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ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT: A PROGRESS REPORT

ON THE SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES OF GOVERNMENT-WIDE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

SOLUTIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION

POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND

THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 24, 2004

Serial No. 108–195

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL

RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

DOUG OSE, California

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

BOB DIX, Staff Director

CHIP WALKER, Professional Staff Member

JULIANA FRENCH, Clerk

ADAM BORDES, Minority Professional Staff Member

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C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 24, 2004 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Evans, Karen S., Administrator, E-Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget; Linda Koontz, Director,

Information Management, U.S. General Accounting Office; Martin

Wagner, Associate Administrator, Office of Government-wide Policy,

U.S. General Services Administration; M.J. Jameson, Associate Administrator (USA Services), Office of Citizen Services and Communication,

U.S. General Services Administration; Norman Enger, Director, E-Government (E-Payroll), Office of Personnel Management; Kim Nelson,

Chief Information Officer (E-Rulemaking Initiative), Environmental

Protection Agency; and George Strawn, Chief Information Officer (EGrants), Division of Grants and Agreements, National Science Foundation ................................................................................................................. 11

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Missouri, prepared statement of .................................................................. 8

Enger, Norman, Director, E-Government (E-Payroll), Office of Personnel

Management, prepared statement of .......................................................... 109

Evans, Karen S., Administrator, E-Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement of .......... 14

Jameson, M.J., Associate Administrator (USA Services), Office of Citizen

Services and Communication, U.S. General Services Administration,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 100

Koontz, Linda, Director, Information Management, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ................................................................ 21

Nelson, Kim, Chief Information Officer (E-Rulemaking Initiative), Environmental Protection Agency, prepared statement of ............................... 119

Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 4

Strawn, George, Chief Information Officer (E-Grants), Division of Grants

and Agreements, National Science Foundation, prepared statement of .. 127

Wagner, Martin, Associate Administrator, Office of Government-wide Policy, U.S. General Services Administration:

Information concerning revenue .............................................................. 146

Information concerning Web sites ............................................................ 132

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 93

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ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT: A PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES OF GOVERNMENT-WIDE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY,

INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam H. Putnam

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Putnam and Clay.

Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, counsel; Chip

Walker and Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff members;

Shannon Weinberg and Dan Daly, professional staff members and

deputy counsels; Juliana French, clerk; Adam Bordes and David

McMillen, minority professional staff members; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. PUTNAM. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental

Relations and the Census will come to order.

Good afternoon and welcome to the subcommittee’s hearing on

‘‘Electronic Government: A Progress Report on the Successes and

Challenges of Government-wide Information Technology Solutions.’’

During the first session of the 108th Congress, this subcommittee

focused a great deal of attention on the oversight of the Federal

Government’s e-government element of the President’s management agenda. With a commitment to an aggressive and sustained

effort, the launch of the President’s management agenda in August

2001 established a strategy for transforming the Federal Government in a manner that produces measurable results that matter in

the lives of the American people. One of the five components of the

PMA is Electronic Government, intended to utilize the power and

creativity of information technology to produce a more citizen-centric government, as well as one that is more efficient, productive,

and cost-effective on behalf of the American taxpayer. E-government provides a platform to establish cross-agency collaboration

and a rapid departure from a stovepipe approach to government operations to an approach that facilitates coordination, collaboration,

communication, and cooperation.

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The E-Government Act of 2002, designed and advanced by Chairman Tom Davis, set forth a series of 24 initial e-government

projects and established the Office of Management and Budget as

the lead agency responsible for implementation and oversight of

those initiatives. Today, the subcommittee will continue to exercise

its oversight responsibility by examining the progress made on the

initial 24 ‘‘Quicksilver’’ projects, including the impediments to

progress and any lessons learned during the development and implementation of these initiatives. Additionally, we will take a look

at the next steps; i.e., the current plans for the next series of lines

of business initiatives that will potentially produce further savings

for the American taxpayer. I believe today’s hearing will be an opportunity to celebrate success and much progress despite unexpected bumps in the road on some projects and a number of continuing obstacles. As we have learned in previous hearings, many

of the impediments are cultural and personnel-based rather than

being attributable to the technology itself or available resources.

I am optimistic about the potential savings that can be achieved

by the full implementation of the initial set of projects, and am

eager to hear more today about the anticipated savings to be derived by the next set of initiatives. In fact, I am so optimistic that

this subcommittee has accepted a challenge of identifying significant budget savings for fiscal year 2005 through the portfolio of

subject areas that reside within our jurisdiction, including most

definitely e-government.

Federal Government expenditures on information technology products and services will approach $60 billion in fiscal year 2005,

making the Federal Government the largest IT purchaser in the

world. My home State of Florida, the fourth largest State in the

Union, has a total State budget of $56 billion this year, less than

what the Federal Government spends just on IT. Thanks in large

part to the outstanding efforts by OMB and the General Accounting Office in particular, great strides have been made to improve

productivity and results from IT investments. But for too long, and

even continuing today, individual agencies have pursued their own

IT agendas that focus solely on mission rather than emanating

from a commitment to customer service or sound business processes.

As a first step to a meaningful coordination of IT expenditures

governmentwide, Congress passed the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996,

which included the Information Technology Management Reform

Act and the Federal Acquisition Reform Act. This legislation sets

forth requirements for Federal Government IT investment management decisionmaking and corresponding responsibility. It requires

agencies to fundamentally link IT investments to agency strategic

planning, including the linkage to a Federal enterprise architecture. Clinger-Cohen also requires that OMB submit a report annually to Congress on the results of Federal IT spending and net program performance benefits achieved. This information was included

as part of the fiscal year 2005 budget submission sent to Congress

in early February.

The E-Government Act of 2002 took the next step to improve IT

investment results requiring enhanced and more user-friendly access to Government information and the delivery of information

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and services to citizens, business partners, employees, and other

agencies and entities. The E-Government Act also requires OMB to

provide a report to Congress on the status of e-government. Rather

than simply identify and report on IT investments, the act forces

a cultural change from consolidating IT investments to encouraging

performance-based, citizen-centric, cross-agency planning.

Today we have assembled a distinguished panel of witnesses to

provide the subcommittee with insight on a number of specific

issues: A description of the progress on the initial 24 ‘‘Quicksilver’’

projects—lessons learned and challenges that we still face on initiatives such as Recruitment One-Stop, e-Travel, e-Grants, e-Rulemaking, e-Payroll, and e-Authentication. The estimated cost-savings that will be derived in fiscal year 2005 as a result of these initiatives.

The next steps in the subsequent five ‘‘Lines of Business’’ initiatives. How does the e-government strategy integrate with the development and implementation of a Federal Enterprise Architecture? How is OMB utilizing the Business Reference Model to identify redundant IT investments? How does the e-government strategy influence the agency investment decisionmaking as it relates to

information security? How does the progress or lack there of in

compliance with the requirements of FISMA affect an agency’s egovernment scorecard for the President’s management agenda?

How has the funding from Congress affected the progress of these

e-government issues? How will tools such as SmartBuy provide

OMB with even greater opportunity to achieve the goals and objectives of the e-government initiative?

I look forward to the expert testimony our panel of leaders in

various Federal agencies will provide today, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate the tremendous progress that has been made

thus far with these initiatives, while acknowledging the magnitude

of the challenge that lies ahead.

Today’s hearing can be viewed live via Web cast on Reform.House.Gov and clicking on the link under ‘‘Live Committee

Broadcasts.’’

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. It is a pleasure to be joined by the ranking member

of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Clay. You

are recognized for any opening remarks that you may wish to

make.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and also thank you for

calling for this hearing of the subcommittee today. I am hopeful

that today’s testimony will prove beneficial in our efforts to make

the Federal Government a more efficient and accessible institution.

As I have stated during previous hearings on e-government related issues, my home State of Missouri is home to both the National

Personnel Records Center as well as the Presidential Library of

Harry S. Truman. As part of the National Archives and Records

Administration, both the NPRC and the Truman Library represent

the finest of institutions that a free society can have—serving as

integral sources of information for not just government employees,

teachers, students, or researchers, but citizens from all walks of

life.

Today’s hearing is about making our government operate like the

Truman Library. We should have an open government where each

agency devotes its energy to making it easier for citizens to access

government information, in a minimally restrictive and convenient

manner. But that is not easily accomplished, particularly when attempting to get disparate agencies to work in concert with each

other.

In many respects, the goals associated with the e-government are

representative of the kind of government we deserve—transparent,

accessible, and reliable. The first annual OMB report to Congress

on the implementation and progress of the e-government initiatives, however, reminds us that such transparency and citizen accessibility is still a ways off. While I am encouraged by OMB’s

strategy for meeting their ambitious goals, I remain concerned that

the agency community is failing to make adequate progress in

meeting these goals. As of December 2003, only 2 of 26 agencies

met all of the e-government standards for success as prescribed by

OMB. Although I realize that progress continues to be reported at

19 additional agencies, I am all too aware of lax oversight and follow through in other government related IT pursuits, such as computer security and performance management. Further, I am also

aware that budget deficits can prove detrimental to the implementation and oversight of the 25 initiative agenda before us today.

I would like to thank our witnesses for appearing before our subcommittee today and look forward to hearing their testimony. Mr.

Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that my full statement be included in the record. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Without objection.

Having no further opening remarks, we will move directly to the

testimony. I would ask that our panel of witnesses please rise, and

anyone accompanying you who will provide you information in response to a query by this subcommittee please rise as well for the

administration of the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Note for the record that all of the witnesses responded in the affirmative, including the last three who were a little bit late getting up. [Laughter.]

