New legislation introduced last week by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., would require agencies to share custom-developed source code with each other in an effort to reduce duplicative software contracts across the Federal government.
The senators introduced the bipartisan Source Code Harmonization And Reuse in Information Technology (SHARE IT) Act on Jan. 17. The bill would require Federal agencies to publicly list custom code they either make or buy and share this code with other Federal agencies.
“Ensuring the Federal government is sharing code across agencies will save taxpayers money, increase digital efficiency for government services, [and] strengthen security and enable innovation in software,” Sen. Peters, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a press release.
“This bipartisan bill is a critical step forward in advancing the digital capacity of the Federal government and will benefit Americans as they access government services online,” he added.
The senators noted that existing policy from 2016 instructs Federal agencies to share code with one another, but it lacks requirements to report agencies that refuse to share their code. As a result, the senators said, 13 Federal agencies still do not share the code they buy with the rest of government.
Currently, the Federal government spends about $12 billion annually purchasing software, but it could cut costs by allowing agencies to reuse custom software. For instance, Code.gov – a website for government code sharing – gives agencies access to over $1 billion of software.
The SHARE IT Act would mandate code sharing across the Federal government, with exceptions for code made for national security systems, classified code, or code whose disclosure would create an identifiable risk to individual privacy.
The bill also would require agency chief information officers (CIOs) to oversee code sharing and submit annual reports to Congress documenting compliance.
Notably, the senators said the bill requires no additional funding, as agencies can choose whether they want to share code via existing government infrastructure such as code.gov, open-source tools like Git, or commercial platforms like GitHub or Bitbucket.
“Each year, Federal agencies spend billions for software that may be duplicative because it is not shared between agencies, despite existing infrastructure to do so,” said Sen. Cruz, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I am glad to join Chairman Peters in introducing this common-sense solution that will save taxpayer funds by holding Federal agencies accountable for sharing the code they procure.”
