June/July
2003 Government Affairs Update
Allard Amendment makes
a comeback in Senate Bill S. 1230
Title: A bill to
provide for additional responsibilities for the Chief Information Officer of
the Department of Homeland Security relating to geospatial information.
Sponsor: Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) (introduced 6/11/2003)
Latest Major Action: Referred to the Committee on
Governmental Affairs.
This bill was introduced as
an amendment last year to the Department of Homeland Security bill, H.R. 5005.
As an amendment, it did become part of the final bill. The purpose of the bill
is to provide for additional responsibilities for the Chief Information Officer
of the Department of Homeland Security relating to geospatial information. The
bill sets forth the definition of `geospatial information' as the collecting,
storing, retrieving, or disseminating graphical or digital data depicting
natural or manmade physical features, phenomena or boundaries of the earth and
any information related thereto, including surveys, maps, charts, remote
sensing data and images and aerial photographic services, with services
performed by professionals such as surveyors, photogrammetrists, hydrographers,
geodesists, cartographers, and other such services of an architectural or engineering
nature.
The bill requires the Chief
Information Officer of the Department of Homeland Security to establish and
carry out a program to provide for the efficient use of geospatial information.
The purpose of the program is to include:(1) such geospatial information as may
be necessary to implement the critical infrastructure protection programs; and
(2) organize the geospatial information in a manner that can be effectively
used by those responsible for planning, prevention, assessment and responding to
emergencies and to prevent unnecessary duplication of the geospatial
information among users. ACSM strongly supports this section of the bill.
Duplication of information, or information in different scales deters the
responsiveness of the people who rely on its accuracy the most and wastes
valuable time when used in an emergency.
The bill gives
responsibilities to the Chief Information Officer which include:(1) managing
the geospatial information needs and activities; (2) establishing standards to assure the interoperability of
geospatial information pertaining to homeland security among all users of such
information within the Federal, state and local governments as well as the
private sector; (3) providing grants: (a) to fund the creation of data; and (b)
to execute information sharing agreements with State, local, and tribal
governments; and (4) to the maximum extent possible, ensuring that the
Department of Homeland Security utilizes commercial geospatial data and
services available by awarding contracts to entities in the private sector.
ACSM supports this section of the bill because it allows the private sector to
play a role in the compilation of geospatial information.
ACSM Lobby Day
On June 25, ACSM had its
first Lobby Day on Capitol Hill in many years. Those participating were:
Laurence Socci, John Matonich, Curt Sumner, Joe Dolan, Craig Savage, John Fenn,
Rich Barr, Gary Kent, Rod Craib and Susan Frank. We met with staffers for a
number of important Members of Congress, including: Senator Susan Collins and
Rep. Christopher Cox, Chairpersons on the Department of Homeland Security
committees in the Senate and House respectively, Senator Ted Stevens and Rep.
Bill Young, Chairpersons of the Appropriations committees in the Senate and
House respectively, Senators Lautenberg, Allard, Allen, and Stabenow,
Representatives Tom Davis and Chris Shays, and Tom McLamore, Republican Staff
for the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations. We discussed several
important issues with the people we visited, including Senate bill S. 1230,
House bill HR 1816, the Department of Homeland Security, NDGPS funding, the
FEMA Flood Map Modernization Program, HUD/RESPA Notice to Homebuyers Regarding
a Survey, Federal Prison Industries bills HR 1829 and S.346, and SARA.
The people we met and spoke
with seemed receptive, and, in many instances we had the opportunity to educate
the staffers about the issues. We were disappointed that we could not meet with
any actual Members of Congress during the visits, but it was a great learning
experience and we will use that experience to plan future Lobby Days. The
contacts we made are extremely important as well because we will follow-up with
them as our issues move forward.
Department of Homeland
Security News
Curt Sumner and Laurence
Socci recently had meeting with DHS personnel to determine the role of a
Geospatial Information Officer in the Department. We met with Jason Racette,
Cadastral Surveyor with the Bureau of Land Management and Don Buhler, Chief
Cadastral Surveyor with BLM who told us about the progress they’ve had in
helping us get a meeting with Ryan Cast, the GIO for the Department. They were
not successful in securing the meeting. However, Mr. Racette did give Laurence
Socci the contact for Ryan Cast. Through this contact, Laurence Socci was able
to get a meeting with John Crowe, Senior Geospatial Advisor with DHS. Curt and
Laurence met with Mr. Crowe on June 23. Crowe assists Ryan Cast in the
Geospatial Information Office. He is working to develop a Plan of Action for
Geospatial for DHS. He explained that under the CIO’s geospatial initiative
there are 4 components: (1) strategic and planning; (2) data and information
services; (3) technical; and (4) liaison to geospatial activity in the federal
agencies. He noted that the GIO will be looking to the National Map as well as
state and localities to provide data and layers, the GIO will work with OMB
regarding the management and acquisition of geospatial data. OMB wants any
geospatial projects, including those from DHS to go into one Joint Capital
Plan, which will contain the geospatial projects from all agencies. Crowe told
us that DHS needs to have geospatial products right now, and is expecting to
spend $5 billion for the products.
