House IT Subcommittee Chair Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Ranking Member Robin Kelly, D-Ill., today introduced legislation to reauthorize, rename, codify, and elevate the role of the Federal CIO, a position initially created as part of the E-Government Act of 2002. The bill, called the Federal CIO Authorization Act of 2018, is designed to create a “clearer IT reporting structure within the Administration,” the lawmakers said in a release.
“No entity can operate securely and efficiently without a CIO in the year 2018, including the Federal government,” said Hurd in a statement. “This bill does more than just rename an office. It makes a clear statement that the Federal CIO is in charge of coordinating IT policy across the government in order to ensure that our agencies are able to provide better, faster and more cost-efficient services for the American people.”
The legislation calls for:
- “Reauthorizing and renaming the Office of E-Government as the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO);
- Elevating the Federal CIO’s role as a Presidential appointee who directly reports to Office of Management and Budget Director;
- Codifying the Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) as a Presidential appointee reporting to the Federal CIO; and,
- Directing the Federal CIO to submit a proposal to Congress for consolidating and streamlining IT across federal agencies.”
“Reauthorizing and codifying the roles of the Federal CIO and CISO will help streamline government IT processes and advance modernization efforts to bring government into the 21st century,” said Kelly in a statement. “I am proud to join Chairman Hurd in introducing this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to increase government effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness.”
Reps. Hurd and Kelly have been busy this week. Yesterday the pair released a white paper urging greater Federal engagement in artificial intelligence technologies.
