion. Ultimately, I think it is not so much about titles,
but it is very much about accountability and whether the
constituency will buy into that leadership.
At the State level, we see more and more States creating a
CIO position. In many cases, that position reports directly to
the governor because it is viewed as being so important, not
only from an expenditure perspective but also from a
perspective of leadership and how technology will be used to
serve not only the citizens but to make government much more
efficient.
The integration issue is a very important issue. We have
heard various facets of that this morning. Traditionally,
departments, agencies, and cabinets tended to have their own
control and viewed the IT direction strictly from their own
perspective. We cannot serve citizens that way. Citizens do not
know our structure, do not want to know our structure, and
should not need to know our structure. All they need to know
is, from a functional perspective, where can they get the
service and how quickly can they get the service. And by the
way, that is not confined to State boundaries any longer or to
county boundaries or to city boundaries. In fact, it is not
confined to any boundaries.
So that how we work together is very important, and that is
one reason why the Federal CIO position is so important,
because it has to continuously drive that.
Some of the discussion this morning was about whether
things can be done from a departmental perspective or an
enterprise perspective. I suggest to you that this is not an
and/or proposition. We have to do both, and we have to figure
out how to do both.
Our organization very much appreciates the part of the bill
about the consultation process. It is only through
consultation, because it is not just a horizontal integration
but is also vertical integration. So the ability now for the
Federal Government to actually propose legislation, which in
many cases is really enabled through information technology,
and the States actually become the implementers of that
technology. Consultation is vital to that process.
On the investment portion, I will refrain from speaking
about the amounts, because frankly, I am not sure that I am the
best person to comment on that. But I think investment is
critical, and I would like to use the example that we actually
had in Kentucky. We set up a technology trust fund, not only to
talk about enabling the new processes but also about
reengineering processes. I would suggest to you that that is
probably the most important part that we have discussed here
today. We need to redesign how we work, not necessarily enable
how we work today and do it much faster.
The last point is on citizen-centric and service delivery.
I have brought you a piece of technology to show you a couple
of State portals, because I think there is an opportunity to
look at the portal. And by the way, a portal is described as
nothing more than a gateway to services. If we think of it as a
gateway or a doorway--hopefully, you can see them on the
screen.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, we can.
Ms. Valicenti. Let me address the first issue. Citizens
really are consumers first--I want to do it myself, on my own
schedule, fast and easy. I think you have already heard that
this morning.
Chairman Lieberman. Senator Thompson and I both identify
with those three things. [Laughter.]
Ms. Valicenti. The first one that you see up there is
Connecticut. The portal is not organized according to the
traditional lines of structure, but according to services.
Let us move on to the next one--I think I have chosen the
right two--Tennessee.
Chairman Lieberman. Excellent. I understand this was a
random selection.
Ms. Valicenti. Very random, Mr. Chairman.
I think you can see the idea that citizens do not have to
know the organizational structure; they really need to know
what it is they would like to do.
The third one is the State of Washington, and one must give
credit to Washington, which has been viewed very much as a
leader in the digital State. They have been very successful.
And by the way, we borrow from each other, very proudly; it is
called sharing of best practices.
Pennsylvania has been very instrumental in organizing their
website to services. What you see now is true portals and
examples of portals.
The State of Michigan very recently unveiled their portal,
and again, it is all about services.
North Carolina is one where the citizen can design it, so
it becomes my portal, and I will see my information. Again,
many of us will probably repeat that in what we are doing at
the State level.
Utah recently unveiled a new portal which is all around
citizen services.
The last but hopefully by no means the least is Kentucky,
``Kentucky Direct.'' We do the same. You can get your hunting
or fishing license. You can sign all kinds of forms to start a
business. You can order birth certificates and death
certificates; tax filings.
We have one more, and I would like to address this one
specifically, because it is also an opportunity to educate. It
is the Kentucky Virtual University. We now have over several
years enrolled almost 10,000 students. This is another way to
learn--not only to use the technology but to upgrade your
skills.
Chairman Lieberman. Is that 10,000 from within Kentucky or
outside as well?
Ms. Valicenti. It is available to anyone.
Chairman Lieberman. That is great.
Ms. Valicenti. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Ms. Valicenti, for sharing your
experience. I look forward to asking you some questions.
Mr. Woods, thank you for being here.
TESTIMONY OF GREG WOODS,\1\ CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, STUDENT
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Mr. Woods. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Thompson.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Woods with attachments appears in
the Appendix on page 101.
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I am the Chief Operating Officer for the Student Financial
Aid Program within the Department of Education, and I was asked
to testify about our use of the web and our e-commerce
strategy.
The context for this story is a new kind of government
organization, the ``performance-based organization.'' Congress
made us the first PBO. The heart of the PBO idea is a contract
where we are held accountable for results and given control
over the things that determine those results.
Congress wanted our organization to improve service, cut
costs, to get off the GAO high-risk list, and to do it by
modernizing what was a tangle of old computer systems.
Most of my career was spent in the private sector, where I
ran businesses in the technology community, so these kinds of
challenges were a natural for me.
Secretary Paige has made systems modernization one of his
six major management goals in his Blueprint for Excellence, his
plan for correcting the management problems and restoring the
confidence of the Congress and the American public in the
Department.
To get all this done, we do not just do websites, but we
are changing practically everything. We changed the people, we
changed the organization, we changed the financial systems, how
we make investments, how we contract to buy new systems. By the
way, we are already using share-in-savings contracting to
finance our modernization.
We have built numerous award-winning web products in the
process, and we have had a number of firsts. We tied all this
to a strong use of back office operations and systems proven in
the commercial financial sector, tools used by Wells Fargo,
Bank of America, and others.
The idea behind all this is to be able to integrate
customer services--and this is a key point I would like to
make--so that once we get an electronic customer, we keep him
as an electronic customer. We do not chase him back to paper.
We do this with a series of websites. Let me show you what
this means for students, who are our primary customers. The
first business that a student does with us is the completion of
his application for aid. This is known as a FAFSA. A few years
ago, practically nobody filed the FAFSA via the web, but
customers vote with their mouses, and this year, half of our
applicants, about 5 million, will file electronically. The
counter on my slide shows that we have a visitor to this site
every 1.1 seconds.
Chairman Lieberman. So that 5 million people will apply for
financial assistance this year electronically.
Mr. Woods. Five million, yes, sir; half of our population.
Chairman Lieberman. That is great. How old is this site?
Mr. Woods. We are trying to operate at web speed, so we are
actually on the fifth iteration of our website, our fifth
iteration of this application. We change it not just annually
but within the year whenever it is appropriate.
To get a loan to make this whole thing happen, people have
to sign a promissory note. This is the toughest piece of litter
to get off the information highway, because of its legal
standing and its importance in enforcement. Thanks to GPEA and
the E-Sign legislation, they can now even sign with us on-line.
This application actually went live last week; it is the first
of its kind in government and probably the first of its kind in
the world. Private lenders use our system to make their student
loans. The e-signature promissory note process, because it has
inherent checks, balances, and extensive electronic
recordkeeping, actually produces a lower-risk system for us
than a paper version.
Next, we keep these e-customers in the system with our
direct loan site, where direct loan borrowers can service their
loans on-line. They can see their account status, including the
private sector loans, not just the government loans; they can
change the payment schedule and see what the impact will be on
them; they can opt for automatic debit payments, which is
growing exponentially; and they can get deferrals and
forebearances. They can also do a number of other things.
Customers using this website have climbed to 3.5 million this
year.
We have similarly reengineered the process for how we deal
with schools and members of the financial community. It is all
tied to another one of Secretary Paige's priorities, that is,
to completely retool and modernize our financial system so that
we can produce auditable reports, the kinds of reports that you
need for oversight and that we need in order to manage this
operation.
I think a key question is whether e-commerce really saves
money. My answer to that is yes, it does, but it is not that
simple. I know from my business experience that you cannot just
automate a current system and assume that you save money.
