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GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION: ARE WE HEADED IN

THE RIGHT DIRECTION, OR ARE WE LOST?

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

JUNE 23, 2004

Serial No. 108–239

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

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

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

———

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

DAN DALY, Professional Staff Member

JULIANA FRENCH, Clerk

ADAM BORDES, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 23, 2004 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

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

Information Management, U.S. General Accounting Office; Scott J.

Cameron, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance and Management, U.S. Department of the Interior; and William Allder, Jr., Director, Office of Strategic Transformation, National Geospatial-Intelligence

Agency ............................................................................................................ 10

Nagy, Zsolt, president-elect, National States Geographic Information

Council [NSGIC], geographic information coordinator, North Carolina

Department of Environment and Natural Resources; Frederic W. Corle

II, president, Spatial Technologies Industry Association; John M.

Palatiello, executive director, Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors; David Schell, president & CEO of the Open

GIS Consortium, executive director, Open GIS Project; and Dr. David

J. Cowen, chair, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, chair, Department of Geography, University of South Carolina ........ 74

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

Allder, William, Jr., Director, Office of Strategic Transformation, National

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, prepared statement of ............................. 55

Cameron, Scott J., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance and Management, U.S. Department of the Interior, prepared statement of .......... 42

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

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

Corle, Frederic W., II, president, Spatial Technologies Industry Association, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 82

Cowen, Dr. David J., chair, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, chair, Department of Geography, University of South

Carolina, prepared statement of .................................................................. 110

Evans, Karen S., Administrator of E-Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement of .......... 13

Koontz, Linda D., Director, Information Management, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ....................................................... 19

Nagy, Zsolt, president-elect, National States Geographic Information

Council [NSGIC], geographic information coordinator, North Carolina

Department of Environment and Natural Resources, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 76

Palatiello, John M., executive director, Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors, prepared statement of ......................... 96

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

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

Schell, David, president & CEO of the Open GIS Consortium, executive

director, Open GIS Project, prepared statement of .................................... 102

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GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION: ARE WE HEADED

IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, OR ARE WE LOST?

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 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 2:07 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Putnam and Clay.

Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior counsel; Dan Daly, professional staff/deputy counsel; Shannon

Weinberg, professional staff/deputy counsel; Juliana French, clerk;

Colin Samples and Kaitlyn Jahrling, interns; Adam Bordes and

Mark Stephenson, 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 entitled, ‘‘Geospatial Information: Are We Headed in the Right Direction, Or Are We Lost?’’ This oversight hearing is a followup to the

hearing held on June 10, 2003, entitled, ‘‘Geospatial Information:

A Progress Report on Improving Our Nation’s Map-Related Data

Infrastructure.’’

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine the progress made

by the Federal Government since last year’s hearing to consolidate

and improve the utilization of the masses of geospatial data collected by departments and agencies across the Government and by

State and local governments. This hearing focused on Government

and industry efforts to develop standards for the collection and use

of geospatial information to facilitate data sharing. In most cases,

information is collected in different formats and standards designed for one specific mission, with inadequate consideration given

to subsequent possible intergovernmental data sharing. This results in wasteful redundancies and a reduced ability to perform

critical governmental operations.

The hearing will also focus attention on the Geospatial Information One-Stop Initiative, one of the President’s key E-Government

reforms intended to simplify the process of locating, accessing,

sharing, and integrating geospatial data in a timely manner. Furthermore, during this hearing we will evaluate the role that the

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private sector plays in arriving at cost efficiencies and improving

geospatial data quality for end users.

This hearing is a continuation of the series of oversight hearings

conducted by this subcommittee during the 108th Congress to keep

Federal Government agencies and decisionmakers aggressively focused on meeting the key goals of the E-Government Act of 2002,

greater accessibility to Government by citizens and businesses, improving Government efficiency and productivity, enhancing customer service, facilitating cross-agency coordination, and tangible

cost savings to taxpayers through the use of 21st century technology and proven best practices throughout the Federal Government.