Our first witness is Karen Evans. Ms. Evans is a frequent guest

of the subcommittee, and we are delighted to have her back with

us today. She was appointed by President Bush to be Administrator of the Office of Electronic Government and Information

Technology at the Office of Management and Budget. Prior to joining OMB, Ms. Evans was Chief Information Officer at the Department of Energy and served as vice chairman of the CIO Council,

which is the principal forum for agency CIOs to develop IT recommendations. She previously served at the Department of Justice

as Assistant and Division Director for Information System Management. We are delighted to have you. You are recognized for 5 minutes. You understand the light system. We would ask everyone, because this is a large panel, to respect the lighting system. You will

be given 5 minutes. Your written statement will be included in its

entirety in the record, but we ask you to summarize your verbal

comments. Thank you. Ms. Evans, you are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF KAREN S. EVANS, ADMINISTRATOR, E-GOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF

MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; LINDA KOONTZ, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MARTIN WAGNER, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT-WIDE POLICY, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; M.J. JAMESON, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR (USA SERVICES), OFFICE OF CITIZEN SERVICES

AND COMMUNICATION, U.S. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION; NORMAN ENGER, DIRECTOR, E-GOVERNMENT (EPAYROLL), OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT; KIM NELSON, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (E-RULEMAKING INITIATIVE), ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; AND

GEORGE STRAWN, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER (EGRANTS), DIVISION OF GRANTS AND AGREEMENTS, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Ms. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting

me to speak to you today about the significant progress being made

by the Federal Government to implement the 24 Presidential EGovernment Initiatives and the recent launch of the two new task

forces to examine human resources management and grants management in addition to the task forces underway in the areas of

Federal health architecture, financial management, and case management systems for law enforcement, investigation, and litigation

processes.

Nearly 3 years ago, President Bush outlined his vision for expanding the use of e-government in the President’s management

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agenda. His vision applies the principles of e-government to better

serve our fellow citizens and to achieve greater results through refined business practices and more efficient management of information technology resources. Since the release of the President’s management agenda, the OMB and our agency counterparts have

worked diligently together to achieve these goals.

Work has been done on multiple fronts. Not only did OMB and

the agencies work to identify 24 Presidential initiatives in which to

partner and provide shared solutions, but all agencies also initiated

their own unique e-government projects to compliment the Presidential initiatives. Furthermore, in concert with State, local, and

tribal officials, we have worked in partnership to achieve uniform

levels of service at all levels within the government.

The 24 initiatives are divided into four portfolios based on the

type of user group the initiative services—government to citizen,

government to business, government to government, and internal

efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, the e-Authentication initiative supports the other 24 in providing technology, policy, and

implementation activities to allow for a more uniform application

of identity management across government, providing choice to citizens and to Federal agencies. Each of these portfolios has initiatives that make a significant impact on their respective communities of interest.

The initiatives, led by the agencies with guidance and assistance

from OMB, have confronted common obstacles previously experienced in other transformation efforts. These include procurement,

acquisition, regulatory, and cultural, and budgetary issues. None of

these obstacles were unexpected. Because e-government is not the

work of managing existing processes and investments, but rather

working to transform old practices into new solutions, the challenge to deliver greater results to the citizen requires sustained

management. This is hard work and our partner agencies leading

these initiatives are focused and tireless in their efforts to deliver

results to their fellow citizens. I commend them for their efforts.

Concurrent with the work of the e-government initiatives, OMB

launched the Federal Enterprise Architecture in February 2002.

The FEA is a business and performance-based framework designed

to facilitate governmentwide information sharing, collaborative IT

solutions, improved customer service, and process system integration resulting in faster, better, and more cost-effective service to

the American people. Applied in the fiscal year 2004 and 2005

budget processes, the FEA is becoming recognized as a viable

framework to analyze agency IT investments, thereby enabling the

government to wisely target inter- and intra-agency collaboration

efforts that will streamline the government’s business processes.

Throughout the past 2 years, OMB has analyzed information

technology investments across several lines of business using the

FEA. Use of the FEA better quantifies the savings and service improvements that could result from integration and consolidation

projects. This analysis resulted in the launch of two new task

forces last Thursday and a reflection of the continuing efforts of the

task forces underway to determine business-driven common solutions in all the following areas: financial management, human reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sources, grants management, Federal health architecture, and case

management systems.

From now until early September, these agency-led task forces

will define a common solution, and develop a target architecture

and business case for the respective line of business. This work will

be inclusive and deliberate, and will include a public Request for

Information process.

The Presidential e-Government initiatives are delivering measurable results to citizens. The administration will continue to work

collaboratively across the agencies and with Congress on e-Government and information technologies. I look forward to working with

you on these matters. I would be happy to take any questions.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Evans follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Evans.

Our next witness is Linda Koontz. Linda Koontz is Director of

Information Management Issues for the General Accounting Office.

Ms. Koontz is responsible for issues concerning the collection, use,

and dissemination of government information in an era of rapidly

changing technology as well as e-government issues. Recently, she

has been heavily involved in directing studies of interest to this

subcommittee, including e-government, privacy, electronic records

management, and governmentwide information dissemination. You

are recognized for 5 minutes. Welcome to the subcommittee.

Ms. KOONTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the subcommittee’s hearing on electronic

government progress. Generally speaking, e-government refers to

the use of information technology, particularly Web-based Internet

applications, to enhance the access to and delivery of government

information and service to citizens, to business partners, to employees, and among agencies at all levels of government.

As requested, in my remarks today, I will discuss the progress

of the 25 OMB-sponsored e-government initiatives in meeting their

initial objectives. In the initiatives’ first formal workplans, submitted to OMB in May 2002, a total of 91 objectives were laid out.

While these objectives vary widely—from simple, narrowly defined

tasks, to broad long-term transformational goals—they serve as a

useful benchmark across all of the initiatives for measuring

progress over the last 2 years.

Overall, we found that mixed progress has been made in achieving these objectives. To date, 33 have been fully or substantially

achieved; 38 have been partially achieved; and for 17, no significant progress has been made toward these objectives. In addition,

three of the objectives no longer apply because they have been

found to be impractical or inappropriate. For two of the initiatives—Grants.gov and IRS Free File—all original objectives have

been achieved, and for an additional five, the majority of the objectives have been achieved. For the other 18 initiatives, most of their

objectives are either partially met or not significantly met.

An example of an initiative that has made excellent progress in

achieving the original objectives is Grants.gov, which established a

Web portal that, as of February 2004, allowed prospective grants

applicants to find and apply for a total of 835 grant opportunities

at 29 grantmaking agencies. Project SAFECOM, on the other hand,

has made very limited progress in addressing its original objectives, which all relate to achieving communications interoperability

among entities at various levels of government. Given that OMB’s

stated criteria in choosing these initiatives included their likelihood

of deployment in 18 to 24 months, the substantial number of objectives that are still unmet or only partially met indicates that making progress on these initiatives is more challenging than OMB

may have originally anticipated.

The extent to which the 25 initiatives have met their original objectives can be linked to a common set of challenges that they all

face including, focusing on achievable objectives that meet customer needs, maintaining management stability through executive

commitment, collaborating effectively with partner agencies and

stakeholders, driving transformational changes in business procVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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esses, and implementing effective funding strategies. Initiatives

that have overcome these challenges have generally met with success in achieving their objectives, whereas initiatives that have had

problems dealing with these challenges have made less progress.

GovBenefits is a good example of an initiative that has successfully focused on an achievable near-term objective but also continues to work on a more challenging transformational task. Specifically, a Web site, GovBenefits.gov, was set up that currently provides potential applicants with information about over 500 benefit

programs at 22 agencies. However, the project has not yet addressed the more challenging task of streamlining the process of

applying for these benefits. An approach has been mapped out for

tackling this issue but no milestone has been set for bringing a

standardized application process on line.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, e-government offers many opportunities to better serve the public, make government more efficient

and effective, and reduce costs. Some of the 25 initiatives have

made substantial progress and are already producing valuable benefits. Further, important lessons in the form of the challenges that

I have outlined today have been learned from these initial efforts.

We believe that priority should be given now to ensuring that the

agencies managing these initiatives assess their progress in the

context of these challenges and develop strategies to address them.

In addition, we continue to believe that careful oversight on the

part of OMB as well as the Congress is crucial to realizing the full

potential of e-government.

That concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Koontz follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Mr. Martin Wagner. Mr. Wagner is the Associate Administrator for Government-wide Policy at GSA. He develops and evaluates policies for the Federal Government’s management and disposal of products and services, internal management

processes such as travel, the use of information technology, and

electronic commerce. He has served in this capacity since 1995. He

co-chaired the Federal Government’s first interagency electronic

commerce effort, and has been a senior manager in information

technology and telecommunications at the GSA, directed telecommunications at the Treasury Department, evaluated telecommunications issues at OMB, and evaluated the economic impact of regulations at EPA. That was quite a job. [Laughter.]

Mr. WAGNER. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. I take it you did not finish before you moved on to

other things. He has been a consultant on economic and technological issues for the space program, and has undergraduate and

graduate degrees in economics and engineering from Princeton.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

We look forward to your testimony.

Mr. WAGNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My written remarks

cover the general scope of the GSA efforts. So rather than summarize those in detail, I wanted to pull out one case example for you,

e-Travel, to illustrate the types of things we have been working

through.

If I look at travel in the status quo when we first got involved

with it, it was pretty much done by agencies’ local option, at office

or bureau, occasionally the department level, business rules done

locally, few economies of scale, some innovators, for example in

Transportation and the Defense Department, but basically travel,

even though it is about $8 billion a year, was viewed as an adjunct

function and not looked at as a common business process across the

whole Federal Government.

When we got engaged in e-Travel, not only did we look across the

government, we looked to the best practices in the private sector

and put together a strategy that tends to emulate the best practices they do. I would also say we did that collaboratively with

agencies. Rather than simply going out and getting the right answer, you have to work with the practitioners. To net it out, effective travel management in businesses tends to embrace standardized, centralized service delivery, standard business rules that are

followed and you do manage exceptions from them, there is online

booking processing and fulfillment, there are clear demarcations

between travel and other financial systems, it is managed by a

small cadre of professionals, many of them under contract, and

then there is active analysis of what businesses actually spend

their money on. We then built that into the e-Travel strategy,

awarded three contracts which are now in the process of rolling

out.

Now we have to actually make it work. It is quite clear that governance is going to be critical. For example, agencies may want to

specialize for reasons that do not make economic sense. We are trying to build out a standardized system. The companies certainly

have an interest in doing special, adding unneeded features on ocVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00095 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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casion. And how do we manage that while at the same time recognizing that in some cases agencies do have unique problems.

That is what we are working through. I think we have made good

progress to date. I certainly would be happy to talk to any of the

other GSA initiatives. But that gives you a sense of what we are

working on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wagner follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, sir.