Look at that FAFSA process that I talked about, that
application for student aid. If you look at the electronic
application itself and compare it to the paper version, you
will find that the electronic application costs about 50
percent as much as the paper one. Good--it looks like a victory
for e-commerce--but not so fast. If you look at the total
system, you will find paper everywhere; we are mailing out and
printing signature pages; we are printing and mailing out PIN
numbers; we are printing and mailing the results from the web
application itself. And even though millions more applicants
file with us electronically, the schools were still ordering
the same number of paper applications to distribute to their
students. And we found that the web applications were calling
our 1-800 number, asking simple questions but being connected
with our most expert and most expensive operators to get those
questions answered.
So we attacked this issue. We revamped the phone system.
Now, most of the calls are handled by a voice response unit. We
are weeding the paper and mailings out of the web process, and
we are working with schools to cut down on their demands for
the paper FAFSAs. When I am done with all this, I expect that
my electronic version will cost one-third or less compared to
the paper version.
The lesson in this that I want to leave is that e-commerce
is a powerful tool in this battle of the budget, but you cannot
win this battle from the air. This thing is trench warfare, and
you have got to get down there and change the system.
Thank you for listening to the story. I believe it is one
of the success stories that the deputy director of OMB has not
gotten to yet.
Chairman Lieberman. I agree.
Mr. Woods. Thank you for the E-Sign and GPEA legislation.
They have made a huge difference in reality and attitude about
how you do this business. And thank you for making SFA a PBO
and giving us a chance to improve this important system for
America.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Woods. In fact we invited
you because we think you are one of the success stories. We
appreciate very much your story.
How many are filing today in paper as opposed to the 5
million?
Mr. Woods. Five million each.
Chairman Lieberman. Five million each. And I presume you
have no doubt that the number filing electronically will go up
in the years ahead?
Mr. Woods. We make people very much aware of that. Our goal
is to get that number as high as we can. Our particular
population will include people who do not have computer access.
We are mindful of that, but we believe that with the population
that we serve, numbers up in the 90 percent utilization range
for the electronic aspect of our business are well within
reach, so that is where we are headed.
Chairman Lieberman. We have had discussion throughout the
morning about the digital divide. I know it exists, but I saw
numbers recently over the last 5 years which showed a
remarkable increase in the percentage of people who are now on-
line. But you are the experts in this. Does anybody have a
number of what it is today and what it is projected to be?
Ms. Valicenti. Mr. Chairman, I think it really depends on
whatever survey you look at and how recently it was done, but
that number is probably well over 50 percent in many cases. I
know that Kentucky has had a digital divide and continues to
have a digital divide issue, but 53 percent of our population
can actually get to the computer through work, home, school, or
the library.
Chairman Lieberman. This is somewhat to the side of the e-
government program, but obviously not, really, if the aim is to
extend services and involve more people. We are talking in this
bill about support for Community Technology Centers, which
Senator Carnahan pointed to in her statement.
Let me ask any of you what you think about those, and what
other ideas do you have for rapidly closing the digital divide?
Dr. Toregas.
Mr. Toregas. We asked cities and counties, and about 2,000
responded in a survey about 3 months ago. One question we asked
was what are you doing to implement a digital divide bridge.
Not surprisingly, about 83 percent of the cities and counties
that answered--and this included about 2,000 cities and
counties, so it is a very large percentage of the major cities
and counties in the United States--provide Internet public
access at government facilities. More important, 45 percent are
working with local schools to establish bridges and provide the
capability not only for the students but for their parents to
come in, sign on, and become part of the e-generation. In
addition, 22 percent are funding technology technical support
efforts for the citizens out of their own local budgets.
Those are three numbers that might give you some examples
of ways that you can begin to look at the digital divide. A
smaller number, about 13 percent, is using the Community
Technology Centers. Perhaps what this indicates is that we need
to make sure that these programs are well-understood and easy
to get to by the localities.
Chairman Lieberman. Ms. Altman.
Ms. Altman. I will just make one comment which is really
more on the technology side. The transformation of technology
is occurring at such a pace that the device we think of as
interacting with government or with business today, we think of
as a PC, but very, very soon, devices like the handheld
telephone and other devices will be the means for accessing
information, and through that, accessing our government.
So I think that although the digital divide is real, it is
going to be shrinking based on the fact that technology will be
so accessible to everyone.
Chairman Lieberman. That is great. Thank you. I agree.
There was some testimony here and I think a good-natured,
good faith discussion between Mr. O'Keefe and members of the
panel about how to construct the CIO office. I take it from
your testimony that you feel that the closer the connection
between the CEO and the CIO, the better off we are, and the
more you can highlight and separate the CIO functions, the
better it is going to be.
Based on your various experiences, Ms. Altman, Dr. Toregas,
and Ms. Valicenti, could you respond to that point?
Ms. Altman. Yes, I would be happy to. Certainly, in
industry and IBM, our CIO is both the business transformation
executive and the CIO, and in that capacity is responsible for
defining our strategic growth with technology, marrying that
strategy to our business strategy as well as executing the
overarching information technology plan, which includes, as you
are discussing, an interoperable architecture, an overall
architecture to allow us to move our business forward.
I do not know that I can make a real judgment on where this
individual should reside, so as I read through the proposed
legislation, having this individual in OMB is fine; it is
really a matter of is this individual accountable, is this
individual a leader, is this individual going to hold a place
at the table with the senior leadership of this government and
be able to project the change and be essentially a change agent
for this e-government transformation?
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. Dr. Toregas.
Mr. Toregas. I would add to what Ms. Altman said the fact
that it is not only the technology argument that is important
in transformation but also the programmatic one. Somehow,
whether you do it in the flesh of another human being or
intellectually, you have to get the programmatic initiatives of
the agencies linked with the information technology question.
You cannot address business transformation from an IT
perspective alone. You have to have the programmatic people
there. In fact, the absence of a table around which the
information technology experts and the program people who are
responsible for delivering programs and the elected officials
who have the mandate to do that is, I think, something that
stymies our ability to transform government. Such a table, such
an intergovernmental, interdepartmental platform to discuss,
dialogue, and make decisions to change the way government is
done is a weakness right now of our system. I think S. 803
could be strengthened by providing a platform not only for a
single human being, the CIO, but a platform between program
people, IT people, and the elected officials who ultimately
hold the will of the people to discuss how we transform
government along the intergovernmental dimension.
Chairman Lieberman. Would you write into the law some
committee of that kind?
Mr. Toregas. Some ability to dialogue between three levels
of government and across programs. It is almost an
impossibility to imagine as a bill paragraph, but perhaps we
need a new process. We need something. Right now, there is no
place to discuss these e-government issues and opportunities.
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, and to state it as a goal.
Mr. Toregas. That is right.
Chairman Lieberman. Ms. Valicenti.
Ms. Valicenti. I would like to emphasize a couple of things
that were said before that I would like to put a little
different spin on. I think that being a peer at the table is
very important. I think the investments that have been made in
the past have been done strictly from a technology
perspective--that I now need to automate the system, and I will
put a system in place; I now need to do e-government, and
consequently, I will put up a website.
I would suggest to you that the dialogue that goes on with
your peers is before you implement anything. It is whether the
process is the right one. Do we need to change the process? Do
we need to make two or three agencies work together that
traditionally have not worked together?
I can tell you from my own experience that we would have
built three imaging centers if we had not come to the table and
said maybe we only need to build one and share it, and we need
to build it with standards that all of us can use it. I talk
about technology standards, not just performance standards.
Both are important, but I would suggest that technology
standards are as important to make interoperability work and to
have a vision for what we are going to deliver.
When we embark on what we now call ``e-government'' or
``digital government,'' I think we are at the low end of
investment yet. We are primarily thinking about commerce and
commercial transactions. Ultimately, I would suggest, as has
already been talked about, where is e-democracy, how do we
involve our people in the democratic process differently.
I think the only way that we are going to be able to do
that is if we get this part somewhat right.
Chairman Lieberman. Amen. Thank you. Those were very
helpful responses.
Senator Thompson.
Senator Thompson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
This is a very good Committee--a very good panel, I should
say--well, it is a good Committee, too.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you. We are just trying to build
on the record of the previous leadership.
Senator Thompson. It reminds me of several things. Ms.