Today’s hearing is an opportunity to examine the progress of

OMB’s oversight of geospatial investments. This hearing also provides an opportunity to examine the cross-agency coordination in

the collection, consolidation, maintenance, and sharing of that data

and geospatial information systems, collectively referred to as GIS.

We need to determine what programs exist across the Federal

Government, how much is being spent on GIS programs, where

that money is being spent, if data is shared any more efficiently

than since our last hearing, and how the Federal Government is

progressing in its coordination efforts with State and local governments.

To achieve the goals of coordination across the Federal Government related to acquisition, use, sharing, and interoperability of

GIS data, the continuing challenge of the development of data

standards and interoperability must be addressed. In most cases,

geospatial data is collected in a particular format for one specific

mission, with insufficient consideration for subsequent data sharing. That data is useless to other agencies because the data was

not collected in a standardized form and, thus, not interoperable

with data sets other agencies may hold. This is true across the

Government, as well as in States and local municipalities across

our Nation. This results in wasteful redundancies and a reduced

ability to perform critical intergovernmental functions. With the

development of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Initiative and

its corresponding reference models, an additional tool for identifying common business lines and opportunities for collaboration will

be available.

I am eager to hear the progress made in this direction by the

Geospatial One-Stop Initiative, as well as by other agencies and organizations. Not only is Geospatial One-Stop engaged in the standards development process, it is also intended to simplify the process

of locating, accessing, sharing, and integrating geospatial information in a timely way. I am likewise eager to hear about the

progress made in that effort.

While we expect to hear good news in the areas of standards development and in developing a portal for the collection and sharing

of this data, I understand the news in the area of collaboration on

the collection and sharing of this data is not as promising. Per my

request, GAO prepared a report on the coordination and sharing of

geospatial assets. The results are not good. GAO reports that a failure of coordination and oversight efforts have resulted in agencies

continuing to independently acquire and maintain potentially duVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:56 Jan 15, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97132.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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plicative and costly data sets and geospatial information systems.

We have much work to do in this area to eliminate redundant

spending. Perhaps we need to consider the creation of a central office responsible for the coordination of governmentwide geospatial

efforts such as the Geospatial Information Office with OMB.

I eagerly look forward to the expert testimony our panel of leaders from throughout the Government and industry will provide

today.

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

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Mr. PUTNAM. Today’s hearing can be viewed live via Webcast by

going to reform.house.gov and clicking on the link under Live Committee Broadcast.

I would like to welcome the ranking member from Missouri to

our subcommittee hearing and yield to him for his opening remarks.

Mr. Clay.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing,

and I thank all of the witnesses for taking this time to work with

us today.

Although this is a complex topic, with many actors and agencies

playing a role, the issues before us today are not new to us. From

the Department of Health and Human Services, which utilizes GIS

technology for national health surveys, to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s work in combining housing development and environmental data, our role in overseeing the investments made in GIS activities and technology cannot be understated.

As this committee knows from last year’s hearing on GIS, I

asked the Congressional Research Service to assess the extent of

funding for geographic information systems across the Federal Government. Through that process we learned that many agencies either had a difficult time providing the necessary information, could

not interpret their data on funding and activities, or outright ignored the request. One agency, FEMA, was found to be in the process of issuing a proposal to spend over $200 million on GIS

projects, while being unable to substantiate their level of spending

on such activities. In short, an agency that cannot quantify their

spending cannot be trusted with an extensive procurement of that

size. Thus, it is imperative that our agencies become more accountable in their budgeting and performance measurement activity if

we are to develop a comprehensive, governmentwide GIS initiative.

In addition, I am aware that GIS is being used in St. Louis and

across the State of Missouri for a wide variety of important purposes. I am also aware, however, that many public officials across

the Nation do not believe the Federal Government provides the

type of GIS data they need to meet their requirements.

That said, I am hopeful that today’s hearing can categorize it for

us exactly how much is being spent across the Government on GIS

activities; if the programs are providing State and local agencies

the information they need; and efforts being pursued to make our

GIS activities more efficient.

Again, I thank the witnesses for their efforts, and I ask that the

full text of my remarks be included in the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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

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Mr. PUTNAM. Without objection, your entire text of remarks will

be included in the record.

