Udall’s Landmark Bipartisan MGT Act To Reduce Wasteful IT Spending, Strengthen Cybersecurity Included In FY18 NDAA Signed Into Law

Submitted by Carol A. Clark
on December 13, 2017
- 2:34 pm

U.S. Sen. Tom Udall

From the Office of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall:

New law would save taxpayers up to $20 billion a year

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) welcomed news that his Modernizing Government Technology (MGT) Act has been signed into law.

Udall introduced the bill with U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), and it was passed through Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2018. This bipartisan legislation will encourage federal agencies to cut wasteful spending and modernize and strengthen government information technology (IT) and security to save taxpayers up to $20 billion a year.

“This major legislation will save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and strengthen our cybersecurity by finally bringing the federal government’s grossly outdated IT systems into the 21st century,” Udall said. “Today, the federal government spends over $80 billion on IT – and a whopping 75 percent goes toward maintaining old and legacy systems that date back as far as the 1960s. The MGT Act will enable federal agencies to replace these legacy systems with better services at lower cost. It also will give federal agencies the ability to tackle dangerous cyber vulnerabilities and better protect Americans’ data from cyberattacks.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that many of the federal government’s IT systems and components are increasingly obsolete and, in some cases, over 60 years old. Such “legacy” IT systems often use old software languages and unsupported hardware. Cloud computing and other modern IT solutions can often offer faster processing time, more flexibility and greater efficiency than older systems. Yet cloud computing adoption by the federal government is hampered by traditional federal acquisition approaches and bottlenecks for commercial providers seeking to be certified as compliant with federal cybersecurity standards.

The new law will give federal government IT managers more flexibility to make strategic technology investments, more like the private sector. Today, because of the way IT is funded, federal IT managers are forced to pay for IT projects year-by-year, and maintenance of existing systems eats up the lion’s share of IT budgets. Further, agency budget rules do not incentivize savings or innovation because any money not spent has to be returned to the treasury. Under the new law, agencies will be able to put money saved into working capital funds. The funds would be accessible for up to three years to pay for technology improvements and modernization. The bill also creates a centralized fund that agencies can apply to in order to pay for major modernization projects.

The MGT Act will build on the 2014 federal IT reform legislation enacted by Udall and Moran, the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA), which gave federal agency Chief Information Officers more autonomy and authority to manage their systems among other significant reforms.