Altman, we often say that some people say government ought to
be more like business, and other people say it is different
because we are not in the profit business and so on, but I
think that at least in your area, you are reminding us that in
some respects, we can certainly learn from business, because
what you are talking about has been one of the driving forces
of the savings that you have achieved through increased
productivity. And while we may not be striving to make a
profit, we certainly need to not have so much in losses and
deficits that we have had in some departments, and we can
increase our productivity. I think that that is one of the
things that we are looking for.
Dr. Toregas, I was taken by your comment about the Des
Moines example, and it caused me to think about the Federal
Government. If we are having such difficulties in doing some of
the things we are trying to do, and if we really get geared up
the way we are talking about, are we going to be able to handle
the volume that we may be asking for. We feel it in our own
offices now. So that is going to be something.
Ms. Valicenti, you mentioned accountability. I think that
having someone like you probably in large part accounts for the
success that Kentucky has had, and that is certainly important
and something that we have not had in times past.
Mr. Woods, your department or your program represents what
troubles me the most about what we are talking about--and I
hope that this is constructive, because to me, it goes to the
heart of what we need to address and some things we need to
avoid as we move forward in a way that we all want to move.
I am talking about this idea of having a shiny, new chassis
over an engine that is not running, and the car is not going
anywhere. The student financial aid programs have been on GAO's
high-risk list ever since the high-risk list started in 1990.
You were made a PBO 3 years ago and given some additional
flexibility to do some things. There are some positive signs,
but you are still on the high-risk list, in large part because
financial management is lacking.
Here is what the GAO said in January, ``These student aid
programs, however, continue to be at high risk for fraud,
waste, error, and mismanagement, because education lacks the
financial and management information needed to manage these
programs effectively and the internal controls needed to
maintain the integrity of their operations.''
The IG and GAO for some time have addressed this problem.
It is not just yours, but yours is one of the 23 or so on the
list, and one of the few that has been on the list for a decade
as subject to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
The GAO said in March of last year, ``Beginning with its
first agency-wide audit effort in fiscal year 1995, Education's
auditors have each year reported largely the same serious
internal control weaknesses, which have affected the
Department's ability to provide financial information to
decisionmakers both inside and outside the agency.'' That is
department-wide.
Talking about the student financial assistance program,
``highly vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement''; ``have been on the list since 1990''; ``have
been included in every update since then.''
``Student assistance programs,'' according to the IG,
``have spawned a cottage industry of criminals who counsel
students and their parents on how to obtain loans and grants
fraudulently.'' And they have been very successful. In the
Inspector General's report, they recount numerous instances of
where this has happened, and these are the ones that we know
of.
``The IG recommended that the Department develop a method
to estimate how much it loses each year in improper payments.''
Millions of dollars are sent out by the Department improperly.
``Thus far, the Department has failed to act on this
recommendation. Also, the Department has failed to implement a
1998 law intended to allow it to verify with the Internal
Revenue Service income information submitted by student aid
applicants.''
In the financial management area, both the GAO and the IG
have reported year after year on largely the same financial
management problems. The IG found many cases that proved the
point of the financial management weaknesses. In October 1999,
for example, the Department's system generated several
duplicate payments; one was a $19 million double payment of
grant funds.
There are information technology management problems. One
is the Department's failure to comply with the Clinger-Cohen
Act, which goes to the heart of what we are trying to do here,
because that has to do with management of information
technology. The Department is not complying yet.
Another problem is its computer systems security. They say
the weaknesses constitute a significant threat. And the last
audit of Ernst and Young, the most recent audit last year,
talks about approximately $859 million, primarily representing
funds drawn down by schools for which the loans have not yet
been recorded. That means that the schools have not yet
demonstrated that they are eligible for those loans--but they
have already drawn down the $800 million.
So you have drawn the short stick, I guess, today by
accident. I could go through this with a lot of other
departments. But here we are celebrating a website with regard
to a program that in many ways is a basket case in terms of
waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
If you talk about accountability, I do not know where our
accountability is in Congress. Long before you got here, and I
trust--I do not mean this personally to you; you do have an
excellent background, and I am sure you are trying your best.
Maybe it just shows how endemic the problem is and how
difficult it is to solve, but you have been dealing with it for
3 years now. But we are talking about what--making it so that
these criminals can rob the Department of Education more
efficiently? Could that be part of what would be happening
here?
We clearly have not been able to get a grip on these basic
management problems, and I am worried that if we get more
people using this, and we have the human resources problems
that we know we have and keeping our arms around it, can one
guy over at the OMB ride herd on all this?
As I said, I am talking to you about a lot of problems that
you do not have anything to do with, but some of them, you do.
I guess I am interested in knowing if you appreciate the
interrelationship of these things that I am talking about. It
does not matter what kind of website you have or how many
people are using it if your underlying management is that
deficient, it seems to me.
Now, I have laid out quite a lot of charges here, and you
should have a right to respond at whatever length you wish, or
as far as the Chairman is concerned.
Mr. Woods. May I respond, Senator?
Chairman Lieberman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Woods. I take the criticism as constructive. The reason
I started my remarks by talking about changing everything is
because these issues of integrity and program integrity are at
the heart of what we are trying to do. One reason I was
reluctant to testify here about websites is because we are not
just about websites. We are completely retooling these computer
systems. The financial problems, the financial audits that we
have had and the systems that we have had are nothing like the
tools I had to manage my businesses in the private sector. We
do things with spreadsheets. We are replacing all that. We have
half the modules up for a brand new system that will kick in
for next year's audit. We are very proud of things like that.
We do work with the IRS to do statistical matches that
allow us to verify that students seeking Pell Grant monies are
reporting the proper income. We do not have the ability to do
individual data matches with them. Their legal counsel does not
believe that the law allows them to do that. But we have pushed
that as hard as we can.
Across the board, we have hundreds of people reporting and
working on all of these issues, and I can report progress to
you in all of those areas.
Maybe the most important thing goes to where the biggest
dollars are. Defaults in this program were by GAO and others
viewed for years as our biggest issue. In the past several
years, the default rates come from 22 percent down to 6.9
percent. I would hasten to point out that defaults are only
dollars at risk; they are not dollars lost. In the past 2
years, years of the PBO, the collection efforts have brought
more money back in than has gone out in default. We have turned
the corner on that, and the computer systems are part of that.
The systems we use in debt collection, for data matching, for
comparing profiles and identifying addresses for people who owe
us money--those tools are powerful forces in trying to combat
exactly the ills that you described.
We are not about websites. We cannot get it done just with
websites. Websites are the customer service window, but the
back end stuff, this back office stuff, the kinds of tools used
by the best banks and the best in the private sector, have to
be part and parcel of it, and I think that given time, sir, I
could convince you that we are making progress in those areas.
Senator Thompson. Well, I hope so. The GAO suggests that
the downward trend in defaults may be more attributable to the
strong economy of recent years. They also have a problem with
the calculation method used by the Department; they say that it
understates the default rate.
So we could talk about all of this in detail for a long
time, but the bottom line is--and please take it back to the
Department and let it, hopefully, soak in to you, who have been
there for 3 years--if I were you, I would concentrate on the
things that I was talking about along with the high-tech
glitter stuff that we are all interested in and we need to make
progress on, because the bottom line, we talk about
accountability, and we talk about results-oriented government,
and by either of those measures, the student loan program has
real problems. I would bet that 90 percent of the people in the
audience, or whoever might be watching or listening to this,
are not aware of that because it is part of a much bigger
problem. It is a government-wide problem, and that is the
point. Like I said, you happen to be here today, but I could go
through this with any number of folks.
To me, it shows perhaps a wrong emphasis or not
appreciating that you have got to walk before you can run. I
really am concerned with regard to some programs and some
departments--if we put all this emphasis on this stuff, and we
gear up, and we have all these applications coming in that we
are dealing with, and all these programs, we already have
numerous schools that are not qualified for loans being
reimbursed by the Federal Government. And all that is going on
now under the current circumstances. I do not want to make that
easier to do. I want to make it easier for the ones who need it
and deserve it, but that can only be done while being
accompanied by progress in these other areas.