Our next witness is M.J. Jameson. Ms. Jameson was named the

Associate Administrator of Communications on December 10, 2001.

Her role as principal communications executive for the agency, Ms.

Jameson serves as GSA’s primary spokeswoman and will advise

the Administrator on communications and all matters of general

public interest. In a career spanning 20 years, Ms. Jameson has

held senior level communications positions, including senior vice

president with the public relations firm Burris and Marsteller, vice

president of communications at American Forest and Paper Association, special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to France, and Director of Public Affairs and press secretary for the Department of

Energy. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Ms. JAMESON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the

subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing on e-government to talk about USA Services. First, I want to

express my appreciation for the widespread support that we have

received for USA Services which has made it a success. This begins

with the Bush administration which had the vision to design a

management agenda with an e-government element that is truly

bringing a fundamental cultural change as to how citizens interact

with their government. OMB has been very supportive, and I want

to mention that Karen Evans and Clay Johnson are making a real

difference. Our Administrator Steve Perry has been involved in our

effort every step of the way personally. And critical to our success

as well has been support from Chairman Davis as well as you, Mr.

Chairman, and this subcommittee. All of us on the front lines in

e-government know how supportive you are and we appreciate it.

USA Services presents citizens with a single ‘‘front door’’ to government, allowing them to receive accurate, timely, and consistent

answers and information. As an example of the impact USA Services is having, we are expecting 225 million citizen contacts this

year. That includes e-mails to FirstGov, page views to FirstGov, or

calling our 1–800-FED-INFO line. It also includes the more traditional way that some citizens prefer to receive information, and

that is in hard copy from our distribution center in Pueblo, CO. In

fact, Mr. Chairman, you may be interested to know that we just

received an e-mail from someone from Lake Alfred, FL, who is interested in knowing who their Congressman was so they could be

in touch with them. [Laughter.]

USA Services is also looking after citizens’ interest by helping

our fellow agencies. We do this in two ways. First, we all know that

citizens do not always know who to call, what agency to e-mail or

call with their questions or problems. As the government is so complex, this is a problem for us as well. When that happens, USA

Services can step in. We can take care of the call or the e-mail. We

can provide the information, or, if it is a complex question, we can

send the citizen directly to the right agency. This service is free to

the agencies in the government, and we would like all of our Federal colleagues to send their misdirected calls and e-mails to us.

Second, when agencies want an even higher level of support,

USA Services can respond to citizens’ inquiries with information

that has been cleared by agency experts. This reimbursable service

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saves agencies time and money and frees them to concentrate on

their core missions.

That is all of my oral testimony. I would be happy to take any

questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jameson follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Jameson. I would note for the

record that I have joined Chairman Davis in signing a ‘‘Dear Colleague’’ letter asking Members of Congress to promote USA Services and FirstGov.gov to their constituents, and, hopefully, including those constituents in Lake Alfred.

Ms. JAMESON. Thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Where are you from?

Ms. JAMESON. I am from South Carolina.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well I am glad that you could bring that sweet

southern drawl to the stuffy salons in your work as assistant to the

Ambassador to France. I am sure it did them a lot of good.

Ms. JAMESON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. Our next witness is Norman Enger. Mr. Enger has

extensive experience in the information systems industry and managed organizations responsible for delivering quality information

technology services and solutions to commercial and government

clients. Most recently, he was the vice president of Computer Associates International, the world’s fourth largest software firm, where

he was responsible for developing business strategies and managing the delivery of professional services and products to major commercial and Federal e-business clients. You are recognized for 5

minutes. Welcome to the subcommittee.

Mr. ENGER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to request

that my full testimony be entered into the record. I will summarize

my remarks here.

My name is Norm Enger. I serve OPM Director Kay Coles James

as a direct report as OPM e-Government Program Director. It has

been a privilege and a pleasure to work with OPM Director Kay

Cole James. Her leadership has let the Office of Personnel Management become a leader in e-government. OPM is the second agency

to achieve a green status in e-government.

The five OPM e-government initiatives are using information

technology to provide enterprise human capital solutions and transform government human resource systems. OPM is managing partner to 5 of the original 25 Presidential e-government Initiatives.

E-Gov, in total, provides a framework and methodologies to consolidate redundant processes and resources into a modern, trusted

Federal human capital enterprise architecture. Our goal at OPM is

to work with OMB and agencies to deliver an e-government that

supports the modernization of human resource systems and the improvement of human capital activities across the Federal Government. We have an integrated vision of our five initiatives that

frames the civilian employee lifecycle from recruitment to retirement. Our initiatives enable the Federal Government to better

lead, manage, and drive enterprise-wide solutions for human resource management. They support the recruitment, selection, and

effective management of human capital resources across government.

I would like to provide more detail on the two OPM initiatives

of interest to this subcommittee: Recruitment One-Stop and e-Payroll.

The goal of the Recruitment One-Stop initiative is to improve the

process of locating and applying for Federal jobs. We are delivering

to both job seekers and Federal agency recruiters a wealth of excitVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00111 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ing new features and capabilities. Based upon current use,

USAJOBS will log more than 75 million visits by Americans this

year, over one-half million resumes will be created, and more than

350,000 vacancies will be advertised.

OPM implemented in August 2003 a completely new, state-ofthe-art USAJOBS technology. With the new system, job seekers

immediately received a number of benefits, including an improved

user interface built on industry best practices for ease of use and

navigation, a powerful and flexible job search engine capable of

matching skills and interests against the full text of job announcements, and enhanced tools for building and managing resumes. For

human resources specialists we implemented improved tools to

managing job postings, candidate communications, and candidate

sourcing.

Recently, USAJOBS rolled out a new display for job announcements that represents a transformation in the way that vacancy information is presented. The newly formatted announcement delivers vacancy information in an attractive and easy to read one-page

format that gives job seekers all the information they need about

a vacancy. As this change takes hold, we expect our customer satisfaction numbers to further increase.

Formal testing of job seekers showed us that the way we displayed our job opportunities needed substantial improvement. By

early summer, we will implement additional enhancements that

will streamline the application process and give job seekers realtime access to information regarding the status of job applications

they have filed.

OPM Director Kay Coles James is committed to improving the

Federal hiring process. The Recruitment one-Stop Initiative and

the new USAJOBS Web site are key components in making this

goal a reality. This initiative is reducing the complexity in Federal

hiring and making it easier to hire qualified applicants. It will decrease the cost and time associated with filling jobs.

The e-Payroll initiative advances the government by creating

greater efficiencies in Federal payroll processing. We are reducing

26 Federal payroll systems to 2 partnerships that will provide payroll processing services. The current 26 systems that pay 1.8 million civilian employees represent a variety of paper and electronic

systems. Records are not easily shared among agencies as Federal

employees change jobs in the Federal system, and records are

manually retired upon employees’ retirement or resignation. We

want e-Payroll to be a simple, easy to use, cost effective, standardized, integrated human resource and payroll service to support the

mission and employees of the Federal Government.

These dynamic innovations we are accomplishing through OPM

e-government are solid evidence that e-government is transforming

the way our government operates today. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Enger follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Enger.

Our next witness is Ms. Kim Nelson. In November 2001, Ms.

Kimberly Nelson was sworn in to the position of Assistant Administrator for Environmental Information and CIO of the Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to her joining EPA, Ms. Nelson

served the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 22 years. During

her career, she worked in the Senate of Pennsylvania, the Public

Utility Commission, and the Departments of Aging and Environmental Protection. For the last 14 years, Ms. Nelson held a number

of positions in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. She was the first director of the program integration and

effectiveness office, the first executive to hold the position of CIO,

and most recently served as executive deputy secretary, the second

highest position in the department. She was primarily responsible

for managing department-wide projects with the goal of improving

processes and integrating programs and functions. Ms. Nelson was

recognized for outstanding service on three occasions during her career with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. You are recognized. Welcome to the subcommittee.

Ms. NELSON. Thank you, Chairman Putnam. It is a pleasure for

me to be here today representing not just EPA, but, in particular,

the interagency work group doing e-Rulemaking.

At EPA, we certainly recognize that these information technology

advances can offer substantial opportunities to improve the way we

do business. EPA participates in 14 of the 25 e-government initiatives, including all 6 that are represented here today. So it is an

important part of our mission.

In serving as the Chair for the e-Rulemaking Initiative, we recognize how important the role citizens play in the e-Rulemaking process and are working hard to incorporate that as we roll out that

initiative. As you know, the initiative is comprised of three different modules that will improve agency processes, enhance public

participation, and yield more timely regulatory decisions.

The first module is the module that is already up and running,

and it is the regulatory clearinghouse that we call Regulations.gov.

It was officially launched in January 2003, and it serves as the

one-stop Web site where citizens can search, they can find, they

can view, and they can comment on all ongoing rulemakings published by Federal agencies today. Regulations.gov is the direct result of a collaborative effort of five different Federal agencies. In

just 3 months and for less than $300,000 the Regulations.gov site

was designed, tested, and launched. Since its launch last year, the

Web site has received more than 2.5 million hits, with an average

of 6,000 hits a day, and, perhaps more importantly, we have seen

a tripling of the page downloads to about 15,000 per month.

The second module is going to buildupon the first and it will establish the first full-featured Federal Docket Management System.

It is currently in development today, and the Federal docket system, once it is up and running, will serve as the central repository

for published rulemaking documents and all supporting materials,

enabling the public to easily search, access, and comment on all

publicly available regulatory materials. The team expects to complete the requirements-gathering for this particular phase of the

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project next month and begin to roll that out for testing in September.

The third module, and perhaps the most aggressive, will create

information technology tools that agencies can use to help rule

writers actually change the way they do business. It will impact

how they develop, how they review, and how they publish Federal

regulations. While agency participation in that module, Module III,

is voluntary, we are seeing a lot of interest in that and recently at

a meeting had 13 Federal agencies show up to begin working on

the requirements for that particular module.

The success of the e-Rulemaking initiative to date is based on a

number of factors. First, it is collaboration, and I would say that

is first and foremost. Second, we have the involvement of the CIOs

and the senior regulatory officials from participating agencies.