Senate Bill S. 1230
(discussed above), gives the force of legislation to the position of the
current GIO, but also gives additional duties to the GIO including providing
grants to the private sector. Therefore it is important that the bill becomes
law, even though the GIO is already doing many things described in the bill.
Geospatial One-Stop
There was a Congressional
hearing held recently to discuss the Federal Collection of Geospatial
Information. The witnesses at the hearing mostly testified about the proposed
Geospatial-One-Stop initiative. A witness from OMB testified that in the next
year, OMB will (1) launch the Geospatial-One-Stop portal with an initial 1,000
data sets and increase the amount of information on the portal by 20% each
month thereafter; (2) have 10 Federal partners who will provide resources to
help run the portal; (3) Develop 10 geospatial data cost sharing partnerships
among Federal, state and local governments; (4) disseminate 5000 data sets via
the Geospatial-One Stop during the first quarter of operation, and increase
data sharing by 10% each month thereafter; (5) develop and deploy standards for
12 critical geospatial layers.
The Director of Information
Management for the GAO testified that, in her opinion, Geospatial-One-Stop is
limited. She felt that creating a complete and useful inventory of federal data
holdings will require much more substantial work than is planned through
Geospatial-One-Stop. She concluded her testimony by noting that
Geospatial-One-Stop has not focused on the need for a longer term strategy for
facing the challenges of implementing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.
The Deputy Assistant
Secretary for the Department of Interior testified that the Geospatial-One-Stop
project includes 4 specific elements that encourage greater collaboration to
help avoid multiple investments and allow of sharing of information across
jurisdictions and governmental boundaries: (1) a web based portal for one stop
access to maps, data and geospatial information and services; (2) a
collaborative process to develop data content standards ensuring consistency
among data sets and allowing governments to share data and integrate multiple
sources of information; (3) an easy-to-access inventory of currently available
data collected by federal agencies; and (4) a planned data investment
marketplace that will allow state, tribal and local governments to combine
resources with federal agencies on future acquisitions and investments.
FEMA News
Major changes are taking
place in FEMA including the addition of the Enhanced Digital Flood Insurance
Rate Map (DFIRM) Database, which captures additional information used to
determine the flood hazard information depicted on FIRMs. The
specifications for the Enhanced DFIRM Database augment the Standard DFIRM
Database specifications identified in the February 2002 Guidelines. The
contents of the Enhanced DFIRM database are identified in Appendix L of the
Guidelines. Additional changes were also made to the Introduction,
Volumes 1, 2, and 3, and Appendices A, H, I, J, K, and M of the Guidelines.
FEMA has updated the
Numerical Models accepted by FEMA for NFIP usage.
USACE HEC-RAS (version 3.1), USGS PRMS, XP-SWMM, and MIKE Flood have been added
to the list. To help users to select a model, the list adds a column
that identifies the public domain models.
If you are interested in
attending the CTP Training in July, but have not yet registered, please submit
your registration forms as soon as possible, as space is limited. If you
are interested in participating in a CTP training session, but are unable to
register for the July session, please check the CTP Training Opportunities page
on the Flood Hazard Mapping site at http://www.fema.gov/ctp_train.shtm
regularly for information about upcoming sessions. Training is available
twice each fiscal year.
FEMA Flood Map
Modernization
The House of Representatives
recently passed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill for FY
04. Part of the bill included $200 million for the FEMA Flood Map Modernization
Program. This amount represents $50 million more than the Administration
authorized. It looks as if the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security
Subcommittee will be marking up the bill during the week following the July 4th
recess. We will contact and meet with Subcommittee staff and personal staff of
Subcommittee members between now and then to make sure the Senate is on track
with the bill.
Laurence Socci met with the
Flood Modernization Coalition and the Coalition agreed to do three action
items: (1) talk with Members on the Senate Appropriations Committee; (2) send a
letter to the Senators from the Coalition in support of keeping the full $200
million in the Senate bill; (3) contact the GAO people we met with two months ago
for a follow-up.
Circular A-76
Revisions
Recently, the Office of Management and Budget released the long awaited
revision of the A-76 circular, the regulations that guide competitive sourcing
for the federal government. The new guidelines streamline and rationalize
the process, bringing them in-line with the broader evolution of government
contracting and existing federal acquisition regulations.
