Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4904) to require the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to issue a directive on the management of software licenses, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 4904
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016'' or the ``MEGABYTE Act of 2016''. SEC. 2. OMB DIRECTIVE ON MANAGEMENT OF SOFTWARE LICENSES.
(a) Definition.--In this section--
(1) the term ``Director'' means the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and
(2) the term ``executive agency'' has the meaning given that term in section 105 of title 5, United States Code.
(b) OMB Directive.--The Director shall issue a directive to require the Chief Information Officer of each executive agency to develop a comprehensive software licensing policy, which shall--
(1) identify clear roles, responsibilities, and central oversight authority within the executive agency for managing enterprise software license agreements and commercial software licenses; and
(2) require the Chief Information Officer of each executive agency to--
(A) establish a comprehensive inventory, including 80 percent of software license spending and enterprise licenses in the executive agency, by identifying and collecting information about software license agreements using automated discovery and inventory tools;
(B) regularly track and maintain software licenses to assist the executive agency in implementing decisions throughout the software license management life cycle;
(C) analyze software usage and other data to make cost- effective decisions;
(D) provide training relevant to software license management;
(E) establish goals and objectives of the software license management program of the executive agency; and
(F) consider the software license management life cycle phases, including the requisition, reception, deployment and maintenance, retirement, and disposal phases, to implement effective decisionmaking and incorporate existing standards, processes, and metrics.
(c) Report on Software License Management.--
(1) In general.--Beginning in the first fiscal year beginning after the date of enactment of this Act, and in each of the following 5 fiscal years, the Chief Information Officer of each executive agency shall submit to the Director a report on the financial savings or avoidance of spending that resulted from improved software license management.
(2) Availability.--The Director shall make each report submitted under paragraph (1) publically available.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. Cartwright) on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee for introducing H.R. 4904, the Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016, or the MEGABYTE Act of 2016, to improve the Federal Government's management of software licenses. I am a proud cosponsor of this straightforward legislation.
Importantly, this bill is the House companion to Senator Cassidy's own MEGABYTE Act, S. 2340, and I am glad to see this proposal has found bipartisan support in both Chambers and has moved forward.
H.R. 4904 requires the Chief Information Officer for each Federal agency to maintain a software license inventory as well as analyze the use of software to inform decisionmaking.
Mr. Speaker, the Government Accountability Office has expressed repeated concerns on software license management and its costs. In fact, the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, listed IT software license management as a potential cost savings area on its 2015 duplication report. In our never-ending effort to cut waste, I agree with the GAO that it believes implementing sound, comprehensive software management policies has already achieved at least $250 million in savings to the Federal Government. But there is more work to be done. There are other savings that the government could and should be capturing.
A 2014 GAO report found that only 2 of 24 major agencies had comprehensive software licensing policies in place. In fact, only 2 of the 24 agencies had comprehensive license inventories. Agencies cannot effectively manage the software licenses they have if they don't know what they have in the first place.
Maintaining a thorough inventory is vital to ensure that agencies make cost-effective decisions with respect to software licensing and avoid duplicative measures.
The MEGABYTE Act will force agencies to focus on their software license policies and their inventories, leading to savings to the American taxpayer. These are straightforward steps that should already be happening, and this bill ensures that they will.
This legislation is about responsible stewardship of the tax dollars of hardworking Americans. I thank my friend, Mr. Cartwright, and also Senator Cassidy for their collective work on the MEGABYTE Act.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to not only support this legislation, but all legislation in our continued quest to cut waste in government.
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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hurd), my friend and colleague.
I also urge not only support and adoption of this bill, but I think it is crucial, as we continue to fight and combat waste in government, that we look at measures that are so ripe and so effective, if we pass them, that they will have an immediate impact on tax dollars that are wasted. Here we have a measure that literally will save billions of dollars in the very short term. It is very, very important that we pass it. I urge adoption of the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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