Working through a recently created Executive Steering Committee,

these individuals have been essential in helping to define the scope

and the function of the Federal Docket Management System and

most recently voted 15–2 to endorse a centralize architecture for

the system.

We certainly have some challenges as we move forward, though.

Through the collaboration, the e-Rulemaking teams made significant strides toward a more efficient, integrated, and publicly accessible approach to the regulatory process. The teams received a

number of awards for its successes, including an Innovation Award

from the National Association of Secretaries of State, a Federal Executive Leadership Council Award, and a Grace Hopper Government Technology Leadership Award.

Nonetheless, we face a number of hurdles as we try to ensure

that the initiative continues to be successful. First, creating a Federal Government-wide docket system for so many agencies will pose

a significant organizational management challenge. In addition, organizational changes are going to be necessitated by the migration

to one centralized rulemaking system which will undoubtedly

present a whole new set of issues, some of which we anticipate, and

some that I am sure will be a surprise.

Finally, the effective communication is a key to our successful

implementation of the cross-agency initiative. We know we need to

do more. Over the coming months we will focus on increasing public awareness of Regulations.gov and driving new business to the

site. We are also going to strengthen our communications efforts

with the other Federal agencies to help preclude unanticipated

problems and to work more closely with those as we try to roll out

the system.

In conclusion, let me say it is a real pleasure to be here to reiterate EPA’s strong commitment to the collaborative leadership that

we have on e-Rulemaking and to discuss any questions that you

may have today. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nelson follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Ms. Nelson.

Our next witness is Dr. George Strawn. As the National Science

Foundation’s CIO, Dr. Strawn guides the agency in the development and design of innovative information technology, working to

enable NSF staff and the international community of scientists, engineers, and educators to improve business practices and pursue

new methods of scientific communication, collaboration, and decisionmaking. Since joining in 1991, Dr. Strawn has served NSF in

numerous roles, including director of the computer and information

science and engineering division of the advanced networking infrastructure and research, where he led NSF’s efforts in the Presidential Next Generation Internet Initiative. Dr. Strawn currently

serves as co-chair of both the Interagency Large-Scale Networking

Working Group and the International Coordinating Committee for

Intercontinental Research Networks. Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. STRAWN. Thank you, Chairman Putnam. I am very pleased

to be here. I thank you for inviting me to speak about NSF’s participation in the e-Gov projects. I am particularly pleased to have

this opportunity because the e-Gov initiatives have been enabled by

the emergence of the Internet, for which the Federal Government

provided the definitive research and development since the mid

1960’s, first by the Department of Defense, then by NSF and other

agencies. NSF supported the development of an Internet infrastructure for higher education and subsequently took the lead in commercializing and privatizing the Internet so it could become, over

the last 10 years, a global force to reshape many aspects of society,

including the Federal Government.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Strawn, did you invent the Internet? [Laughter.]

Mr. STRAWN. Success has many fathers. As well as being a major

provider of IT research support, NSF has worked hard to be a leader in the use of information technology. Our ‘‘FastLane’’ system developed in the 1990’s has enabled us to receive our research proposals over the Internet and we are now also performing many of our

‘‘back-office’’ proposal review and award-making activities electronically as well. I might mention that we have recently increased the

number of proposals we receive by 50 percent and we have been

able to handle that increase with our electronic system with no increase in personnel. Recently, we were gratified to receive the

President’s Quality Award for the Fastlane system, and we have

been gratified to receive ‘‘the green light’’ in e-government from the

administration and this year to receive an ‘‘A-’’ from this committee

for our work under FISMA to secure the NSF information and IT

resources.

NSF, although we participate in many of the e-gov initiatives, I

would like to highlight our participation in Grants.gov since that

is our core line of business.

NSF was a natural partner for the initiative, and we have been

able to leverage our FastLane system to provide an experience base

for the interagency Grants.gov efforts to buildupon. The vision of

Grants.gov is to provide a simple, unified source to electronically

find and apply for grant opportunities.

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Find establishes Grants.gov as the central governmentwide location allowing anyone to go to one site to identify all governmentsponsored funding opportunities. And apply provides the capability

to electronically submit a grant application through Grants.gov to

the sponsoring agency.

NSF currently posts all of our funding opportunities on the

Grants.gov site and is working with Grants.gov to utilize the apply

functions by the end of this fiscal year. In addition, we are working

with the e-Authentication project and others to pilot a capability to

authenticate grant applicants from a variety of trusted sources, including FastLane, thus reducing administrative burden on the

grantee and the funding agencies.

Also, NSF has been a leading agency in the effort to define a set

of ‘‘Research and Related data elements and associated forms.’’

This data was delivered to Grants.gov last week and will be used

across all research agencies to provide applicants with a standard

set of data requirements for the application process.

As Ms. Evans mentioned, last week OMB announced five new

task forces focusing on government ‘‘Lines of Business’’ that further

support the President’s management agenda. NSF has been named

a co-managing partner, with the Department of Education, on the

Grants Management Task Force. This new interagency effort will

reduce the cost of grants management and improve services to citizens by identifying potential business functions that can be shared

across agencies.

Through Grants.gov and the new interagency task force on

grants management, the Federal Government is making significant

progress in meeting the requirements of Public Law 106–107, and

establishing an interagency process to streamline and simplify financial assistance procedures for non-Federal agencies. With the

comprehensive range of Presidential E-Government initiatives, the

Federal Enterprise Architecture, and other coordinated efforts, we

are making good progress toward better serving our citizens while

at the same time controlling costs. Our challenge is to continue to

implement these important initiatives with a careful focus on Federal Enterprise integration so that we do not replace agency level

stovepiped applications with governmentwide stovepiped ones.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Strawn follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. I want to thank all of you

for your opening statements and I look forward to a good discussion

as we get into the questions and answers.

Let me begin with a fairly simple question. How many Web sites

does the Government have that are official Federal Government

Web sites?

Ms. JAMESON. That is a good question. We do not know the answer to that. We are in the process of trying to determine that

number as well as the number of call centers. That is something

several years to come, and we are looking at starting some work

on that next year in exactly getting that number. But you can be

sure the number is very large. I am sorry I do not have an exact

number for you.

Mr. PUTNAM. How hard would it be to figure it out? How many

addresses end in ‘‘.gov?’’ That is a start, isn’t it?

Ms. JAMESON. Yes. But everyday there are new ones that are created. So it is a moving target.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is there a policy where somebody has to get permission to launch an official Web site?

Ms. EVANS. The answer is, yes. From a technical perspective,

GSA manages the ‘‘.gov’’ domain for the Government as a whole.

So there is guidance that has been previously issued that talks

about how an agency goes about and gets a .gov domain registration. If you want to know the specifics about how that works,

Marty would be glad to share it. But the way that the process

works and the way that it has been set up is that if someone comes

in and requests a new domain under the .gov domain, that if they

are a subsidiary, what I would call a subsidiary, organization from

a major department, that request is sent back to the department

to the chief information officer for approval before approval is

granted to give that person a .gov domain.

Mr. PUTNAM. And who is eligible? State and local government, or

at least State government is eligible for the .gov domain, are they

not?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes. We expanded the policy about a year ago to

make .gov available to State and local governments. And we would

require a State government to be a bona fide representative of the

State to get the domain but, in general, we would not get involved

in those decisions. It is for the State to decide how many. We would

give them a top level domain, like Florida.gov. I do not actually

know if Florida did go that way. A lot of them have been under the

‘‘.US’’ domain.

In general, for the number of Web pages, though, we can give

you the number of domain names, I cannot give it to you right this

second, but we certainly have a list of the .gov domains. Not all of

those are active and we are looking at how to bring that somewhat

more under control. That does not necessarily deal with the issue

of how many Web pages there are, though, because we would issue

what is called a top level domain, for example, DOE.gov., and

under DOE.gov there could be any number of sub-level domains

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and that would be up to DOE to make that determination.

Mr. PUTNAM. I would like to know the numbers that you do have,

if that is possible.

Mr. WAGNER. Certainly. We will submit that for the record.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. You decide though the top level number that they

get, is that correct? So if you wanted to restrict or consolidate the

number of government Web sites, would that be your call?

Mr. WAGNER. As a matter of process, yes. We would have a process that said if a CIO in an agency wanted to have a domain, we

would make that request go through the CIO. As a practical matter, we do not have a real policy to deal with sort of generic names,

like student.gov, senior.gov. We have tended to work that out informally. We would not on our own start telling an agency they cannot have a specific domain name if the CIO wanted it. However,

as this grows, we will be working through the CIO council because

it is really a broader question than simply something GSA deciding

on.

Mr. PUTNAM. So a site like students.gov, which is financial aid,

applications for jobs in the Federal Government, it certainly could

be almost limitless in scope if you throw in all the other things that

a student might be interested in and might use students.gov as

their first stop in doing homework or doing research or wanting to

find out about whatever. So it would be voluntary to pull in, for

example, 4-H from the Department of Agriculture, and somebody

else from the Library of Congress to help with research, and somebody from DOE to get information on college scholarships, and

someone else—I mean, that is all the work of the CIO council?

Mr. WAGNER. I think that would be the best place where we

would tend to work those issues through. Students.gov was an

interagency portal, seniors.gov, and there is a community, there

are not that many players among the CIOs, so we have worked

those things out. I think, in general, we are probably going to have

to get more formal, but that is just my personal speculation.

Mr. PUTNAM. Now, Ms. Nelson was referring to the Regulations.gov, the e-Rulemaking, and said there were 2.5 million hits

total, 6,000 a day on average, 15,000 downloaded documents on average per month. Those are outputs. So let’s talk about outputs for

a second. How many hits have the 25 e-Gov initiatives generated

and what has the growth pattern been since they were launched?

Ms. EVANS. Each of the initiatives, if they have an outward facing component—it depends on how they were set up, and that is

why they were put into the portfolios that they were. So if there

is a public facing component, each of them track outputs, so to

speak, number of hits, number of visits, those types of things. What

we are doing right now is working with those initiatives to ensure

that when we publish these statistics—most of them are using a

tool called ‘‘Web Trends’’ which does do it in a standardized way—

that we are making sure that we count them the same way so that

it is an apples to apples comparison. Right now, based on all of

them, and I know Norm could give you some specific ones especially on the OPM ones because those are very citizen oriented, obviously, that we have seen upward trends on all of them and on

all of the activities. If you want specific highlights, we have them

and we track them for each of the initiatives and we keep a tally

of the statistics. So we would be glad to provide those to you if you

would like to have those.

