MEGABYTE Act of 2016

Last updated

The Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016 (or the MEGABYTE Act of 2016) is a United States federal law which requires the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to issue a directive on the management of software licenses by the US federal government.

Representative Matt Cartwright Matt Cartwright, official portrait, 113th Congress.jpg
Representative Matt Cartwright

The directive will require the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of each federal agency to develop a comprehensive software licensing policy covering roles in relation to software license management, an inventory of software licenses held by the agency, an analysis of software usage and agency goals covering the use of software within the agency.

The agency CIO must subsequently report after one year and then at five-yearly intervals of the financial savings which have resulted from improved software license management.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Bill Cassidy and Representative Matt Cartwright, [1] and enacted after being signed by President Obama on July 29, 2016. [2] The Congressional Budget Office argued that mostly "the bill would codify and expand current policies and practices of the federal government", but expected that "most of the savings in this area will probably be achieved through current efforts to make cost effective decisions when acquiring software". [3]

In accordance with the act requirements, OMB published M-16-12 Category Management Policy 16-1: Improving the Acquisition and Management of Common Information Technology: Software Licensing. [4]

This established the Enterprise Software Category Team (ESCT), co-managed by GSA, DoD and OMB. It required agencies to appoint a Software Manager for the entire agency. It requires a continual agency-wide inventory of software licenses, Ongoing analysis of license utilization, and reporting of cost savings/avoidance made possible by this policy.

The House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Operations and Information Technology has integrated software policy and inventory monitoring into its oversight of executive agencies' Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act implementation. [5]

Related Research Articles

Office of Management and Budget Office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, policies, and procedures to see whether they comply with the president's policies and coordinates inter-agency policy initiatives.

The chief financial officer (CFO) is officer of a company that has primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financial reporting. In some sectors, the CFO is also responsible for analysis of data. Some CFOs have the title CFOO for chief financial and operating officer. In the United Kingdom, the typical term for a CFO is finance director (FD). The CFO typically reports to the chief executive officer (CEO) and the board of directors and may additionally have a seat on the board. The CFO supervises the finance unit and is the chief financial spokesperson for the organization. The CFO directly assists the chief operating officer (COO) on all strategic and tactical matters relating to budget management, cost–benefit analysis, forecasting needs, and securing of new funding.

Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 United States Law

The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 is a United States federal law enacted in 2002 as Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002. The act recognized the importance of information security to the economic and national security interests of the United States. The act requires each federal agency to develop, document, and implement an agency-wide program to provide information security for the information and information systems that support the operations and assets of the agency, including those provided or managed by another agency, contractor, or other source.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) is the principal set of rules regarding government procurement in the United States, and is codified at Chapter 1 of Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations, 48 CFR 1. It covers many of the contracts issued by the US military and NASA, as well as US civilian federal agencies.

A federal enterprise architecture framework (FEAF) is the U.S. reference enterprise architecture of a federal government. It provides a common approach for the integration of strategic, business and technology management as part of organization design and performance improvement.

The Center for Information Technology (CIT) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that compose the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a cabinet-level department of the Executive Branch of the United States Federal Government. Originating in 1954 as a central processing facility in the NIH Office of the Director, the Division of Computer Research and Technology was established in 1964, merging in 1998 with the NIH Office of the CIO and the NIH Office of Research Services Telecommunications Branch to form a new organization, the CIT.

Paperwork Reduction Act

The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 is a United States federal law enacted in 1980 designed to reduce the total amount of paperwork burden the federal government imposes on private businesses and citizens. The Act imposes procedural requirements on agencies that wish to collect information from the public. It also established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and authorized this new agency to oversee federal agencies' collection of information from the public and to establish information policies. A substantial amendment, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, confirmed that OIRA's authority extended over not only agency orders to provide information to the government, but also agency orders to provide information to the public.

The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996 is a United States federal law, designed to improve the way the federal government acquires, uses and disposes information technology (IT). It was passed as Division E of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1996. Together with the Federal Acquisition Reform Act of 1996, it is known as the Clinger–Cohen Act.

In the United States, compliance requirements are a series of directives United States federal government agencies established that summarize hundreds of federal laws and regulations applicable to federal assistance. They are currently incorporated into the OMB A-133 Compliance Supplement, which was created by the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

OMB Circular A-130, titled Managing Information as a Strategic Resource, is one of many Government circulars produced by the United States Federal Government to establish policy for executive branch departments and agencies.

OMB Circular A-126

OMB Circular A-126, revised May 22, 1992, is a Government circular that introduces standards and policies to minimize the cost and improve the management and use of United States Government aircraft. Specifically, OMB Circular A-126 addresses the acquisition, management, usage, cost accounting, and disposal of government aircraft.

Vivek Kundra American government official

Vivek Kundra is a former American administrator who served as the first chief information officer of the United States from March, 2009 to August, 2011 under President Barack Obama. He is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Sprinklr, a provider of enterprise customer experience management software based in NYC. He was previously a visiting Fellow at Harvard University.

data.gov

Data.gov is a U.S. government website launched in late May 2009 by the then Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the United States, Vivek Kundra. Data.gov aims to improve public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The site is a repository for federal, state, local, and tribal government information, made available to the public.

The Worker Protection Standard is intended to protect employees on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses that are occupationally exposed to agricultural pesticides.

Federal Systems Integration and Management Center

GSA FEDSIM provides assisted acquisition support for information technology systems and services, and professional services, to other U.S. Government agencies on a fee for service basis. FEDSIM’s business lines include system and network operations and maintenance, development of new applications, purchases of hardware and software, and many other IT goods and services, as well as professional services such as logistics. FEDSIM contracts with large and small private sector companies for these systems and services.

Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013

The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2013 aims to make information on federal expenditures more easily available, accessible, and transparent. The bill would change reporting requirements about financial data and start a pilot program to research best practices. The bill was introduced in the House during the 113th United States Congress.

Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act

The Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act made changes to the ways the U.S. federal government buys and manages computer technology. It became law as a part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 (Title VIII, Subtitle D, H.R. 3979.

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a US government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. In 2011, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memorandum establishing the Federal Risk and Authorization Program (FedRAMP) “to provide a cost-effective, risk-based approach for the adoption and use of cloud services to Executive departments and agencies”. The General Services Administration (GSA) established the FedRAMP Program Management Office (PMO) in June 2012. The FedRAMP PMO mission is to promote the adoption of secure cloud services across the Federal Government by providing a standardized approach to security and risk assessment. Per the OMB memorandum, any cloud services that hold federal data must be FedRAMP Authorized. FedRAMP prescribes the security requirements and process cloud service providers must follow in order for the government to use their service.

A machine-readable document is a document whose content can be readily processed by computers. Such documents are distinguished from machine-readable data by virtue of having sufficient structure to provide the necessary context to support the business processes for which they are created.

Suzette Kent American government official

Suzette Kuhlow Kent is an American government official who served as Federal Chief Information Officer of the United States from January 29, 2018 until July 2020. She was the fourth person to formally hold the job of Federal CIO, which was created by the E-Government Act of 2002. The Federal CIO's office is a part of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

References

  1. Rep. Cartwright’s MEGABYTE Act Signed into Law, accessed November 29, 2016
  2. H.R. 4904: MEGABYTE Act of 2016, accessed November 29, 2016
  3. Congressional Budget Office, Cost Estimate, April 28, 2016, accessed November 29, 2016
  4. Rung, Anne (June 2, 2016). "OMB M-16-12 Category Management Policy 16-1: Improving the Acquisition and Management of Common Information Technology: Software Licensing" (PDF).
  5. OGB Biannual FITARA Scorecard, accessed November 4, 2017