I do not know what else to do. When an area stays on a
high-risk list for a decade, and the GAO--it is not us; it is
not just the Members of the Committee--when the GAO tells us
that they make recommendations for changes that are not being
carried out; you still get funded in the same ways every year;
budget time rolls around, and we take a look at this and say
``That is a shame,'' and we give you the same amount of money
or even increase it--it is a real problem.
So I would just ask you to take back from this today, while
you are doing the good things that you are doing in terms of e-
government, to realize that it is going to create more problems
than it solves unless we do something about the underlying
management of your program.
Mr. Woods. Yes, sir. We will take it back, and I assure you
that those issues that you have addressed and raised we take to
heart, and those things are being fixed as I sit here.
Senator Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Senator Thompson.
Senator Thompson makes a strong point. E-government is a
means to an end; the end is government, and government is an
imperfect instrument that we are constantly trying to make
better. There are obviously ways in which e-government not only
allows more people to more conveniently, for instance, apply
for student loans, but if used properly, as you have all
testified and as our experience suggests, allows us to be more
efficient as well--in other words, not just to improve ease of
access but to actually reorganize internally so that you are
doing what you are supposed to do better. And of course, both
of those are our hopes in this bill.
I thank this panel very much. You have been extremely
helpful. If you have any afterthoughts, we will keep the
hearing record open for a while for you to submit those to us.
Thank you very much.
We will now call forward our final panel today, which
includes Sharon Hogan, University Librarian, University of
Illinois at Chicago; Barry Ingram, Vice President and Chief
Technology Officer of EDS Government Global Industry Group, who
is here on behalf of the Information Technology Association of
America; Patricia McGinnis, who is President and CEO of the
Council for Excellence in Government; and finally, Hon. Joseph
Wright, Jr., former Director and Deputy Director of OMB and now
Vice Chairman of Terremark Worldwide, Incorporated.
Thanks very much to all of you for being here. Thanks for
your patience in listening to the preceding discussion. I hope
you found it as interesting as I have.
Ms. Hogan, it is a pleasure to hear from you now.
TESTIMONY OF SHARON A. HOGAN,\1\ UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN,
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN
LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF LAW LIBRARIES,
AND THE ASSOCIATION OF RESEARCH LIBRARIES
Ms. Hogan. Good afternoon. I am Sharon Hogan, University
Librarian with responsibility for academic computing at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. I am testifying today on
behalf of the American Association of Law Libraries, the
American Library Association, and the Association of Research
Libraries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Hogan appears in the Appendix on
page 114.
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We want to thank you, Senator Lieberman and Senator
Thompson, for your leadership on e-government, and we want to
acknowledge our appreciation for the work of your Committee
staff, especially Kevin Landy.
We cannot have an effective e-government without access to
government information. Our Nation's libraries are key access
points for the American public and already are and should be
members of e-government teams at the Federal, State, and local
levels.
While there are many Federal agency success stories
exemplifying good practices for public access to Federal
Government information, the move to an e-government has not
been accompanied by the development of a comprehensive policy
framework focusing on the life cycle of electronic government
information.
There are three principal points I would like the Committee
to keep in mind as they consider S. 803.
One, centralized coordination is necessary to make
government electronic information accessible, usable, and
permanently available. That is why we support S. 803. Such
coordination is ultimately needed for all branches of
government.
Two, legislation is absolutely imperative if we are to
embody life cycle principles in e-government dissemination
activities. Agencies are not doing it today. This bill
recognizes the needs and puts a framework in place to
accomplish that goal.
Three, the legislation must be adjusted to incorporate and
built on the institutions and activities going on today.
I would like to elaborate on these three points. First,
access and coordination. Librarians, working with the American
public every day, find that locating the government data or
document can be exceedingly frustrating because ``finding
tools'' are inadequate and not comprehensive. Also, much web-
based government information that one might have accessed a
month or a year ago disappears from agency websites. While many
agencies do a great job of posting important electronic
documents to their websites, there is often no recognition of
the long-term value of that information and the need for it to
be publicly available for continuous future use and
preservation. In the electronic environment, an Executive
Branch CIO can provide leadership where there is currently a
lack of coordination, cooperation, guidance, or a means to
oversee and measure agency compliance with many existing
statutes. However, the emphasis on technology should be
balanced by an emphasis on public access.
Second, build a new framework. We want S. 803 to promote
the teamwork necessary to serve the American public within and
between agencies. A benefit of section 215 will be to bring
together within the planning and policy functions how agencies
manage and coordinate the flow of information within agencies
as well as to and from the public.
Agency CIOs play an important role in issues related to
technology but often do not have the time or resources, do not
have a strong background in information dissemination, nor are
they always aware of the agency's responsibilities for public
use. Agency records managers, webmasters, privacy officers,
public affairs staff, and agency librarians should work
together.
Three, use existing agencies, institutions, and resources.
You will not need to reinvent all services or functions. For
example, in setting cataloguing and access standards,
librarians and information scientists--not information
technologists--are the specialists in establishing cataloging,
classification, indexing and metadata standards for government
information products. Cooperative international bodies already
set current cataloging and classification standards.
We are also pleased that S. 803 contains important
provisions in sections 205 and 206 to improve access to
information from the Federal courts and regulatory agencies.
However, the courts and regulatory agencies should not be given
permanent opt-out options. There should be an annual statement
of progress each year and a set time frame for compliance. We
support repeal of current statutory language permitting the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to charge fees to
access PACER. Congress should appropriate adequate funding for
this purpose.
We recommend clearer roles for the Library of Congress and
the national libraries as well as the Institute of Museum and
Library Services and the Federal Library and Information Center
Committee. Further, permanent public access can be accomplished
through a comprehensively coordinated program that includes
Federal agencies, the Superintendent of Documents, the National
Archives and Records Administration, the Library of Congress,
other national libraries, depositories, and other library
partners.
Effective public access for the American people is the
first step toward effective e-government. S. 803 includes many
important provisions that can improve public access.
Collaborative approaches and government-wide policies across
all branches and levels of government will be necessary to
fulfill the potential of e-government. The library community
stands ready to work with you.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks very much, Ms. Hogan. Just while
it is in my mind, I believe you were here when Senator Stevens
spoke and expressed his concern about the fact that
effectively, we have two libraries now at the Library of
Congress--the one that we are familiar with and the new one
which is on-line--and that the net effect would be to add
costs. That was his concern--obviously, he hopes we would save.
How would you respond to that?
Ms. Hogan. I would say that all libraries are now running
two libraries. We are all running our print libraries and
trying to build electronic ones. And yes, at the moment, it is
costing us more. I would hope that it would not double our
costs, but it absolutely is increasing it. We are making
investments in the new technologies. Once these investments are
made, we hope that increased access will make them all
worthwhile. But yes, right now, it is not cheaper.
Chairman Lieberman. So that is the hope, that obviously,
you are involving more people in using the services of the
library.
Ms. Hogan. Correct. We are seeing libraries all over this
country increase access not only to the collections themselves
but also to the electronic collections. There is actually an
explosion of use in libraries as people come to libraries to
access the technology, to access electronic resources--and, by
the way, to use the print.
Chairman Lieberman. From the user point of view, obviously,
it is one of the more thrilling aspects of the whole Internet
revolution, which is that you can suddenly plug into the
resources of the Library of Congress and every other library in
America.
Ms. Hogan. And then you have more questions, because you
have accessed the information, so we are finding that people
then want to ask even more questions.
Chairman Lieberman. I see. Thank you. Mr. Ingram, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF BARRY INGRAM,\1\ VICE PRESIDENT, EDS GLOBAL
GOVERNMENT INDUSTRY GROUP, ON BEHALF OF THE INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA (ITAA)
Mr. Ingram. Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity
to testify before you today on this important topic.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ingram appears in the Appendix on
page 124.
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My name is Barry Ingram. I am Vice President for EDS'
Global Government Industry Group. You already have my
testimony, so I am going to give you a slightly shorter
version.
I have over 37 years of experience in information
technology, over 20 of those working with governments, and have
led many innovative e-government initiatives locally,
nationwide, and globally for EDS. This morning, however, I am
representing the Information Technology Association of America,
or ITAA, which is the Nation's leading trade association for IT
industry.
