H. R. 9566 

One Hundred Eighteenth Congress 

of the 

United States of America 

AT THE SECOND SESSION 

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday, 

the third day of January, two thousand and twenty-four 

An Act 

To require governmentwide source code sharing, and for other purposes. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 

the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Source code Harmonization 

And Reuse in Information Technology Act’’ or the ‘‘SHARE IT 

Act’’. 

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS. 

In this Act: 

(1) AGENCY.—The term ‘‘agency’’ has the meaning given 

that term in section 3502 of title 44, United States Code. 

(2) APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES.—The term 

‘‘appropriate congressional committees’’ means the Committee 

on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate 

and the Committee on Oversight and Accountability of the 

House of Representatives. 

(3) CUSTOM-DEVELOPED CODE.—The term ‘‘custom-developed code’’— 

(A) means source code that is— 

(i) produced in the performance of a contract with 

an agency or is otherwise exclusively funded by the 

Federal Government; or 

(ii) developed by a Federal employee as part of 

the official duties of the employee; 

(B) includes— 

(i) source code, or segregable portions of source 

code, for which the Federal Government could obtain 

unlimited rights under part 27 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation or any relevant supplemental acquisition regulations of an agency; and 

(ii) source code written for a software project, 

module, plugin, script, middleware, or application 

programming interface; and 

(C) does not include— 

(i) source code that is solely exploratory or disposable in nature, including source code written by a 

developer experimenting with a new language or 

library; or 

(ii) commercial computer software, commercial offthe-shelf software, or configuration scripts for such 

software. 
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(4) FEDERAL EMPLOYEE.—The term ‘‘Federal employee’’ has 

the meaning given the term in section 2105(a) of title 5, United 

States Code. 

(5) METADATA.—The term ‘‘metadata’’, with respect to custom-developed code— 

(A) has the meaning given that term in section 3502 

of title 44, United States Code; and 

(B) includes— 

(i) information on whether the custom-developed 

code was— 

(I) produced pursuant to a contract; or 

(II) shared in a public or private repository; 

(ii) any contract number under which the customdeveloped code was produced; and 

(iii) any hyperlink to the repository in such the 

code was shared. 

(6) PRIVATE REPOSITORY.—The term ‘‘private repository’’ 

means a software storage location— 

(A) that contains source code, documentation, configuration scripts, as appropriate, revision history, and other 

files; and 

(B) access to which is restricted to only authorized 

users. 

(7) PUBLIC REPOSITORY.—The term ‘‘public repository’’ 

means a software storage location— 

(A) that contains source code, documentation, configuration scripts, as appropriate, revision history, and other 

files; and 

(B) access to which is open to the public. 

(8) SOFTWARE.—The term ‘‘software’’ has the meaning given 

the term ‘‘computer software’’ in section 2.101 of title 48, Code 

of Federal Regulations, or any successor regulation. 

(9) SOURCE CODE.—The term ‘‘source code’’ means a collection of computer commands written in a computer programming 

language that a computer can execute as a piece of software. 

SEC. 3. SOFTWARE REUSE. 

(a) SHARING.—Not later than 210 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the head of each agency shall ensure that the 

custom-developed code of the agency and other key technical components of the code (including documentation, data models, schemas, 

metadata, architecture designs, configuration scripts, and artifacts 

required to develop, build, test, and deploy the code) of the code 

are— 

(1) stored at not less than 1 public repository or private 

repository; 

(2) accessible to Federal employees via procedures developed under subsection (d)(1)(A)(ii)(III); and 

(3) owned by the agency. 

(b) SOFTWARE REUSE RIGHTS IN PROCUREMENT CONTRACTS.— 

The head of an agency that enters into a contract for the custom 

development of software shall acquire and exercise rights sufficient 

to enable the governmentwide access to, sharing of, use of, and 

modification of any custom-developed code created in the development of such software. 

(c) DISCOVERY.—Not later than 210 days after the date of 

enactment of this Act, the head of each agency shall make metadata 
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created on or after such date for the custom-developed code of 

the agency publicly accessible. 

(d) ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS.— 

(1) AGENCY CIOS.—Not later than 180 days after the date 

of enactment of this Act, the Chief Information Officer of each 

agency, in consultation with the Chief Acquisition Officer, or 

similar official, of the agency and the Administrator of the 

Office of Electronic Government, shall develop an agency-wide 

policy that— 

(A) implements the requirements of this Act, 

including— 

(i) ensuring that custom-developed code follows the 

best practices established by the Director of the Office 

and Management and Budget under paragraph (3) for 

operating repositories and version control systems to 

keep track of changes and to facilitate collaboration 

among multiple developers; and 

(ii) managing the sharing of custom-developed code 

under subsection (b), and the public accessibility of 

metadata under subsection (c), including developing— 

(I) procedures to determine whether any custom-developed code meets the conditions under section 4(b) for an exemption under this Act; 

(II) procedures for making metadata for custom-developed code publicly accessible pursuant 

to subsection (c); 

(III) procedures for Federal employees to gain 

access to public repositories and private repositories that contain custom developed source code; 

and 

(IV) standardized reporting practices across 

the agency to capture key information relating 

to a contract under which custom-developed source 

code was produced for reporting statistics about 

the contract; and 

(B) corrects or amends any policies of the agency that 

are inconsistent with the requirements of this Act. 

(2) ADMINISTRATOR OF THE OFFICE OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT.— 

(A) MINIMUM STANDARD REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.— 

Not later than 120 days after the date of enactment of 

this Act, the Administrator of the Office of Electronic 

Government shall establish minimum standard reporting 

requirements for the Chief Information Officers of agencies, 

which shall include information relating to— 

(i) measuring the frequency of reuse of code, 

including access and modification under subsection (b); 

(ii) whether the shared code is maintained; 

(iii) whether there is a feedback mechanism for 

improvements to or community development of the 

shared code; and 

(iv) the number and circumstances of all exemptions granted under section 4(a)(2). 

(B) REPORTING REQUIREMENT.— (i) REQUIREMENT.—Not later than 1 year after the 

date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Administrator of the Office of Electronic 
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Government shall publish on a centralized website a 

report on the implementation of this Act that 

includes— 

(I) a complete list of all exemptions granted 

under section 4(a)(2); and 

(II) information showing whether each agency 

has updated the acquisition and other policies of 

the agency to be compliant with this Act. 

(ii) OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA ASSET.—The report 

under clause (i) shall be maintained as an open Government data asset (as defined in section 3502 of title 

44, United States Code). 

(3) GUIDANCE.—The Director of the Office of Management 

and Budget shall issue guidance, consistent with the purpose 

of this Act, that establishes best practices and uniform procedures across agencies for the purposes of implementing this 

subsection. 

SEC. 4. EXEMPTIONS. 

(a) IN GENERAL.— 

(1) AUTOMATIC.— 

(A) IN GENERAL.—This Act shall not apply to classified 

source code or source code developed primarily for use 

in a national security system (as defined in section 11103 

of title 40, United States Code). 

(B) NATIONAL SECURITY.—An exemption from the 

requirements under section 3 shall apply to classified 

source code or source code developed— 

(i) primarily for use in a national security system 

(as defined in section 11103 of title 40, United States 

Code); or 

(ii) by an agency, or part of an agency, that is 

an element of the intelligence community (as defined 

in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947 

(50 U.S.C. 3003(4)). 

(C) FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT.—An exemption 

from the requirements under section 3 shall apply to source 

code the disclosure of which is exempt under section 552(b) 

of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the 

‘‘Freedom of Information Act’’). 

(2) DISCRETIONARY.— 

(A) EXEMPTION AND GUIDANCE.— 

(i) IN GENERAL.—The Chief Information Officer of 

an agency, in consultation with the Federal Privacy 

Council, or any successor thereto, may exempt from 

the requirements of section 3 any source code for which 

a limited exemption described in subparagraph (B) 

applies. 

(ii) GUIDANCE REQUIRED.—The Federal Privacy 

Council shall provide guidance to the Chief Information 

Officer of each agency relating to the limited exemption 

described in subparagraph (B)(ii) to ensure consistent 

application of this paragraph across agencies. 

(B) LIMITED EXEMPTIONS.—The limited exemptions 

described in this paragraph are the following: 

(i) The head of the agency is prohibited from providing the source code to another individual or entity 
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under another Federal law or regulation, including 

under— 

(I) the Export Administration Regulations; 

(II) the International Traffic in Arms Regulations; 

(III) the regulations of the Transportation 

Security Administration relating to the protection 

of Sensitive Security Information; and 

(IV) the Federal laws and regulations governing the sharing of classified information not 

covered by the exemption in paragraph (1). 

(ii) The sharing or public accessibility of the source 

code would create an identifiable risk to the privacy 

of an individual. 

(b) REPORTS REQUIRED.— 

(1) AGENCY REPORTING.—Not later than December 31 of 

each year, the Chief Information Officer of an agency shall 

submit to the Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government a report of the source code of the agency to which an 

exemption under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) applied 

during the fiscal year ending on September 30 of that year 

with a brief narrative justification of each exemption. 

(2) ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS.—Not later than 1 year 

after the date of enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, 

the Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government shall 

submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report 

on all exemptions granted under paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (a) by each agency, including a compilation of all 

information, including the narrative justification, relating to 

each such exemption. 

(3) FORM.—The reports under paragraphs (1) and (2) shall 

be submitted in unclassified form, with a classified annex as 

appropriate. 

SEC. 5. GAO REPORT. 

Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this 

Act, the Comptroller General of the United States shall submit 

to Congress a report that includes an assessment of the implementation of this Act. 

SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION. 

Nothing in this Act may be construed as requiring the disclosure of information or records that are exempt from public disclosure under section 552 of title 5, United States Code (commonly 

known as the ‘‘Freedom of Information Act’’). 

SEC. 7. APPLICATION. 

This Act shall apply to custom-developed code that is developed 

or revised— 

(1) by a Federal employee not less than 180 days after 

the date of enactment of this Act; or 

(2) under a contract awarded pursuant to a solicitation 

issued not less than 180 days after the date of enactment 

of this Act. 
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SEC. 8. REVISION OF FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION. 

Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this 

Act, the Federal Acquisition Regulation shall be revised as necessary to implement the provisions of this Act. 

SEC. 9. NO ADDITIONAL FUNDING. 

No additional funds are authorized to be appropriated to carry 

out this Act. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Vice President of the United States and

President of the Senate.