Bills
| 3.23.22

Should Federal Agencies Have More Defined Standards For Technology Modernization? (H.R. 5759)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 5759?

(Updated March 24, 2019)

This bill — the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience (IDEA)Act — would set clear benchmarks and speed up the timeline for federal agencies to improve their internal and external digital service delivery and infrastructures. It has four key pillars — user-friendly websites, access for digital transactions, e-signature usage, and security standards — which are translated into the 21st Century digital government priorities detailed below:

Ensuring Website Consolidation and Consistent Look and Feel

The bill requires government agencies to eliminate or consolidate duplicative web pages and update their content platforms to ensure a consistent look and feel.

Improving Government Website Accessibility

Agencies would be required to ensure that their websites and web-based forms meet the standards in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. This would ensure that every taxpayer can access the information they need online, regardless of their physical abilities.

Leveraging Data Analytics

Agencies would be required to use data analytics to build better websites that are responsive to users’ needs. This means websites would have to be designed around citizen experiences, and data would influence the management and development of web properties.

Content Personalization

Agencies would be required to provide users an option for a more customized digital experience, allowing them to complete digital interactions more efficiently and accurately.

Internal Digital Services

Agencies would be required to modernize their internal government employee digital experiences in order to produce the most effective and productive possible workforce.

Digitizing Government Services and Forms

The head of each executive agency would be responsible for making a web-based, mobile-friendly, digital services option available to the public for any in-person government transaction or paper-based process.

Adopting Electronic Signatures

Within 180 days of this bill’s enactment, agencies would submit plans to accelerate their use of electronic and digital signatures.

Prioritizing Customer Experiences

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) at agencies would be required to focus on improving customer experiences across digital and in-person interactions.

Creating a Designee to Ensure Effective Implementation

Each executive agency shall designate its CIO or a senior agency official whose primary responsibility is to ensure the implementation of this bill’s requirements. This person would be responsible for coordinating and ensuring alignment of the agency’s customer experience programs, monitoring digital service delivery, recommending changes to the agency head when needed, and providing advice to agency leaders on digital service delivery and customer service improvements.

Additionally, the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Service would be charged with developing website standards for all government agencies. Any new websites that go live after this bill passes would have to abide by the increased standards from day one. This includes websites currently in production that would go live after a vote.

Argument in favor

U.S. government websites and technologies are badly in need of modernization. They’re slow, difficult to use, and often outdated. As citizens become used to doing things online, they should be able to interact with government agencies digitally.

Argument opposed

Forcing government agencies to accelerate their timelines for modernizing their technologies and websites before they’re ready could create new risks in the form of improperly deployed new technologies or the breakage of old, existing technologies.

Impact

Users of government services; government technology; government websites; software companies; executive agencies; and the GSA.

Cost of H.R. 5759

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced this bill to improve citizens’ interactions with the federal government online while also reducing the cost of assistance from federal agencies:

“The 21st Century IDEA enables accessible and efficient government resources, reduces production costs, and encourages continuous digital enhancement. Government exists to serve citizens, and this bill ensures government leverages available technology to provide the cohesive, user-friendly online service that people around this country expect and deserve.”

In comments at Government Executive’s Customer Experience Summit 2018, Rep. Khanna adds that the bill largely codifies a number of existing Office and Management and Budget (OMB) directives in the hopes of helping them see implementation:

“The bill idea was very simple. We already had legislation that required agencies to move towards the cloud, and required there to be mobile access. This bill takes a lot of the Office of Management and Budget directives and codifies them into law… The initiatives have been there in a bipartisan basis, in the Obama administration and the Trump administration. Our hope is by codifying this into law, it will spur the agencies to make it a priority and for us to start seeing implementation of a lot of OMB directives that haven’t been fully implemented.”

Bill cosponsor Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) adds that this bill uses new and emerging technologies to improve critical services access for marginalized and underserved communities, including “people with disabilities or those who live in rural areas with limited access to traditional, in-person assistance services.”

Adobe is one of a number of technology companies that supports this legislation. Its Director of Government Relations and Public Policy, Matt Schrader, writes:

“Restoring the United States government’s global leadership position in technology and electronic government requires a new approach — one that narrows the growing gap between the digital demands of citizens and government’s current digital services – and this legislation would be a key step towards accomplishing that by transforming digital government services and improving citizen experiences.”

The Software Alliance (also known as the BSA), the leading advocacy group for the global software industry, also supports this bill. Its Vice President of Legislative Strategy, Craig Albright, says:

“In today’s connected age, IT and software are critical to ensuring government services benefit all Americans. The 21st Century IDEA Act would help modernize those services by improving federal agency websites, supporting the increased use of mobile devices, and transitioning away from paper-based forms in favor of e-transactions. In short, the IDEA Act would modernize the digital government experience.”

This bill passed the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by a voice vote with the support of 19 cosponsors, including 11 Republicans and eight Democrats. It also has the support of Adobe, BSA, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Microsoft, ServiceNow, SIIA, and DocuSign.

A Senate companion bill has passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees with the support of Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT).


Of Note: At present, only 84 percent of federal IT managers say their existing technology is completely capable of delivering on their agency’s mission. Even fewer, only 32 percent, of these IT managers say they’ll be able to meet their agencies’ missions five years from now using existing technology. 92 percent of them say it’s “urgent” for their agencies to modernize legacy applications due to concerns about security, inflexibility, time required to manage and/or maintain them, and integration issues.

However, despite these concerns, few federal IT managers are actively looking at new technologies. Only 28 percent of federal IT managers have developed a business case to review or replace applications, and only 53 percent have a formal application modernization strategy.

Citizens’ interactions with the federal government could be vastly improved by digitizing the experience. According to the IRS, in-person or live assistance calls to that agency cost taxpayers $40-60 on average, while digital transactions cost only $0.22 on average.

DocuSign argues that merely accelerating the use of electronic signatures across the federal enterprise would significantly reduce printing and postage costs on the scale of “hundreds of millions of pages and millions of dollars” every year. It’d also save time, allowing federal agencies to spend more time on their core mission rather than administration.


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / powerofforever)