Mr. PUTNAM. I would, because what I am really interested in,

more than the outputs, are the outcomes. In other words, what perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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centage of visitors to Yellowstone made their reservations on Recreation.gov as opposed to having to call someone? What percentage

of people applying for a job in the Government who successfully

went through the entire process did so with as little paper as possible? What percentage of travel vouchers within the Government

are handled completely on line? What percentage of the comments

on potential regulations are posted on line versus the old fashioned

way? What percentage of GSA’s surplus purchases are made on

line by going to your Web site and saying, oh, that is a nice boat,

or ring, or VCR that they took out of some drug dealer’s house, I

want to buy it? That is what we are really getting at is how effective is e-government for the people. And I would like to hear from

any or all of you on your piece of that.

Ms. Nelson.

Ms. NELSON. We are tracking those measures as well. I will say

there is a learning experience here. One of the issues, for instances,

is keeping track of the number of comments that are submitted

through Regulations.gov, as an example. That is an important

measure to know. We believe we probably will not meet the earliest

estimates for those milestones in terms of how many comments we

wanted to have submitted through Regulations.gov for a number of

reasons.

Mr. PUTNAM. You said you do not believe you will meet?

Ms. NELSON. I do not believe we will. A couple of reasons. One

is, it does fundamentally mean changing the way people do business. And what we are seeing is many people go to Regulations.gov

to do the search across the Federal Government, it is wonderful for

that, many people go there to look at information across the Federal Government, but when it is time to actually submit the comments, most of the people who are submitting comments are very

knowledgeable about D.C. and the way the Federal Government

operates and they’re likely to go either to the Department of Transportation site or the EPA site or those agencies that already have

e-dockets and just file those directly there. Many comments here in

Washington, as you know, are organized through associations, so

large comments get compiled through association. They, too, will

often go directly to an agency and submit comments either in writing or electronically through e-mail directly to an e-mail account.

That does not mean just because those comments are not coming

in through Regulations.gov, it does not mean they are not coming

in electronically. Many are coming in via e-mail. Some are still

coming in via paper.

So what I think we need to do is reevaluate what success means

and not get too caught up in how many comments actually get filed

through Regulations.gov. What is important is that they do come

in electronically and they come in in the most efficient way possible. We do want them to come in on Web forms through Regulations.gov, hopefully, because that results in less work for the agency receiving them. The second option is coming in electronically via

e-mail. Again, less work than coming in on paper but they still

need to get converted in the docket system. The one we really want

to eliminate are those coming in via paper because then they need

to be scanned. So we have to be careful about that measure of how

many comments come in through Regulations.gov because it does

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not mean they did not use Regulations.gov to find the issue, to

search, to do the research, and to ultimately then submit comments

that might not have come through that particular door.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is a fair point. And we can solve that. But

what I am curious about is whether at the end of the day you all

really believe that people are utilizing the e-Gov services. I just

asked staff, and it is now over 90 percent of my constituent mail

is electronic. Now part of that is anthrax, part of that is Ricin, and

part of that is the fact that they bake it and shake it and nuke it

before it gets to us and it is 6 weeks old before we get it. But that

is a pretty staggering figure for people weighing in on the issues.

Mr. Enger.

Mr. ENGER. An example I think of utilization is our USAJOBS

site. Last year we went live on a Monday with the new USAJOBS

site, the site was totally redesigned from the old site. On the Friday before we went live we had 20,000 people a day going to the

old site. On Monday and over the weekend we had 200,000 people

on the site. We increased in several days tenfold the site utilization. At this point in time, we are averaging on some days 300,000

people a day on the site. That comes out to something like 70 million people a year are coming to a site and using the site. This is

approximately eight- to tenfold increased utilization over the previous old USAJOBS site. We also are getting many, many more resumes on the site. We will have annually now 700,000 resumes

coming into the Federal Government from this new USAJOBS site.

We have very, very detailed statistics on the site. So I think to answer your question, we can quantify metrically, we can show how

the site utilization has increased dramatically by citizens looking

for Federal jobs. We also plan by the end of this year to be able

to show that 82 percent of all civilian applicants are using this site

to find a Federal job.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Strawn.

Mr. STRAWN. Mr. Putnam, I think the NSF experience with

FastLane is illustrative here. That is our first generation

grants.gov and it took us 2 to 4 years of urging our proposing community to make the conversion to electronic proposal submission.

Now that the process is completed, we are at virtually 100 percent.

And I predict that after the same conversion process Grant.gov will

have equal effectiveness.

Mr. PUTNAM. How do you advertise or market Web-based services in the government? Ms. Jameson mentioned Pueblo, CO site.

There used to be a commercial with a train leaving a station and

everybody yelling about Pueblo, CO, and the phone number and all

that kind of stuff. How do you get the word out about the Web

sites?

Ms. JAMESON. In terms of FirstGov.gov, we have a public service

ad campaign that we run, this will be the second year. And, of

course, FCIC with Pueblo has run campaigns for years. So we do

an ad campaign that is very effective.

I want to say one thing about that last question. We feel that we

are pretty close to the citizen in terms of general information that

they want and we are seeing that the number of people who are

asking for hard copy is going down, but slowly. There is a segment

of the population that still wants the booklet. But the number of

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phone calls is holding pretty steady. And we are also hearing that

and we have research that I can provide to you that they like having the option. The citizens like the Web for research on a lot of

topics, but then when they reach a difficult thing and they need a

more comprehensive answer, they want to call. And so we try to

provide all those communication channels and we think they are

important.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Evans.

Ms. EVANS. What I would like to say is that overall, on all of

these initiatives, many of the metrics that we have been measuring

to date has really been dealing with the technical deployment of

these solutions. And it does speak to the heart of the issue that you

raise, which is outputs versus outcomes. We are now in the process

of going back and looking at all of the initiatives again because it

is one thing to have an initiative 100 percent technically deployed,

it is another thing to have the initiative really achieving the outcomes that it was intended to be.

There are a few really good examples, such as USA Services and

IRS Free File, which really have developed a marketing plan using

multiple service channel deliveries for their target audience of who

they want to use that initiative. So what we are now in the planning process of doing is going back and working through the Council of Excellence in Government, as required under the E-Government Act, to reach out to the citizenry and really identify what is

the target audience for each one of these initiatives, ensuring that

the initiatives are aligned with measurable outcomes where we

have good metrics that will really show that, yes, we are bringing

value to the program.

The other piece of this is that overall the initiatives will be tied

again through the PART process to the programs that they are

supporting. So if they are supporting a specific program, like

GovBenefits, which supports multiple program areas, we need to

ensure that the metrics that we are measuring their performance

by, that our IT investments are complimenting the overall program

areas. So we are going back now and looking at all of those because

those really are very good questions. We have been very focused on

the technical deployments and now we really want to be focused on

achieving the results.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. Mr. Clay, you are recognized.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will start with Ms.

Evans. Ms. Evans, at our hearing on e-government in the Spring

of 2003, GAO had indicated that most of the business plans for the

electronic government projects lack several elements that GAO considers critical for this type of a business plan. What has your office

done over the past year to improve those plans among the agencies?

Ms. EVANS. We went back and we have looked at several of the

weaknesses and several of the improvements that needed to be

done. One good example would be governance structures that need

to be put in place to ensure that there is proper management and

oversight. Several of the initiatives have gone forward. They do

have a structure that is in place. Ms. Nelson can talk about specifically was put in place for e-Rulemaking to be able to address sevVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:38 Nov 01, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00140 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95780.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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eral of the issues that have gone forward. We have ones in place

and I have a list of ones that are in place for the initiatives, and

we have done them on things like Grants.gov, e-Authentication, eRulemaking, Business Gateway, SAFECOM, Consolidated Health

Informatics, the Geospatial initiative, e-Payroll, and several of the

others. So we are working through each of the recommendations

that GAO has made to ensure the success of the initiatives.

Mr. CLAY. Let me ask you, can you describe for us the efforts

your office has made, if any, to improve library and community

center access to the electronic government initiatives underway? Is

this an area that perhaps deserves more attention?

Ms. EVANS. Currently, the E-Government Act requires me to do

specific things dealing with government information and content

management. We have work groups that have been set up, and included in the e-Government Report is a specific timeline, that we

are working in partnership with the multiple communities, one of

which is the librarians. So that then is to be able to move forward

and make government information more available out. NARA is

also involved in those activities, too.

Mr. CLAY. I will move on to Ms. Koontz. Would you mind sharing

with us your thoughts on the government’s responsibility toward

those without access to the Internet. In other words, is the digital

divide a threat to the goals of a more transparent and accessible

government envisioned under the e-government agenda, or have

you given that any thought?

Ms. KOONTZ. Obviously, I think we are in a transitional period

from manual copies to the electronic world. And it is a transition

that I do not know how long it is going to take. But probably for

the foreseeable future we are going to have a certain amount of

parallel systems. I mean, we see the Internet penetration going up

all the time. But there is a segment of the population that is not

yet served by the Internet, although through the library systems

they can, in many cases, get access. And I believe that the E-Government Act provides in many ways for people to continue to have

access regardless of that situation, to the paper documents.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you. As we all know, funding for e-government

has been short-changed in the past two budget cycles. Most projects

being currently pursued do not identify funding sources. This is for

you, Ms. Koontz. Given that most agencies face shrinking budgets

in 2004 and will likely for the near future, how will the lack of

clearly identified funding affect the timing of implementation for egovernment initiatives?

Ms. KOONTZ. One of the major challenges that we identified in

our most recent work is agencies having workable funding strategies. We saw over and over again that those agencies who had—

and it is connected to collaboration as well—that those who had

good collaboration with their partner agencies and with stakeholders and were able to work out consensus on how funding was going

to be provided to the e-government initiatives, to the extent they

did that, they were more successful. I have to admit, of course, it

is not a perfect process because if an agency does not have the

money, they may not be able to transfer it. But this collaboration

and funding strategies are very important to the ultimate success

of the projects.