ITAA represents over 500 member companies across the United
States which produce products and services in the IT industry,
and the association plays a leading role in public issues for
the IT industry.
ITAA has been a long-time proponent of electronic
government and, as you know, helped provide input on principles
used early on to develop this legislation. We are particularly
eager to generate the same interest and progress in e-
government at the Federal level that we have witnessed at the
State and local levels. We believe the E-Government Act of 2001
contributes in a meaningful way to these goals.
Mr. Chairman, we applaud you, Senator Burns, and the
colleagues who have officially joined you in introducing this
E-Government Act of 2001. We are particularly pleased with the
importance that the legislation places on the need for a well-
funded government innovation fund, and with the emphasis on the
existence of someone at the highest level who has the
responsibility and the authority to move the Federal Government
into the e-government sphere. It is crucial for this person to
have the means, both the budget and the staffing, to implement
and oversee these efforts for the enterprise, and we hope that
those resources can be made available in the 2002 budget.
However, when I say e-government, I do not mean only
Internet-related efforts, but any efforts where governments are
using newer technologies to improve their business processes
and provide enhanced services to citizens, businesses, and
government employees or other governments. If we limit our
thinking only to Internet-related efforts, we are limiting the
scope of the possible.
In these efforts, I have seen a mixture of successes and
challenges. The challenges are being overcome, and as you are
acutely aware, finding and achieving innovative ways of funding
e-government is very difficult. Curtailing stovepipe or purely
single-agency-oriented development, while still promoting
innovation and productivity improvements, requires a real
vision and a solid execution plan.
Fortunately also, the successes are many, and in general, I
see that State and provincial governments are leading the
charge, for several reasons. They have more transactional
processes, such as license renewal and property tax payments.
They have somewhat smaller systems than the Federal and
national governments, and the most successful ones have senior
leadership in the form of a chief executive or a CIO who is
sponsoring and visibly behind the e-government efforts.
Some of the most successful implementation are also taking
place at the national level. In the United Kingdom, for
example, the Inland Revenue, the equivalent of our Internal
Revenue Service, is undertaking a massive rejuvenation of the
tax system, and they are already implementing some of the
improvements. They have developed a National Gateway to
government and have implemented the ability for citizens to
self-assess and pay their taxes over the Internet, directly to
the government, without an intermediary.
Our own portal, FirstGov.gov, is an excellent start but now
needs to be expanded to encompass citizens' transactions with
agencies.
Without going into a lot of detail, I put together a short
list of top 10 lessons learned for e-government, and I want to
highlight just four of those.
The first one is that implementing successful e-government
requires sponsorship and visibility from the top, senior
leadership and championing.
Second, we need to ensure citizens' privacy and security
with good information assurance capabilities, and we need to
build this into the architecture before privacy and security
become a problem; we cannot wait.
Third, many existing business processes will need to be
reengineered--but do not just reengineer--reinvent wherever
possible and look at new ways of doing business.
Finally, provide incentives for citizens and businesses to
use the new e-government processes. Incentives will enable the
move to the new methods.
In conclusion, as this important piece of legislation moves
through the legislative process, I leave you with two thoughts.
E-Government modernization is the use of technology to
transform government from the silo organizations that many of
us have talked about to a seamless organization, or this one-
stop shop. But it is centered around citizens' needs and
focused on productivity improvements.
Finally, the success of e-government modernization is not
only experienced in building and operating our websites. It is
in the transformation of government processes, wrapped in the
security of a robust infrastructure supporting and enabling
that transformation.
I thank you for your time and attention. ITAA and EDS both
look forward to working with you and answering any questions
that you might have.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Ingram; well-said. And
thanks to you and the members of the association for the input
that you have given the sponsors of the bill as we have gone
along.
Ms. McGinnis, welcome back. We look forward to your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF PATRICIA McGINNIS,\1\ PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COUNCIL FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT
Ms. McGinnis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Thompson, for inviting me to be here today to talk about this
very important issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. McGinnis appears in the Appendix
on page 130.
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As you know--well know, because there has been a lot of
involvement from the Committee and the staff--the Council for
Excellence in Government worked in partnership with 350 leaders
from business, civic groups, the research community and
government to develop a blueprint for e-government, which we
released last February, and I think you all have copies of it.
It, of course, can be viewed on our website.
We call the report ``Electronic Government: The Next
American Revolution'' because we believe so strongly that
information technology and the Internet have the potential not
only to revolutionize the way that government operates but also
to put ownership back in the hands of all Americans.
This is not only about e-government; it is also about ``e-
the people,'' a play on words which I think has a lot of
meaning if you think about it.
Two recent Council opinion polls conducted by Peter Hart
and Bob Teeter over the last year show that Americans today
recognize the potential of electronic government, even those
who are not on-line, amazingly. A large majority, about three-
quarters, says that developing e-government should be a high
priority for the new President. Even the 44 percent of
Americans who believe that government is ineffective--these are
the cynics--are bullish about e-government and say that tax
dollars should be invested in it. But by a margin of 2 to 1,
the public says that privacy and security are its top
priorities, so we have to deal with those issues.
The people's vision of e-government goes beyond efficiency
in services to the opportunity to become more involved and to
hold government officials accountable. It surprised us that
more people would rather see candidates' voting records on-line
than renew their driver's licenses on-line.
The dot-gov revolution is just beginning----
Chairman Lieberman. That is unsettling. [Laughter.]
They ought to do both on-line.
Ms. McGinnis. It might have something to do with privacy
and security, but I think it also has to do with this
accountability issue.
Even at this early stage in the dot-gov revolution, there
are lots of examples of productive use of the Internet by
government. You heard about a lot of them in the last panel.
The growth in student financial assistance applications--up to
5 million this year--is amazing and quite a growth. Taxes can
be filed on-line not only with the IRS but in many States.
Procurement on-line is growing at the Federal and State levels,
as are regulations on-line. You know that the Department of
Transportation has all of its regulations on-line at this
point.
These examples of e-government all fall into two
categories--government to citizens, G to C, and I would put
that maybe even a little differently--agency by agency, one
agency at a time to citizens--and also government to business,
G to B, one agency at a time to businesses.
What is missing from this? Government to government. At
this point, there is very little cross-agency or
intergovernmental collaboration on-line, and this is a very
significant problem.
The e-government fund in this bill recognizes, as does the
President's budget, that we need to invest in collaboration
across agencies, levels of government, and with the private
sector in order to break down these very formidable stovepipes
that now give us e-government agency by agency, and that is
fine if the service or information you need happens to be
organized that way. That is not true for most people and for
most businesses.
The answers may lie in more powerful search engines
building on the FirstGov start portals or on-line exchanges
that can integrate and offer a range of services based on need
and eligibility. The innovative know-how to accomplish this
vision of e-government exists in the public and private
sectors, but it has to be harnessed in a new way.
The bill, S. 803, now before you addresses the important
issues required for e-government to succeed. The details of the
provisions are not exactly the same as the recommendations we
make--you can look at all of our recommendations--but we both
address the same dimensions--leadership, strategic investment,
a skilled e-government work force, access, education, and
privacy and security.
I think you may find, as we did in developing this
blueprint over a period of about 14 months, that the process of
engaging the key players in government, business, and the other
communities to refine this legislation will build ownership and
commitment that are necessary to make it work in the end.
I am delighted that the administration is so eager and
willing to work with this Committee to fashion successful
legislation.
I want to highlight three of our specific recommendations
for your consideration. One is creating a public-private
council that would bring the best thinking of private
entrepreneurs and a cross-section of Federal, State, and local
leaders to the e-government enterprise. S. 803 calls for a
number of forums that engage these different communities. I
would suggest one conversation, bringing them all to the table.
Second is establishing a Congressional Office of Electronic
Government to help members of the House and Senate connect more
effectively with the public and to advise not only members but
committees on using e-government to achieve policy goals.
Senator Thompson and Senator Lieberman launched the first ever
Senate website to gather ideas and comments used to develop
this legislation. That ought to be commonplace, and there are
many more powerful uses of e-government in the Congress.
