Dear Chairman Issa and Chairman Lankford:
Over the past several months, we have been working to organize a forum to hear directly from technology industry and government officials about the top priorities of the technology community. Since we know these issues are of particular interest to you, we are writing to invite your participation. We would greatly prefer to hold this event as a bipartisan Committee field hearing, although we understand if you are unavailable or decline to do so.
We have planned this event for May 11, 2012, and we have reserved the Fairfax County Government Center located at 12000 Government Center Parkway in Fairfax, Virginia. We intend to invite several representatives from the private sector, including the Professional Services Council, Microsoft, Google, and a number of smaller information technology companies and their trade associations. We also intend to invite government officials, including representatives from the Office of Management and Budget and the federal acquisitions workforce.
At the event, we plan to focus on the 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management, which was issued by U.S. Chief Information Officer on December 9, 2010. This Plan established a blueprint for increasing the value of government investment in information technology by promoting efficiency in operations and effective management of large-scale programs.
First among the reforms recommended in the Plan is a consolidation of at least 800 data centers by 2015. This recommendation is consistent with the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative announced by the Administration in February 2010, which required Federal CIO Council agencies to include a plan for consolidation in their budget submissions. The goal of this initiative is to reduce the energy, real estate, and operational costs associated with maintaining an estimated 2,100 government data centers. To meet this target, the Plan proposes the consolidation of existing centers and a shift to cloud computing, which has the potential to provide a flexible, cost-effective alternative to traditional data centers, although concerns still exist about security and interoperability.
In addition to reviewing the status of these consolidations, we also hope to explore the impacts of over-reliance on Low Priced Technically Acceptable contract awards and the current challenges facing the government’s acquisition workforce.
If you would like additional information or would like to discuss this event further, please feel free to contact either of us directly, or have your staff contact Cecelia Thomas of the minority staff at (202) 225-5051. We look forward to working with you, and thank you for consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
Elijah E. Cummings
Ranking Member
Gerald E. Connolly
Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform