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Mr. CLAY. Mr. Wagner, what do you envision as the hallmark of

a successful e-government initiative throughout GSA? What do you

believe are the key services and efficiencies GSA can offer through

a successful e-government initiative?

Mr. WAGNER. I think the first test is that something is used and

useful. And I think the chairman’s questions on outcome measures

gets to that to some degree. For GSA, we tend to be inwardly focused to the government’s internal efficiency and effectiveness. So

if I look at e-Travel, I am really looking at saving money, but I am

also looking at enhancing the customer experience. If you only look

at the cost side, you run into problems. So travellers benefit, money

is saved. Authentication, to the extent that we are sharing a common system that is used across the government, then we have success. If we have a common system that everyone ignores and they

use something else, then we have failed. Federal asset sales where

we are selling things, the test there is net revenue. We have gone

from a model which said, gee, the cheapest way I could post it, that

is not what counts. It is how much money you bring in from the

sale of the assets. So there really tend to be a balance of dollars

and cents savings and customer satisfaction.

Mr. CLAY. Ms. Jameson, would you please describe the benefits

to be expected from the contract for an enhanced National Call

Center which you plan to sign next month. What steps will you

take to ensure that the National Call Center has the capacity to

process the volume of calls it will receive?

Ms. JAMESON. Yes, sir. There are a number of benefits. I will

mention a few here and I will be happy to provide all of them that

are provided for in the contract to you later. But several of them

that are very important are, this will allow the ability for callers

to leave messages and with a specific time they would like a call

back, which has not been in our previous contract before, to make

appointments by leaving a message on a machine, and including

personal interviews that may be required, like for visas. It provides

for the increased capability for increased languages should the

need arise. This contract is done for a 5-year period so we tried to

anticipate anything that may be needed in the future. Those are

a few things that are in the new contract.

And then as far as the capacity, this contract is set up for an

enormous capacity. It actually has five different companies that

will work together. One company will go first and should the capacity expand, it will go to the next company, and on down through

five different companies for capacity. So it has an enormous capacity. I think we are being very adequate for the 5-years. I doubt we

would ever reach that. Even for 911 we never extended the services

that we have now with the current contract.

Mr. CLAY. Will the caller get a live person?

Ms. JAMESON. They can or they can get a message. Actually, they

have a choice now. I guess 20 to 25 percent of the callers do prefer

to get their information by recording.

Mr. CLAY. How will they confirm an appointment? How does that

process work?

Ms. JAMESON. Someone calls them back.

Mr. CLAY. They will call them back?

Ms. JAMESON. Yes, sir.

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Mr. CLAY. OK. All right. Thank you for that response. Mr. Enger,

OPM has previously stated that the e-Payroll initiative will yield

$1.1 billion in savings. When and how will these savings be realized?

Mr. ENGER. We had studies made on this and we are projecting

that the savings will be realized by the year 2011. Essentially, the

savings are coming from shutting down 22 redundant payroll operations and all of the infrastructure, the equipment, the software required to maintain 22 separate payroll centers.

Mr. CLAY. Has economic efficiency been the only motivation behind the consolidation of Federal payroll systems, and have agencies been receptive to the technological changes made the process?

Mr. ENGER. Well, there are two parts to the e-Payroll initiative.

One is to standardize civilian payroll processing. And the second

part of that is to, in effect, consolidate civilian payroll processing.

So there are really two parts to it that are equally important. What

we are doing is we are moving to more common standards, a more

common process whereby we have the same framework and the

same structure to process pay. What we are doing is we are simplifying the payroll structure and that moves you toward efficiencies by having more commonality, more simplicity. You actually

are moving into a world where you can actually look at commercial

off-the-shelf software to process Federal payroll. So, in effect, we

are moving toward consolidation. Longer term, we are looking for

technology replacement because what we are doing short term here

is we are consolidating into legacy systems, legacy software, legacy

payroll systems, and the next phase is going to be to identify what

modern solution, what modern software, what modern package or

packages can we use to have further efficiency to process Federal

payroll.

The bottom line here will be twofold. One is that we will reduce

the cost to pay a Federal person. Right now, looking at the existing

providers, they run from $125 to $250 a year per employee or per

W–2. Our goal is to get down to $97 per employee. So one part of

it is, yes, dollar savings. But the second part is to have just a more

efficient Federal payroll system.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response. Ms. Nelson, as you

know, the rulemaking process at an agency like yours can be contentious with many diverse stakeholders and interested parties.

Can you characterize for us how e-Rulemaking has made the research of and offering comments to the Federal agency rulemaking

process more citizen friendly or user friendly?

Ms. NELSON. Thank you, sir, I can. As you mentioned, EPA,

while it is a small agency compared to many cabinet departments,

is one that does issue many, many regulations and those regulations can be quite complex. One of the things EPA’s own e-docket

does for us and for the citizens is it allows for the search of critical

information across agencies. So you can take a complex issue like

mercury, lead, something relevant today, and search and find information regardless of the program within EPA that might have

open a docket regarding that particular issue, or dockets in the

past on a particular topic. That was not so easy before EPA had

its own e-docket system and when Module II is fully in place you

will be able to do it across the Federal Government.

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The second thing I think it does that will dramatically change

the comments that we get is as the docket system is up and running, people will be able to see the comments that are filed by

other individuals. In the old days, comments came in, they went to

a file room, they were in a box, and then the rule writer got to open

the big docket and all the paper and sift through it and the citizens

never knew what other people submitted unless they, too, went to

that docket room and sifted through all the paper. But by going on

line, you can see every day what comments somebody is submitting. And it might mean, as a result of reading something somebody else has submitted, you have a different thought, you have a

different perspective, you have something new you want to add,

you want to bolster your argument or your position.

So it makes for a much more agile and, in the end, a much more

informed set of comments that an agency will receive, which in the

end I think results in better regulations and rules for everyone.

Mr. CLAY. While e-Rulemaking’s first objective was completed

through deployment of the Regulations.gov Web site, its second objective is partially complete and little has been done toward the

third objective. When can we realistically expect to have this work

completed?

Ms. NELSON. The second objective is one that we are working on

now, the requirements. This requires bringing all the agencies together and understanding their needs. Because, remember, what

Module II or Phase II does is create that single docket system. We

have now agreement by 20 of the partners that we will develop a

centralized docket system, which is the most efficient approach of

all that were analyzed. Now we have to understand the particulars

because what that means is 20 agencies initially will give up their

own docket system. So we need to understand what we are replacing. You do not want to move to something and have less capability

than you currently have now. Those requirements are being gathered now. We hope to pilot something in the Fall and we hope to

start migrating about 14 agencies in January or February of next

year. The goal, and it is a very, very aggressive one, it is a very

aggressive one, is to get about 150 agencies totally migrated within

a year from the time we start. That will be very aggressive.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your efforts too.

Ms. NELSON. And let me just say, Module III is a voluntary one

and that one we are working on concurrently. So it is not sequential. We are not waiting to finish Module II to do Module III because there is a subset of agencies that are interested in that one.

The timeline for that one will go out further and I hesitate to give

you a real date on that one. Really, a project depends on three core

components and that starts with your requirements. Once you understand your requirements, then it comes down to how much

money you have, or how much time, do you have a deadline, and

the quality of what you want to deliver. We need to understand all

those requirements before we actually understand what the milestone will be for delivering that.

Mr. CLAY. My final question, Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Strawn. I appreciate your indulgence. The grants management line of business

has been designated by OMB as one of five areas that will be the

next focus for e-government. What activities are planned for this

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effort? And what are the challenges inherent in pursuing this next

stage of the e-government initiative?

Mr. STRAWN. An interagency committee has been formed which

will be co-chaired by Department of Education and NSF that will

investigate common ‘‘back-office’’ services for the processing of

grants. The Grants.gov is for finding what grants exist and applying for them, but then the agencies are currently at their own ends

to process those grants and make awards. We will be on a very aggressive schedule between now and September to plan for a common procedure for grant processing and award management.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay. Let me talk about Geospatial

just 1 second. Last year in our oversight hearing, we had testimony

that the Government spends somewhere on the order of $4 billion

a year on Geospatial products and services and estimated that as

much as half of that could be eliminated. Where are we on the

Geospatial initiative, and particularly in getting a piece of that $2

billion back? For Ms. Evans or Ms. Koontz, Mr. Wagner, whoever

wants to take a swing at that one.

Ms. EVANS. I will go first. We have been working on the

Geospatial initiative. Through the budget process this year, agencies were given specific guidance about how to partner on the

Geospatial initiative. There are some specific things that I think

GSA would like to talk about as far as where we were being able

to leverage things and products that they were buying that we intend to do through SmartBuy and those types of activities. I do not

know if you wanted to bring that up before GAO says something.

Mr. WAGNER. I really cannot comment too much on Geospatial.

I can tell you what we saved on the first SmartBuy deal in terms

of the software license, which I believe was $57 million over 5

years, and that was a decent chunk of the install base of at least

EZRE software, which is just one of the software packages in use.

I do not really have insight into the overall expenditures on

Geospatial. I am sorry.

Ms. KOONTZ. I will just add on Geospatial that there were four

objectives that project had and all of them are partially completed

at the current time. The thing I would want to emphasize here is

that the Geospatial project is a very ambitious project and it is not

of the sort that probably ever could be completed within an 18 to

24 month period. I believe that on the issue of Geospatial standards, we probably found a GAO report on this subject as old as 30

years. This is a very difficult problem and it will definitely take

some time to obtain the kind of transformational results that you

want out of this kind of project.

Mr. PUTNAM. What makes it uniquely difficult?

Ms. KOONTZ. Well, Geospatial is based on the need for standards,

and I think at best, the development of standards is a long, slow,

painstaking process. In addition you already have the imbedded

base of equipment as well. So between those two factors, I think

by definition it takes some serious time in order to get through it.

Mr. PUTNAM. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, Ms.

Evans, where do you believe that we are today in the overall evolution of the e-government concept? And let me tip you off that last

year Mark Foreman said we were at a 9 or 10 on progress and a

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5 on status. The GAO, they chickened out of giving a real number,

but they said the direction and focus was rated very highly and implementation was incomplete. So what are your thoughts at this

stage of the game?

Ms. EVANS. So Mark said that, huh? [Laughter.]

And that is already on the record. That is great.

Mr. PUTNAM. He put that on the record on his way out the door

as a little gift to you I guess.

Ms. EVANS. And my job is to continue this and realize and implement this so that we are there. I would say that the agencies, and

coming from an agency and moving into this position, we have done

a yeoman’s job of working across agencies to really collaborate. And

e-government is more than just about the technologies. When this

first was brought about everybody thought it was just primarily

about the Web sites. But it really is not. It really, truly is business

transformation. A lot of the efforts where we are getting acknowledgement for things that have gone forward and have done well is

because there were people and agencies that are working together

who truly want to realize the benefits.

I think that based on some of the other questions that you have

asked, this is our opportunity to really transform government and

really be part of the change. So, although I had not really thought

about ranking us, I would say that these really are as far as

progress, Mark is right, 9 to 10 on progress. They really have

moved out. The agencies are working together. But to really

achieve the results and go back and really look at are we achieving

the outcomes that we intended originally for these initiatives and

are citizens truly benefiting from our efforts, I would go back and

I would say 5 is probably right there, because some of them are

doing really well and some of them need a lot of area of improvement.

Mr. PUTNAM. Who is doing particularly well? Of the 25 initiatives, which one is the farthest along, most progress? I will let you

answer that, and then I will give Ms. Koontz the opportunity to answer.

Ms. EVANS. I would say, if I look at all the statistics, everything

that an initiative had promised it was going to do based on the administration’s plans, USA Services has realized its potential. Technically, it is fully deployed based on the objectives that were there.

They have a marketing plan that is in place, they have identified

what their user base is, and they have a way to measure their success. They have multiple service channel deliveries and they have

a way so that the citizen can truly interact with the government

in the way that they would like to do, whether it is by telephone,

by e-mail, by getting hard publications. I hope to bring that much

clarity to each of the other initiatives so that when you ask this

question in another few months I will be able to say all of them

are doing that well. But that one really sticks out.

Also, e-File really sticks out. It is technically done. If you are

tracking the statistics, as I do and everybody else is, it really is realizing benefit. The last statistics I checked, just from home computer usage alone, 8.8 million citizens have filed electronically.

That is a success. So those two really stick out. And maybe because

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it is tax season right now I am really tracking IRS. But those are

the two that I would like to highlight.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is a huge success. It is amazing how widely

understood e-File is on taxes. It is a real illustration of where we

can be with all of this. Ms. Koontz.

Ms. KOONTZ. This is based on the original objectives that the

projects had. There are two that have achieved all of the objectives

that they originally laid out, which are Grants.gov and IRS Free

File. There are five others that have achieved more than half of the

objectives that they originally laid out—e-Clearance, e-Payroll, eTraining, e-Travel, and Integrated Acquisition Environment. That

is to say that the other 18 that are left over, some of them have

had some success in achieving some of their objectives. They are

just not far along overall. And a couple, frankly, have struggled.

Mr. PUTNAM. It is interesting that the top two are government

to citizen, and the next best batch are all internal government-togovernment-type processes. When Clay Johnson was in here 2

weeks ago with Ms. Evans, we had I think a very productive and

candid discussion about ways to make this really work. But if you

are going to transform the government and have the people realize

that you have transformed the government and you will get credit

for it, this is the place to get it done. It is such a Web-based world

now. Everybody is accustomed to Amazon and eBay, and all of the

things that they do to interact with one another, and they demand

it of their government as well. And right now, we are letting them

down, with a couple of exceptions. So this is I think an important

place not just to save money, although there is tremendous potential for savings, but to demonstrate that the Federal Government

is in the 21st century, and is agile and is citizen-centered.

The Module III on Regulations.gov is voluntary. Is Module II voluntary as well?

Ms. NELSON. Module II is not voluntary.

Mr. PUTNAM. What is it about the third module that makes it

voluntary?

Ms. NELSON. The third module is really about changing the way

rule writers do business on the back end. And at this point in time,

part of the original agreement with the agencies coming to the

table is when you have the number of agencies we are dealing with

you have to seek some consensus. And what we saw was there was

commonality across the Federal Government in terms of the processes that lead up to how rules get published, how people seek out

rules, how people comment on rules. But back end processes differ

within agencies; some are more scientific than others, some have

different requirements as your processing rules within your agency.

So what you need to do when you do program integration, as we

have done here, is you look for the area of commonality and that

you can achieve then an understanding about greatest efficiencies.

And we decided that Module I and Module II was where there was

commonality across the Federal Government, Module III there was

not but people might want to come to the table voluntarily to begin

using different tools for their back end processes within their organizations. That is not the part that interfaces with the citizen.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Enger, the recruitment one-stop had a fair

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solved? Is that initiative moving forward according to its goals and

objectives?

Mr. ENGER. There were some initial bumps, if you will, on the

procurement. But at the moment, the initiative is moving ahead at

full speed. I mentioned before the tremendous volume we are getting from the U.S. citizens. We also are getting very, very high

marks on the Consumer Satisfaction Index. A third party measures

how well the Web site is performing and we recently this month

hit 75, which is a very, very high customer satisfaction based upon

their assessment of how well this site serves them.

In terms of all the normal criteria for success, if we look, going

back to what I believe Karen Evans said, we have transformed a

Federal business process, we have transformed the site people go

to to find a Federal job. We have done this in a very, very short

space of time. In 18 months approximately, we have gone from

ground zero to I think a world classed transformed Federal business process and site. Third, we have metrics to prove our success.

So I think these are really the keynotes of e-Government. You have

transformation, short timeframe, prove your success with metrics.

I think in looking at those criteria for e-Government, we stand tall

in terms of meeting all of those criteria.

Mr. PUTNAM. The e-Grants have been recognized for hitting all

of their targets and milestones. As a line of business initiative, it

is very important to a wide array of stakeholders. Where are we

in terms of streamlining that grant process to bring some uniformity for States, and nonprofits, and local governments, and the academics to make it even more streamlined than it is?

Mr. STRAWN. I can speak most about the competitive research

grant programs as opposed to the block grants, since that is what

NSF’s business is. I can tell you that we are well begun in terms

of understanding how back office grant processing can be streamlined. We have already had the success of being able to meet our

goal of processing more than 70 percent of our proposals within 6

months. And this is an important effectiveness measure, not just

an efficiency measure, because our proposers want to know whether they have received an award and can expect the money or have

to get busy and write another grant application. And we are serving our citizen customers better when we can more quickly process

the proposals and get back to them.

Mr. PUTNAM. We have previously heard that there are at least

26 different SmartCard initiatives underway in some phase of planning, development, or implementation. Is GSA looking into

SmartCards based on PKI standards? And if so, how will that affect the strategy from a governmentwide standpoint?

Mr. WAGNER. First off, the GSA on the SmartCards. We have

been working for several years on trying to ensure that all

SmartCards are interoperable, compliant with a set of standards.

So you may see 26 separate buys, some of those are shared buys

across agencies, but we have been driving those toward common

standards, so that at least in principle one agency could recognize

what another agency’s card said.

In terms of e-Authentication and PKI, we are working to ensure

that any government-issued ID could hold an appropriate standard

PKI certificate. That is a yes.

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Mr. PUTNAM. But there are 26 different initiatives on this?

Mr. WAGNER. I am accepting that number from you. I do not

know how many different buys there are under SmartCards, they

will vary. And we are working with Homeland Security to standardize their look and feel, how they load certificates, we are working with OMB. We are actually, frankly, working with other players. So, for example, we have no control over the driver’s license,

the AMVA groups with States, but they have similar issues in

terms of standards. So there is a community trying to facilitate all

these different cards being interoperable.

Mr. PUTNAM. You mentioned that we should begin to judge success at GSA on asset management, surplus property revenues rather than some other measures. How much revenue does GSA generate with the sale of surplus property?

Mr. WAGNER. It is not a huge number. I would have to get back

to you on the surplus sales. There are other sales channels that different agencies do too. And the Federal Asset Sales initiatives is

trying to funnel all of those toward a common approach. But I

would have to get back on how many dollars we actually send

today.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. There was some talk that other agencies were actually using eBay to dispose of surplus property. Is that common?

Mr. WAGNER. No. But that would certainly be an option. The current state of asset sales is we are on the verge of awarding a contract, and I am not privy to the internal details, but it is fairly

soon, that means in the next several weeks, that would be an eBaylike, where we give our assets to some entity to post them and sell

them on the Internet, also do preparation. One of the ways you

make money is you put a little into getting the think of it as detailing your car before you sell it rather than selling it as is, and that

is one of the services. And so an eBay-like solution is very much

in synch with where the asset sales initiative is going. I do not

know how many agencies are using eBay today. I think there are

a couple, but I do not really know that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Enger, has Recruitment One-Stop and

USAJOBS produced an increase in the applicant pool for vacant

Federal positions? And has there been a measurable difference in

the ability and timeliness of filling those vacancies as a result?

Mr. ENGER. There has been a significant increase in the actual

resumes we are receiving. I mentioned earlier, we are looking at

roughly 700,000 new resumes per year and this is several times the

number we had under the old USAJOBS system that we shut down

last year. So there has been a dramatic increase in resumes.

The second part of your questions was what now? What was the

second part of your question?

Mr. PUTNAM. Has there been a difference in the ability or timeliness in filling those vacancies as a result of the additional applicants?

Mr. ENGER. In the area of the time to fill vacancies, at the moment we are trying to establish that metric. That metric did not

exist. That requires us working very closely with agencies that receive the resume from USAJOBS. It goes into their assessment systems and after they go through their assessment system, if the applicant is qualified and all of that, the person is hired. At the moment, we really do not have a good metric to say that we have decreased by X percent the time to fill a vacancy. What I can say is

we are actively working to establish that metric.

Mr. PUTNAM. Are the applicants who apply on line more or less

likely to be qualified? Is it a higher qualified applicant pool as a

result of applying on line, or less so, it is just that much easier to

do instead of typing out a resume and mailing it in?