Third is organizing public forums around the country to
engage people, including those on the wrong side of the digital
divide, in the design and implementation of e-government.
There is a lot to do. Together, I think we can seize this
opportunity to make e-government a reality, and I thank you
very much for your leadership and the opportunity to be here
today.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you, Ms. McGinnis. That was very
interesting and helpful information.
Mr. Wright, we appreciate your patience, and we look
forward to hearing from you now.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOSEPH R. WRIGHT,\1\ FORMER DIRECTOR AND
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, AND VICE
CHAIRMAN, TERREMARK WORLDWIDE, INC.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senator Thompson.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wright appears in the Appendix on
page 135.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I appreciate you including an old war horse from the prior
management improvement wars at this hearing. I have got to say
that I spent many, many hours in this particular room during
the 1980's, and I just want to know why you let Sean O'Keefe go
for 2 or 3 months without having to come back.
Chairman Lieberman. An oversight.
Mr. Wright. I have prepared testimony that I would like to
submit for the record and will just highlight some of the
points.
Chairman Lieberman. Fine. It will be entered in total.
Mr. Wright. Thank you very much.
I believe that e-government is a national priority, as I
stated, for several reasons. First, it is occurring anyway in
the private sector as well as in the State and the local
governments, the associations, and citizens are coming to
expect it. As Pat McGinnis said--and I congratulate the Council
for coming out with a report as early as they have in the
administration; I think they are one of the first to do this--
but one of the Council's findings was the Hart-Teeter survey,
which said that citizens are beginning to expect the same
performance from their government because they are getting it
from the private sector.
So the pressure is going to start coming in, ``on us,'' if
I may still use that term, because at this stage, it is going
to be not only pressure for improved services, but it is going
to be public pressure, and it is going to be political
pressure. So I think the timing of this is very, very good.
Second, the reason why it is occurring anyway to some
extent is because there is already an extraordinary amount of
money being spent in the IT area. I have $77.6 billion in
expenditures here, while I know the number that you are used to
seeing is $40 to $45 billion. The difference is the
intelligence community; we normally do not include the IT work
in the intelligence community in this IT total. So let us back
down to the $40 to $45 billion. Of that number, you have
probably heard that on e-government, you have about $1.5
billion to $2 billion being spent. You add portals and some
modems, and you are going to have another $1.5 to $2 billion
being spent. Now you are up to about $3 billion. But while you
have that $40 to $45 billion growing at about 4 to 5 percent
every, single year, the e-government piece that OMB has been
able to identify is growing at about 30 percent a year. So you
are going to have a dramatic increase in spending that is
basically spending, as my fellow panelists here have said, on a
stovepipe, or agency and program, basis.
We heard a wonderful example here in the Department of
Education. That is a very impressive demonstration of a
citizen-oriented stovepipe.
So the money is being spent anyway, but what is it being
spent on for the most part--and I am saying this from my old
home, the Office of Management and Budget--is for agencies to
further automate their incompatibilities. But the problem is
that our citizens and our businesses are not incompatible. They
are a single entities who are coming in and making a request of
his or her government. And it is going to be tough to get our
agencies to think in those terms. They will say those terms,
but will they share files? Will they share compatibility? Will
they share budgets, which is really what drives program
priorities in this town.
I have gone into some of the stages that I think are
important in developing e-government. Some of my fellow
panelists have already talked about some of the States which
are doing a very good job on this. I agree. I think that
Washington State has done a terrific job. The State of
Massachusetts has joined the group but was not included in
prior statements. They just announced an e-government strategy
which to me sounds exactly like what we are trying to do here.
It is intentions-based rather than agency-based; citizen-
centric; a portal to break through the stovepipes; break across
traditional agency boundaries. I think that is what we all want
to do.
I was in a presentation the other day, Mr. Chairman, in New
York City, where I live right now, where Mayor Guliani
surprised me. He had a group of mayors come in to see what New
York City has done in the whole area of e-government. And to
hear the mayor of a large city speak to the people who are
coming in to get licenses for business and tell them that now,
with all those licenses, you can come in to one location; to
hear about how they are allocating law enforcement assets to
where the problems are, using e-government and information
services, to make a substantial difference, to be able to
improve the way it will get jobs for people who need them. I
have got to tell you I was very impressed, and I am sure we can
see that in many of the cities as we go across our country.
Chairman Lieberman. Excuse me. In other words, in New York
City now, a business can apply for a series of licenses on-
line.
Mr. Wright. Yes, sir--which has not been publicized very
well. Again, I live there, and I was not aware of it. A silly
example is if you come in, and you want to open a restaurant--
as you know, in New York City, you cannot keep up with all the
new restaurants that open and close--you have got to go through
a whole series of licensing steps. You can now do that on-line
with a single application.
Well, if you are the mayor of a city, you want to be able
to provide that simply because of the fact that you want to
bring the business people into your city. So I would imagine
that you are going to see that model being used elsewhere.
You have heard about Britain coming in with e-government.
One thing that was not said is that they have a goal of 100
percent of government transactions being on-line by 2005. That
is tying in all of their 200 central and 482 local government
institutions with all 60 million citizens and 3 million
businesses.
Whether that is achieved or not, the planning they will
have to go through and the steps they will have to go through
to simply allocate the resources to achieve that goal is going
to make a dramatic improvement.
Anderson Consulting has said that the United States ranks
third behind Canada and Singapore--and I guess now, the United
Kingdom. Why? Why are we third, with our resources, and more
important, our inventiveness. Most of all, the Internet was
invented here, in this country. So it bothers me that we are
falling behind others.
In terms of our e-government initiatives right now, you
have heard over and over again, and I think the Council also
stated in their report, that we have such a low success rate
simply because we have not had organized central leadership in
this entire area. That is bothersome, because the Federal CIOs
have said the biggest problems are not technology, but they are
turf wars, and government structure.
The National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Committee
also points out that policy issues, not technology, are the
main problems governments face as they adopt e-government. Pat
McGinnis and the Council said that a barrier to implementing e-
government is government-wide leadership--and so on and so on.
The Congress in many ways has done its part by passing the
Government Paperwork Elimination Act. Mr. Chairman, you know
that there is a deadline of October 2003 to meet the
requirements of the act, and you know what the chances are of
the agencies meeting that deadline. In some cases, you will
care about it a great deal that they did not meet it; in other
cases, you will not. But where is the priority list? I have
never seen a priority list. I have never seen the Congress lay
out a priority list. I have never seen a status in terms of
where the agencies are or are not. I have heard of some of the
problems, but 2003 is coming pretty fast.
FirstGov.gov was one of the first portals, as you know. We
have over 50 million pages on it right now. State and local
information is now on it. It is only information. It has to
have an improved search engine and it has to have improved
security features. There are security programs within the
Federal Government that I think are pretty good, and I know
that when Social Security tried to open up their files last
year, they did have problems with hackers coming in. And I know
that the IRS has done a pretty good job in terms of bringing in
their e-files system--but that is not on-line, that is not on
the Internet. And, for example, GSA and their ACES program
looks pretty good. The Postal Service, which we have not heard
about today, and their Net Post-Certified Program, also looks
pretty good.
The main thing, I think, is that the FirstGov.gov expansion
has got to be part of a well-coordinated management effort. And
I like what Sean O'Keefe said in terms of including it as part
of a total management improvement program. And Senator
Thompson, the comments that you made about the Department of
Education are exactly what he is talking about. That is, you
cannot automate a program that, for whatever reasons, is not
working for other reasons.
Again, I am not picking on the Department of Education,
either--OMB picks on everybody--but I believe that what Deputy
Director O'Keefe said about making e-government a part of the
overall management review is very important.
I will finish by saying that, I am delighted that you
introduced S. 803. But on the position of the CIO--we should
not focus so much on the ``boxes'' in S. 803 as on the
responsibilities. And it is the right move, Mr. Chairman, to
have e-government responsibility in the Office of Management
and Budget.
This town, whether we like it or not, speaks in terms of
the budget. That is the power structure within this town. In
the private sector, it is not--but over here, it is. People in
Washington do not ask you so much what you are going to do on a
program, but how much are you going to spend more than you did
last year, and that is a measure of whether you care.