Some of the major changes in the A-76
circular:
Previously competitions were taking up to 4 years in some cases; the new
guidelines allow for a 12 month timeline for standard competitions. The
clock starts ticking from the moment agencies make a public announcement (a new
requirement as well) at http://fedbizopps.gov. Note however, that a 6-month
extension can be granted, but only by OMB for complex competitions. If the
in-house bid fails to meet the timeline, they will be removed from the
competition, another significant change in policy. Along those lines,the
new guidelines disallow interagency waivers from competitions -- only OMB can
grant such waivers.
A shift to a more "best-value" approach, removing the low-cost
selection in the old guidelines. This approach attempts to incorporate
what we do as shoppers do everyday of our lives, we understand that the
cheapest isn't always the best choice. Best-value selection allows other
factors like performance and quality be factored into the decision. Often
outsourcing decisions are based on buying something different from the services
traditionally provided in house. Best-value selection allows these
differences to be properly weighed in context of goals and desired
outcomes. The new guidelines will require that cost be weighted as much
as the total of all other factors, or 50 percent.
Requirement that in-house winning teams be held to a performance agreement
similar to a contract. If the in-house team wins and they do not perform
to promised level or have cost overruns, it can lead to exclusion or points
against them in the next round of competition. This makes the process
more equal -- it isn't fair to require one level of certainty from one bidder
and not the other. Before now, Most Efficient Organizations (MEO)
(proposal prepared by the government to retain in-house work) were rarely held
responsible for cost overruns, and poor performance--essentially the
consequences of performance failure did not exist in the MEO.
The new circular removes direct conversions, where agencies could simply
contract for activities where fewer than 10 Full Time Equivalents (FTE)
(federal government civilian workers doing commercial work) were
involved. However, new language has been inserted allowing for a new
streamlined competition. Agencies can use the new process for 65 and fewer FTEs.
Essentially they'll conduct a cost comparison which could be as simple as
calling potential bidders for a price, and filling out a single one-page form.
Agencies will now have to submit an inherently governmental inventory with
their commercial inventory, and both will be published for the first time. And
both lists can be challenged. Along those lines, the new guidelines allow
the challenging of the designation of "Commercial Reason Code A,"
where an agency has chosen not to compete a commercial activity. There
are roughly 850,000 commercial activities identified by the FAIR inventory
list, about 500,000 of those were designated as Reason Code A. The
challenge mechanism will force agencies to provide written justification and be
more diligent in their reporting. While the new guidelines signal a significant
improvement over the original A-76 guidelines, OMB unfortunately removed
language that would have required Inter-Service Support Agreements (ISSAs)
opened to competition. Ultimately, the
revisions encourage department and agency managers to significantly expand
their use of competitive sourcing. The new
guidelines make competitions easier while also reducing the time it takes to
conduct them. The guidelines take effect immediately.
Federal Prison
Industries
Congress is expected to take
up H.R. 1829, the Hoekstra-Frank-Collins-Maloney-Sensenbrenner-Conyers Federal
Prison Industries Competition in Contracting Act of 2003, shortly after the
House returns from the July 4th District Work Period. July 16th is the expected
date to take up the bill, but July 10th is a "possibility", if the
Judiciary Chairman decides to do a second mark-up during the week of July 7th.
H.R. 1829 has 19 bipartisan cosponsors from within the Judiciary Committee's
ranks, 12 Republicans and 7 Democrats. Supporters are estimated at
26, 17 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Expected opponents number 7, 4
Republicans and 3 Democratss. Unfortunately, we still have 2
"Unknowns" from among the Committee's Democratic Members (Rep.
Sheila Jackson-Lee, a cosponsor of H.R. 1577, and Rep. Maxine Waters) and two
Democrats "Undecided" (Rep. Howard Berman and Rep. Robert Wexler).
Fundraiser for Rep.
Tom Davis
Laurence Socci recently
attended a fundraiser for Rep. Tom Davis, Chairman of the Government Reform
Committee. The fundraiser took place the day after our Lobby Day, so it gave us
an opportunity to follow-up almost immediately with Rep. Davis regarding our
issues, after speaking with his staffer the previous day.
GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS LINKS
AND INFORMATION
Federal Government Resources
on the Web:
United States Senate - http://www.senate.gov
U.S. House of
Representatives (House Web Server) - http://www.house.gov
Status of Legislation
(Library of Congress) - http://thomas.loc.gov
Who is my Representative in
Congress? - http://www.vote-smart.org
Email Your Member of
Congress Today! http://www.MrSmith.com
Official U.S. Executive
Branch Web Sites:
http://lcweb.loc.gov/global/executive/fed.html
The White House - http://www.whitehouse.gov
Links to State Legislatures:
View the National Council of
State Legislatures Web site