At this time I would ask our first panel of witnesses and anyone

accompanying you to please rise for the administration of the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Note for the record that all of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

We will move directly to testimony.

Our first witness is Ms. Karen Evans. Karen Evans 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, the principal forum for the

agency CIOs to develop IT recommendations. Prior to that she

served at the Department of Justice as Assistant and Division Director for Information System Management.

You know, if you are going to testify here every week, we really

need to get you a new bio; you know, she is a Pisces, she likes long,

slow walks on the beach; something. We have got to juice this up

a little bit.

Well, having thrown you off track a little bit, you are recognized

for your opening remarks.

STATEMENTS OF KAREN S. EVANS, ADMINISTRATOR OF EGOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE

OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; LINDA D. KOONTZ, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; SCOTT J. CAMERON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY FOR PERFORMANCE AND MANAGEMENT, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; AND WILLIAM ALLDER,

JR., DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION,

NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL-INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Ms. EVANS. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member

Clay. Thank you so much for the invitation to speak today. But I

would tell you I am a Scorpio, not a Pisces, so that might explain

some things.

The title of today’s hearing asks the question ‘‘Are we headed in

the right direction or are we lost?’’ I believe we are headed in the

right direction based on both the progress achieved to date, along

with our planned next steps. However, I would like to stress that

while progress in the last year is commendable, it is just the start

of the work ahead of us. There are significant opportunities across

all levels of Government to better leverage our geospatial assets.

The problem is clear: although a wealth of geospatial information

exists, it has been difficult to locate, access, share, and integrate

in a timely and efficient manner. Many Federal, State, and local

agencies collect and use geospatial data in different formats and

standards based on their requirements. This results in wasteful

spending, redundant data collection, and can hinder the ability of

all governmental entities to effectively and efficiently provide information and services to each other, citizens, and businesses.

At the Federal level, we are working with State, local, and tribal

governments to resolve these issues through the President’s

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Geospatial One-Stop E-Government Initiative and through implementation of governmentwide management and budget policies. As

you know, the purpose of the Geospatial One-Stop Initiative is to

provide all governmental agencies with a single point of access to

map-related data, enabling consolidation of redundant data. Its

goal is to improve the ability of public and government to use

geospatial information to support the business of government and

improve decisionmaking.

Within the last year, Geospatial One-Stop has successfully

brought us closer to these goals by making it easier for government

officials at all levels to share, coordinate the collection of, and gain

access to geospatial data. In its first months of operation last year,

the Geospatial One-Stop portal responded to support several national disaster events, including Hurricane Isabel and the California wildfires. From one location, users of the portal could access

storm tracking, modeling, weather information, satellite images,

and regional and local mapping services and links to disaster-planning Web sites.

On the management policy side, OMB continues to issue guidance to Federal agencies on coordination of geographic information

and related spatial data activities through OMB’s Circular A–16.

This circular provides direction to Federal agencies to prepare,

maintain, publish, and implement a strategy for advancing geographic information appropriate to their mission. The circular established the Federal Geographic Data Committee [FGDC], an

interagency committee responsible for facilitating implementation

of Circular A–16-related activities. The Geospatial One-Stop Initiative and the FGDC have a complimentary and mutually supportive

relationship. They each have a role to play in coordinating Federal

geospatial activities with State, local, and tribal governments.

On the budget policy side, we are working to promote and enforce Federal geospatial requirements. During the fiscal year 2005

budget process, OMB directed agencies to identify all grant programs related to geospatial information and post the grant announcements in grants.gov so that they are easily identifiable as

geospatial-related grants, and report on all planned geospatial data

acquisitions of more than $500,000 to the Geospatial One-Stop so

it could be posted in the geodata.gov portal in accordance with

OMB Circular A–16.

The accomplishments of the last year also clearly reveal more is

needed to improve coordination, communication, and collaboration

on geospatial investments. OMB is working with agencies on the

following activities. The first is on consolidation of geospatial investments. The Geospatial One-Stop Initiative is currently developing a process to facilitate the sharing of existing and planned investments. Second, we are working to improve intra-agency

geospatial coordination. Some agencies, such as EPA and DHS,

have established a geospatial information officer. OMB is exploring

options to solidify the role and responsibilities of geospatial information officers at the Federal agencies. And, third, we will continue to build partnerships with State, local, and tribal organizations and industry through FGDC and the Geospatial One-Stop.

