Two pieces of legislation with significant Federal IT implications successfully completed the long legislative process in late December, while a third such bill has been sent to the White House and still requires President Biden’s signature before becoming law.
The Senate on Dec. 21 approved the Government Service Delivery Improvement Act and sent it on Dec. 27 to the White House, where it awaits President Biden’s signature.
The bill, which won House approval in May 2024, aims to improve customer experience and accountability across the Federal government by, among other steps, creating a new senior management position at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) devoted to improving customer experience.
In addition to directing OMB to appoint a senior leader in charge of improving customer experience, the legislation would require Federal agency heads to be on the same page by declaring them “responsible for improving government services, building better trust with the public, and designating a senior agency official to drive changes,” according to text of the bill, which was sponsored in the House by Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., Byron Donalds, R-Fla., Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and William Timmons R-S.C.
Separately, President Biden on Dec. 23 signed into law the GSA Technology Accountability Act, which cleared the Senate by unanimous consent on Dec. 16 after winning House approval last May.
The new law aims to create more congressional oversight of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Technology Transformation Services (TTS) organization. The measure was introduced in March 2024 by Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, a year after it was discovered that TTS officials misled Federal agencies by falsely claiming that Login.gov – a single-sign-on platform – met government standards for identity-proofing.
“This legislation is aimed at providing answers to basic questions: what projects is TTS working on, how much do they cost, how much revenue do they bring in, and are agencies getting what they paid for when working with TTS,” Rep. Sessions said when he introduced the bill.
The legislation also would require the GSA administrator to submit annual reports to Congress regarding each project funded by GSA’s Citizen Services Fund and some projects funded by the Acquisition Services Fund. Rep. Sessions’ office said last year that “there is no transparency into how these funds, which are the primary source of funding for TTS projects and initiatives, are allocated.”
Finally, President Biden on Dec. 23 signed into law the Source Code Harmonization and Reuse in Information Technology Act, which the Senate approved on Dec. 17.
The bill, which was approved by the House earlier in December, would require Federal agencies to share custom-developed source code with each other in an effort to reduce duplicative software contracts across the Federal government.
“Each year, the government spends approximately $6 billion on software development, a portion of which funds the creation of custom code for agency-specific programs,” said Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., one of the bill’s sponsors, on Dec. 4. “Without a clear mandate for code-sharing, agencies are left operating in silos. This leads to costly duplication, as they pay contractors to recreate solutions that already exist elsewhere within the federal government.”
“The SHARE IT Act addresses this problem directly,” the congressman said. “It mandates that agencies publicly list and share their custom code – allowing solutions to be reused across the government, saving both time and money.”