If you do not have the power of the budget, you are not
going to have the power of the implementation. Therefore, OMB
is the right place to do it. But Mr. Chairman, the person to
hold responsible for it is the director of OMB--not a new CIO.
I came before this Committee for years, objecting to
breaking out the deputy director of OMB, because I said the
deputy for management will not have the power of the budget.
But it was done anyway.
Beyond that, there are many parts of S. 803 that I agree
with. I do not necessarily agree with your spending levels, but
I do believe that a fund is needed. The only thing I would
suggest in closing is that it is very prescriptive in too many
ways; it adds a lot of committees and councils. I would look at
what is already being done. It adds too much spending; I think
it is about $250 million in total if you add everything up. It
does not say what is already being spent in those areas in many
cases, and I think you may find the dollars there.
Finally, I would say that OMB, Mr. Chairman, also has a
great flexibility to be able to what I call ``reorient'' agency
funding. That is the nicest word I can use for it. If this is a
priority, they can leverage the $100 million over the 3 years
that they ask for 5-, 10- and 20-fold. The key is to agree on
the goals, to make sure that this Committee, which is the
oversight committee of the performance, has a reasonable
reporting mechanism to hold the director responsible and to ask
OMB to report on the progress on an everyday basis, cutting
across administrations.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Wright, for your very
interesting testimony.
I started to interrupt to say that part of our hope here in
the way we have constructed this CIO is to focus on the
responsibilities and to make sure that we created an office in
which the CIO had responsibilities that focused almost entirely
on information technology and not one of several as the deputy
director for management has.
Mr. Ingram, from the point of view of ITAA, do you have any
counsel about the construction--I know you made a few general
statements--of the CIO, and I suppose particularly on the
question of whether the CIO ought to concentrate primarily on
IT issues?
Mr. Ingram. Yes, sir, I do. First of all, let me relate it
back if I could to our corporate structure and how a CIO
operates. For many years, we had multiple architectures
throughout the corporation--this is EDS now--we had multiple
architectures, we had multiple business units. Everybody went
their own way, and we had stovepipe systems.
Now we have a CIO at the corporate level who reports to the
highest position in the company. When he speaks, we listen, and
we follow. It is for several reasons. First of all, he has a
position, he has leadership, he owns budget, and he sets
priorities. He sets priorities by working with business unit
leaders, or in this case, agency heads. But now, through that
direction, we have one common architecture around the entire
corporation for all of our desktops, all of our PDAs and our
Blackberries that we are carrying around and so forth, and we
are very consistent.
We have one single format for our web pages and our
Internet and intranet sites so that everybody knows the common
look and field, and it is easy to navigate. We are sharing data
across all of those, and we have one standard architecture for
everything. I think that that is the way it should work in this
situation also, absolutely.
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you.
Ms. McGinnis, I know that one of the recommendations
contained in the Council's e-government blueprint, which is a
very impressive document, is the creation of an e-government
strategic fund which would receive $3 billion over a 5-year
period. And I wanted you to talk to us a bit about how that
figure was arrived at and how you would hope that the money
would be used.
Ms. McGinnis. We used the Y2K initiative as a model for
this, and the amount is comparable to that and represents, when
you look at this $40 to $45 billion being spent on information
technology, only about 1.5 percent of that per year. So we did
not see it as an excessive investment.
I do not think the exact amount is as important as
achieving this flexibility in using the money across agencies
for collaborative initiatives. If there is a way of tapping
into the $45 billion and creating more flexibility, bringing
these agencies together to invest in initiatives that will go
beyond the boundaries of their agencies, then that is a way of
getting at this.
But the notion here is that the E-Government Investment
Fund be focused on cross-agency, intergovernmental, and public-
private initiatives that address the priorities that were
identified in our report and making these systems more
interoperable, using the best technology to provide services,
addressing issues of privacy and security.
Chairman Lieberman. Let me ask a final and broader
question, which is that one of our expressed hopes in going
more and more to e-government is not only that it will make the
government internally more efficient and make it more
convenient for the citizenry, for instance, to apply for
licenses for restaurants or to gain access to library services,
but that in a broader way, it will help to revive or stimulate
the vitality of our democracy. From the point of view of the
Council, I wonder if you think this is pie-in-the-sky or if it
is a practical possibility that will come from better e-
government.
Ms. McGinnis. I think it is not pie-in-the-sky. I think it
is absolutely essential when you look at the symptoms of our
anemic democracy in terms of the number of people, particularly
young people, who are voting and participating. And we see in
our polling--we saw in this polling, and we have seen in a
whole series of polls that we have done with Peter Hart and Bob
Teeter over the years--that people do want to be more involved.
They see themselves as part of the solution, and they feel
rather frustrated that they do not have opportunities beyond
going to the voting booth in November in election years, and
many are not exercising that opportunity.
So in fact I suggested these public forums. I do not
necessarily think that you have to write that into the
legislation here; we can just do it. You will find, as we did
in our polling and focus groups, that people are very willing
to engage and say what they would like to have on-line, how
much they think needs to be offered offline, what is most
important to them.
We were quite surprised, and I know that Bob Teeter and
Peter Hart were, too, quite surprised, to find that people's
vision of e-government goes far beyond this notion of just
being able to apply for licenses on-line or get information on-
line. They want to be able to communicate with you. They want
to be able to communicate with their elected officials at every
level and to ask for and get information and have input even
into the policy process of the Federal Government and other
levels of government.
I think that that is the dimension, that is the definition
of excellence in government that we see as equally important to
making this all more efficient and operate better.
Chairman Lieberman. That is a very helpful answer. I
believe you are right, and I am encouraged by the fact that the
pollsters found that kind of attitude among the public.
I want to thank the four witnesses, and I am going to yield
to Senator Thompson. I apologize that there is now ongoing a
farewell luncheon for a long-time employee of my office, and I
would be derelict if I did not go. So I am grateful for your
testimony, and I am grateful to Senator Thompson for being
willing to wrap up the hearing.
So I now turn the gavel back to Senator Thompson
temporarily.
Senator Thompson. Do you have that other piece of
legislation that we had? [Laughter.]
Chairman Lieberman. Thank you.
Senator Thompson [presiding.] Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Several comments have been made that I think have been
right on point. Ms. McGinnis, you mentioned in your statement
the concern over privacy; we never talk much about that, but
that is another hurdle that we are going to have to overcome.
The concern that you mentioned that people have is very well-
placed.
Congressman Inslee and I passed an amendment to the
appropriations bill last year, requiring the Inspector General
to report to Congress on how agencies collect and share
personal information from the Internet site. The IG compiled
data from 51 IGs--three hundred persistent cookies, or
information-collecting devices, were found on the website of 23
different agencies. There were hundreds of violations.
According to one report, 116 of 206 State Department websites,
well over half the Department's sites reviewed, had no privacy
statements and therefore no means of advising users of any
information collected on the sites.
That is something that we are going to have to deal with.
We are not doing a very good job of that so far. I think they
are making improvements in that now that the spotlight has been
focused on them, but we will have to wait and see.
Mr. Wright, you mentioned the Government Paperwork
Elimination Act, and you are absolutely right; it requires
Federal agencies by 2003 to provide the public or businesses
that deal with Federal agencies the option of submitting or
receiving information electronically. But the GAO has recently
reported that agency plans for implementing the act do not
adequately address the requirements set forth in the
legislation. They concluded that OMB will be challenged in
providing oversight of agency activities because the
implementation plans submitted by the agencies do not document
key strategic actions nor do they specify when they will be
undertaken. So it is another act they are not going to comply
with.
Mr. Wright. Well, Senator Thompson, the Government
Paperwork Elimination Act is just part of a huge amount of
management legislation passed during the 1990's. I just went
through it, and in some ways, I feel a little bit sorry for my
successors at OMB. On the other hand, what a great challenge
for them. We did not have the Internet in the 1980's, and I can
remember the battles that we had to go through--I do not even
want to bore you with it--but it was difficult just to get
agencies to use credit cards or to just try to get them to use
a general ledger system. Now, those are about the most boring
subjects in the entire world--but they will fight to the death
over it. Or it was difficult to get agencies to use AFT and
lockbox systems--but we got that one done because there was
quite a bit of money involved. We also did not have the
advantages then that the existing Congress has in your
oversight.