The work and the accomplishments of the Geospatial One-Stop

E-Gov Initiative and the FGDC are important strides forward in

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our ability to leverage geospatial resources throughout the Federal

Government. Integrating geospatial requirements into the budget

process is another key step in promoting more effective use of

geospatial resources. While we are headed in the right direction,

there are significant opportunities ahead of us. The administration

will continue to work with State and local governments, industry

and Congress in pursuing these opportunities.

I would be glad to take any questions at this time.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Evans follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Ms. Evans.

Our next witness is Linda Koontz. Ms. Koontz is Director of Information Management Issues for the U.S. General Accounting Office. She 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,

Ms. Koontz has been heavily involved in directing studies of interest to this subcommittee, including E-Government, privacy, electronic records management, and governmentwide information dissemination issues.

Another frequent flier to the subcommittee, you are recognized

for 5 minutes, and welcome.

Ms. KOONTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Clay.

I am pleased to participate in this hearing of the Federal Government’s use and coordination of geospatial information.

As you know, the collection, maintenance, and use of geospatial

information is essential to Federal agencies carrying out their missions. Geographic information systems are critical elements used in

the areas of homeland security, natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and countless other applications.

Further, as shown in our graphic display, many entities, including Federal, State and local governments, and the private sector

may be involved in geospatial data collection and processing relative to a single geographic location. In this environment, the possibility of duplication exists, and over the years many questions

have been raised about how well the Nation’s geospatial assets are

coordinated.

Last year I testified before this subcommittee that realizing the

vision of a nationwide network of geospatial information systems is

a formidable task, and that achieving full participation across governments in its development has been difficult. Today’s testimony

focuses specifically on how the Federal Government is coordinating

the effective sharing of geospatial assets. My testimony is based on

a report you and Representative Sessions requested that is being

released today.

Overall, OMB, Federal agencies, and various cross-government

committees and initiatives have taken action to coordinate the Government’s geospatial investments among agencies and with State

and local governments. For example, the Federal Geographic Data

Committee has established Web-based information sharing portals,

led standards setting activities, and conducted outreach efforts. In

addition, OMB has established processes intended to oversee and

coordinate geospatial investments by collecting and analyzing relevant agency information.

However, these efforts have not been fully successful in reducing

redundancies in geospatial investments for several reasons. First,

a complete and up-to-date strategic plan is not in place. The Government’s existing plan for a coordinated network of geospatial information is out of date and does not include specific measures for

identifying and reducing redundancies. Federal agencies have not

always complied with OMB direction to coordinate their investments. Many agency geospatial data holdings are not compliant

with FGDC standards or have not been published through the central clearinghouse. OMB’s oversight methods have not identified or

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eliminated specific instances of duplication. This is largely resulted

from OMB not collecting consistent key investment information

from all agencies. As a result, agencies continue to independently

acquire and maintain potentially duplicative sets of data and systems. This costly practice is likely to continue unless coordination

is significantly improved.

In our report, we are making several recommendations to

strength coordination. Specifically, we are recommending that the

Director of OMB and the Secretary of the Interior direct the development of a national geospatial data strategy that includes goals,

strategy, risk factors, and performance measures. We are also recommending that the Director of OMB encourage agency compliance

with A–16 by developing criteria for assessing the extent of interagency coordination proposals for geospatial investments and to

strength OMB’s oversight of investments in geospatial data and

systems.

OMB Interior officials agreed with these recommendations. However, until these issues are fully addressed, the vision of a fully coordinated geospatial data infrastructure may remain out of reach.

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 Scott Cameron. Mr. Cameron is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance and Management at the Department of Interior. Given Interior’s extensive use of mapping and intrinsic staff talent, Mr. Cameron took on the important role as

chairman of the President’s Geospatial One-Stop E-Government

Initiative. Mr. Cameron previously served in California’s Washington, DC office advising Governor Wilson on Federal environmental

energy and natural resources issues. He also served under President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Chief of Interior Branch issues

at OMB.