Mr. ENGER. We do not really have that information. I think that

is the information that will be coming forth shortly because, as I

mentioned earlier, we are really gathering good solid information

about who the people using the site are and we are getting profiles

of that. But at the moment, since this went live in August, we do

not really have, if I may say the word, solid metrics to be able to

answer the questions you are asking me right now. What I can say

is we are actively pursing establishing those metrics to tell you we

have improved the quality of hires, we have reduced the time it

takes to hire a person or source a person by X percent. But at the

moment we do not have those metrics.

Mr. PUTNAM. It just seems to me that while I firmly believe that

Web-based delivery of services and access to services is the right

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direction to go, making things easier and generating more participation does not necessarily mean that you are going to generate a

higher level of qualified participation. It is just easier to do it, and

you may increase the number of jokes or cranks or whatever you

want to call it, because it becomes a couple of keystrokes to do it.

Mr. ENGER. What I can say, Mr. Chairman, is that we actually

study how potential Federal applicants reacted to the old format

whereby jobs were posted on USAJOBS. We have a very, very interesting video on this. We had college students who were graduating go to the old format used to post a Federal job and there was

tremendous frustration after they started to look at the job vacancy

announcement with the jargon, the complexity, they just mostly

cursed, stood up and walked away. And we have this on video, the

frustration people had on the old system trying to figure out what

this job was and how to apply for this job. We have over there on

that podium there, we have in the second part is a new vacancy

announcement. We have dramatically improved how a job vacancy

will appear to the person who wants to get a Federal job. It is

much simpler, user-friendly, they can rapidly ascertain do I want

to apply for this job or not.

I am coming around to answering your question this way. We

were losing talented, qualified people with the frustration with the

old jobs system. Therefore, I have to believe that by reducing this

frustration, people who would have walked away and said I cannot

take this bureaucracy, I will apply for a private job, we will start

getting into the Federal sector quality college graduates and a

higher calibre of applicants.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is outstanding. Bonus question for you. What

is a histopathology technician? That is the featured job of the

month. [Laughter.]

Mr. ENGER. Well, I will say this, it deals with disease. [Laughter.]

Mr. PUTNAM. ‘‘Histo techs, enjoy the pleasures of sunny San

Diego while serving your country as a civilian.’’ Does anyone want

to take a crack at histopathology?

Mr. STRAWN. Probably diseases of the blood. I think histo is

blood.

Mr. PUTNAM. National Science Foundation comes through again.

[Laughter.]

The teachers pet. A-minus on the scorecard and answering the

bonus question.

Ms. Evans, a final question. Do you have an estimate on the savings to the American taxpayer that we might achieve in fiscal year

2005 through the continued progress in e-government.

Ms. EVANS. I do not have the specific cost-savings for fiscal year

2005 right here, and I would be glad to pull it from the business

cases to give it to you. But however, over the lifecycle of all the initiatives, we estimate that we should reach over $6 billion of costsavings to the taxpayer. I would be glad to submit the specific

number of fiscal year 2005.

Mr. PUTNAM. We would like that. But let me ask you a followup.

Ms. EVANS. Sure.

Mr. PUTNAM. Not nitpicking, but $6 billion over the life of the

program, when will we know that we are at the end of the life of

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the program, that we have fully implemented it? Is this a 5-year

goal, 10 year goal, that we can say by fiscal year 2008, fiscal year

2010, whatever, we will have achieved $6 billion in savings by?

What is that date that is the life of this program?

Ms. EVANS. Well, on these particular initiatives, we would like

to get the utilization plan clearly defined so that we can answer

that question for each of these initiatives. We are working toward

getting those plans done. The business cases themselves for each

one of these initiatives estimate what the lifecycle is and what the

benefits are per initiative. And so that is how we pull them out and

that is how the decisions are made. So several of them, like in the

case of the OPM initiatives, and Norm could share that with us,

have the estimated lifecycle out there with the benefits associated

with those.

What we are really trying to do is get all of these initiatives to

mature. The intent is not for these to be over, but the intent of

these are to graduate and become part of the mainstream way that

the government does the business so that those benefits then accrue and you continue to earn those benefits and then you be able

to apply as you have transformed those processes. So I do not know

that we will ever let these go away. They actually will mature and

they will be in the business lines that they belong to and they will

become part of the business processes that they need to be.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is exactly what I am asking, is at what point

will we consider them to be institutionalized as part and parcel of

our way of doing business and ready to tackle the next phase on

the next wave of lines of business or the next whatever e-government and information technology bring us? Is that a 5-year goal,

a 10-year goal?

Ms. EVANS. The way that we have laid out the budget and the

way that we have looked at these initiatives, several of them are

mature technically. And so what we are really looking at, and the

budget guidance gave specific directions to the agencies saying that

you need to move into a fee-for-service approach so that it addresses the issue of how they will have a sustaining model to go forward

to ensure that they can, based on the business value that they provide to their partners, that they will continue to mature. We gave

specific guidance dealing with things such as e-grants, recruitment

one-stop, Geospatial, and e-learning, that those were ready to move

forward and get into a fee-for-service approach with the agencies.

The fiscal year 2005 budget does recognize that, based on several

of the recommendations that GAO has noted as they have gone

through here, that several of the other initiatives need to continue

to move forward. Also, the budget is set in a way that will support

them to their maturity in the 2005 process. It is intended, though,

that at the end of 2005, the rest of these will be mature and should

have moved into by 2006 into a fee-for-service model, if appropriate. So that is the intent, that they will be mature and graduated by 2006.

Mr. PUTNAM. All right. Opportunity for final comments from any

of our panelists. Is there anything that you would liked to have

been asked but were not? Any final remarks? Dr. Strawn.

Mr. STRAWN. Mr. Chairman, I am in the process of meeting with

all of the NSF leaders of all of the e-government projects that we

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participate in. I am about half-way through with those meetings,

I have been very encouraged by the reports from our project leaders. This is a very ambitious and complex set of initiatives that we

are working on, in my opinion. We are further along than I thought

we would be at this point.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Nelson.

Ms. NELSON. Similar. Just to build on that. One of the things

that is most striking to me is much of what you are seeing here

today represents the first of its kind in the world. So when we talk

about benchmarks and original estimates and milestones, in fact,

many of those were developed really in a very uninformed way because there was nothing to benchmark against. We are doing what

we are doing here where no one else has done it before. So I agree

with what Dr. Strawn has said.

In State government, I was director, as you said, for program integration and effectiveness office and that was just integrating a

Department of Environmental Protection air, water, and waste programs. I am shocked, frankly, based on my experience, how much

progress we have made in these initiatives in just 18 months. Considering the Federal Government, considering what is often considered a very bureaucratic process, we have made tremendous

strides. I never would have guessed, given my State government

experience, that you could take some of the initiatives that we have

here today, complex initiatives, and break down some of the barriers between Federal agencies and actually accomplish what has

been accomplished to date. It is pretty remarkable because many

people here are doing this without a blueprint. There is nothing to

benchmark against. There are no other footsteps to follow in.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Enger, would you like to add anything?

Mr. ENGER. Yes. I would like simply to reinforce what was just

said. When I joined the government 2 years ago and looked at

these five OPM initiatives, I was skeptical that this much progress

could be done in this space of time. Because the impression that

you have is that the government is a government and things do not

move very rapidly in government systems. I do believe that what

we have been able to show here with e-government is that change

can take place rapidly, old systems can be transformed. And I

think with e-government you have broken the ice. I think you have

shown a path here that with intelligent planning and leadership

and the right choice of initiatives, you can in effect improve how

the government operates.

I would also like to say with Karen Evans here, we have worked

very closely and had strong support from OMB and I think that

much of our success at OPM has been this close partnership and

strong working relationship between OPM and OMB, both Karen

Evans and, before her, Mark Foreman. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Jameson.

Ms. JAMESON. I do not have any further comments, just to say

thank you again for your support.

Mr. PUTNAM. Yes, ma’am. Mr. Wagner.

Mr. WAGNER. I guess I think that we have done a lot. It is not

so much process, it has been individuals, it is certain people who

make a difference on making this work. And the second thing is

it only works and has worked because it is program-driven. It is

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not caught up in the technology world but it is driven by program

initiatives, and I think that is why we have achieved what we have

done.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Koontz.

Ms. KOONTZ. I will just add that the discussion on performance

measures I think was very interesting. One of the things that we

noted, if you look at our attachment to our statement where we

give a progress report on each of the 25 initiatives, you will find

that in many cases the performance measures are not reported,

and at least in some cases, there are not performance targets yet

associated with them. Ultimately, the success of the projects will

be on outcomes, and this is something important I think for both

OMB and the agencies to focus on in the near future.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Evans, did you hear that?

Ms. EVANS. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. This really is an

opportunity, and I think the way the panel is structured today really shows a difference of how the government is moving forward. I

am very excited that I have the opportunity to really work on these

initiatives and work to make e-government a realization and a reality for the citizen. As you know, I have been in government a

long time and to be able to be given the opportunity, and have this

administration who is really committed to results, and to be a part

of this transformation that is occurring, every day I think it is a

wonderful thing.

I appreciate the oversight that your committee gives to us on

this, but this really is different. This really is transformation. We

really are about results. And every person who comes to government every day is there to make a difference. I think that this is

just a wonderful thing for us to do. It certainly is a challenge. But

for me to be given the opportunity to do it and to really be committed to this, and this administration is committed to achieving the

results, we will be a citizen-centered government through the use

of e-government. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. We appreciate all that you

do and your accessibility to this subcommittee. It is very helpful as

we are all partners in progress to making this entire effort successful.

I would like to thank all of our panelists for their contribution

to our oversight efforts. As OMB’s self-imposed deadline for implementation of the original ‘‘Quicksilver’’ initiatives nears, this hearing has served to provide a helpful update on the status and it provided, frankly, a picture of what obstacles to implementation presented themselves, how they were resolved, and which obstacles remain. I am very pleased with where we are, the progress that has

been made. Frankly, it has been one of our more happy hearings

in a while.

I want to thank Mr. Clay for his participation in the subcommittee today and all the work that he does.

In the event that there may be additional questions we did not

have time for today, the record will remain open for 2 weeks for

submitted questions and answers. We look forward to many more

good progress reports on the status of e-government.

With that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

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[Whereupon, at 4:36 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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