Senator Thompson. But on the other hand, we keep adding
layers of government in all these agencies.
Mr. Wright. Yes, you do.
Senator Thompson. We keep adding programs; we keep
duplicating and overlapping programs. So the tools are greater,
but the problems are greater too, aren't they?
Mr. Wright. Well, I was just looking at the GAO report on
all the management improvement legislation, and much of it
complements prior legislation and much of it is overlapping. I
do not want to make your life more complex, but if this
Committee were to combine all these former bills into a single
omnibus piece of legislation--that would be an extraordinary
service.
Senator Thompson. That is a very interesting idea. I have
often wondered about that myself. For example, you mentioned
the nineties. The Clinger-Cohen Act and the Paperwork Reduction
Act, I am informed, placed the responsibility of the things
that we are talking about now--maybe they did not realize the
significance of it then--but they placed it with the director
of OMB. So I sometimes think we spend an awful lot of time
rearranging the boxes and putting new slots in place and so on,
all in a vain effort to try to vest someone with responsibility
or figure out a way of holding them responsible when it has
nothing to do with the organizational structure. It is almost
like we need a one-line piece of legislation that says the
director of OMB is responsible, and he had better do it or
else.
Mr. Wright. The problem is the director of OMB is being hit
with a budget issue every 15 minutes that must be resolved.
Management issues are weekly, monthly, and yearly issues. So
therefore, OMB handles the issue that has to be resolved right
then.
The Government Paperwork Elimination Act requires OMB to
submit a report to the Congress as part of the budget--but in
addition, look at all the rest of the reports they have to
submit. How in the world is the director of OMB going to pay
attention to all of those requirements when they are not
combined in a ``single'' or in a ``limited'' number that he can
focus on?
Senator Thompson. So what you are suggesting is that we are
overloading that position. Obviously, the budget is always
going to be the most important part of it. I have been critical
in the last several years that it has been about the only part
of it. Management has drifted. The budget is going to have the
priority. But after all that is over, with the additional
reporting requirements and additional legislation and
complication that we put into government now, maybe it has
gotten to be an impossibility for one person to handle or even
have direct responsibility for all that. And you are suggesting
that we simplify at least the management side of that, maybe,
by combining or streamlining all this management legislation
into something that is more manageable. Is that what you are
suggesting?
Mr. Wright. First, I believe that a lot of people have
objected to if you want to call it the heavy-handedness of OMB
forever. When I was up here and elsewhere testifying, I said
that is fine--if you do not want OMB, disband it, but you are
going to have to have another OMB. You are going to have to
have somebody who is going to be there to carry out the
policies, ``of the President'' and communicate these through
the budget and other terms of the Congress.
I saw the way the National Performance Review was done in
the prior administration, and many of those initiatives were
very, very good ideas, but they separated it away from the
budget. And I knew that that was not going to be long-lasting
and the agencies were not going to pay that much attention to
it.
So I think that in terms of this legislation, putting it
into OMB is the correct thing to do, but it is one more piece
of management legislation that is placed on top of another
whole group of requirements that the director is going to
satisfy in addition to around 20 additional reports with the
budget.
Senator Thompson. So do you think it makes any difference,
really, whether or not we have a CIO as this legislation
suggests, or whether we have the newly-created position under
DDM, as Mr. O'Keefe described it?
Mr. Wright. A newly-created position reporting to the
Executive Office of the President will simply compete with OMB.
And I am not saying this out of----
Senator Thompson. Even if it is within OMB?
Mr. Wright. Oh, no, not if it is within OMB. I am sorry.
Senator Thompson. I think the legislation has it within
OMB.
Mr. Wright. Yes. If it is within OMB, I would make it
simple. I would not create another deputy to the director. It
is tough enough the way it is right now.
I will tell you, Sean O'Keefe is a wonderful man; he is
still geared toward the same 15-minute issues hitting him all
the time. When you now have the deputy for management coming in
and saying, ``By the way, we are going to provide management
guidance to the agencies on our data call which is going out in
a couple of weeks--and I want this to be in it,'' he is going
to be negotiating with Sean O'Keefe in terms of that guidance.
Now you have a third person come in, and what if you have a
fourth person come in on the next Congressional imperative?
What you are doing is complicating the life of the director of
OMB substantially. That is all that I am saying.
I would hold the director of OMB responsible for
performance under S. 803 and I would make it as clear as
possible. I would simplify all of these prior management reform
acts--this Committee could take the lead on that--and make e-
government part of that.
Senator Thompson. That means we would have to read all of
them first. Therein lies the problem. [Laughter.]
Mr. Wright. Yes, sir, that is your problem, and that is why
you are a Senator.
Senator Thompson. We could go on for a long time here with
the other panel members, but it is one o'clock, and I think we
should wrap it up.
I really appreciate your being here and making your
contribution. I think this has been extremely helpful.
Hopefully, we have been able to point out some of the
opportunities as well as some of the potential pitfalls, and we
can move in the right direction.
The record will be held open for 1 week to accept
statements on e-government and S. 803.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:01 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CLELAND
Mr. Chairman, on the 4th of July thousands of Americans lined up at
the National Archives to pay their respects to a 225-year-old piece of
parchment. The words contained on that faded medium are the words of
our independence as a nation and the ideals that have guided this
country for its entire history. The Declaration of Independence, along
with the other Charters of Freedom, have now been removed from display
at the National Archives to undergo 2 years of treatment and re-
incasement to preserve both the fragile medium and the message that we
work every day to protect. I understand that when the documents go back
on display in 2003 they will be presented in new encasements, more
accessible to all Americans, including those with disabilities.
Acessibility of government information is why S. 803, the E-
Government Act of 2001, is so very important, Mr. Chairman, and that is
why I join you in supporting its vital goals. From the parchment of the
18th century to the electronic records of the 21st, we must preserve
and make available the records of our national life and thereby ensure
accessibility of government services to the people. The life cycle of
e-government records can not end with first time distribution, but must
guarantee availability to the people into the decades and centuries
ahead. That is why, Mr. Chairman, I wish to take this opportunity to
note the vital work of the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) in that preservation task.
Building an Electronic Records Archives (ERA) is one of the most
critical efforts to ensure preservation and access to Government
records since the establishment of the National Archives in 1934. The
pace of technological progress and the spread of electronic government
initiatives make the need for electronic records solutions urgent.
Among other problems, this progress makes the formats in which the
record are stored obsolete within a few years, threatening to make them
inaccessible even if they are preserved intact.
NARA has been working in collaboration with the Georgia Tech
Research Institute, the National Science Foundation, Defense Research
Projects Agency, United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Army
Research Laboratory, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center to find
solutions for the preservation and access to electronic records that
are sustainable over the long term. Progress in these collaborations
enabled NARA to announce in March 2000 that they foresee the
possibility of implementing an Electronic Records Archives within a few
years. Goals of particular interest to private sector records managers
is NARA's commitment to make solutions transferable and scalable to a
wide variety of public and private applications.
In addition to the important link with Georgia Tech on this
project, Mr. Chairman, Atlanta, Georgia is a proud host to one of the
14 regional archives of NARA. Currently housed in an inadequate WWII
warehouse, the Archives has been invited to build a new facility on
land contiguous to the campus of Clayton College and State University
in Morrow, Georgia. I am working with the College, the Georgia State
Archives, and my friend from the 3rd District, Mac Collins, to try to
make that a reality. The exciting possibility in reference to the
subject of e-government today, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that the most
attractive feature of Clayton College and State University to the
Archives is their information technology curriculum. This specialty
will allow the University to partner with NARA on technology projects
that can make the regionally-created e-records more accessible to the
American public. Talks are already underway on how these collaborations
might be accomplished.
So in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to support S.
803, as we take particular note of our responsibility to making the
records of our government more accessible to the people. From the
Charters of Freedom to the latest records of the Centers for Disease
Control or TVA, we must do our part to support the institutions that
will ensure accessibility both today and tomorrow.
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