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

Mr. CAMERON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am a Pisces. I have two cats and a barely in control second grader. And I

appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today, Mr. Chairman, and all the members of the subcommittee who may join us

to talk about Geospatial One-Stop.

Geospatial One-Stop has made substantial progress during the

year since my last appearance before this subcommittee, although

we believe much work remains to be done. Geospatial One-Stop

continues to work with partners at the Federal, State, tribal, and

local level to assist them in leveraging individual resources so that

they are, together, more efficient, more cost-effective, and better

serve all of our citizens. When managed properly, geospatial data

can be acquired once and used many times. The portal has already

demonstrated this principle. As Ms. Evans described earlier, it was

used for the California wildfire responses, for some of the preparation for Hurricane Isabel, and so on.

We are hopeful that as the use of Geospatial One-Stop’s portal

continues to grow, we can stimulate innovative partnerships, such

as the National Hydrography Dataset, which involves 7 Federal

agencies and consortia, 27 States, 2 regional organizations, 5 universities.

Another creative example includes an MOU that was just signed

with the State of Utah for cooperative creation and sharing of digital spatial information. Eleven Federal agencies, three State agencies, and Geospatial One-Stop are signatories to that.

The project is focused on four specific tasks: a Web-based portal;

a collaborative process to develop data exchange standards promoting greater consistency among data sets; an easy-to-access inventory, a card catalog, if you will, of currently available data; and

what we call a marketplace of planned data investments that will

allow State, tribal, and local governments to combine resources

with Federal agencies on future data acquisition.

The project’s Intergovernmental Board of Directors, composed of

State, local, tribal, and Federal representatives, serves as one of

the strengths of the project. The Board, whose meetings are open

to the public, guarantees dialog among these various levels of government that have significant investments or interest in geospatial

information. In light of the fact that State and local governments,

quite frankly, own more data, buy more data, have better quality

data than the Feds typically do, 7 of the 11 votes on this Intergovernmental Board, in fact, we have given to non-Federal members.

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To facilitate the sharing of information, Geospatial One-Stop led

a collaborative effort over 2 years that included a broad group of

people from all sectors of the geospatial community—local governments, State agencies, private sector, academics—in the development of data exchange standards. All 13 draft standards for key

data layers have now been submitted to a committee of the American National Standards Institute [ANSI] for their adoption as national standards. A notice announcing the formal public review on

these standards, in fact, shows up in today’s Federal Register.

The seven major geospatial data layers associated with these

standards are geodetic control, elevation, ortho imagery, hydrography, transportation—which actually has several sub-themes—cadastral, and government unit boundaries. We are hopeful that the

ANSI process, which is run by volunteers from various levels of society, will lead to formal endorsement of these standards in 2005.

Since we launched geodata.gov, the portal for Geospatial OneStop, on June 30th of last year, we have seen tremendous progress

in the participation of State and local governments. The portal currently includes 1,100 live mapping services; over 11,000 records or

data sets owned by Federal, State, local, tribal governments or private companies; and 155 postings of planned data acquisition in

our marketplace. Thousands more data sets will be added, we are

certain, over the next several months. The portal receives about

4,000 home page hits each day and almost 7,000 unique visitors

each month. We are also moving forward with the procurement for

version 2.0 of the portal, if you will. There will be a request for

comments going out in mid-July, a request for proposal in August,

and we hope to have a new portal emerging from a highly competitive procurement process on line in late fall or in the early winter

of next year.

After my last appearance before this subcommittee, we took your

advice and listened to our private sector partners. Subsequent to

the hearing, when our board got together for its next regularly

scheduled meeting, the board voted to include access to private sector data through the portal. So since the late summer of 2003 we

have been encouraging private sector data holders to in fact register their data, fill out the metadata form and let the world know

about their private data holdings as well as governmental data

holdings.

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I really appreciate the opportunity to

testify before you today. I appreciate your and Mr. Clay’s and the

rest of the subcommittee’s continuing interest in this project.

Frankly, it helps us a great deal to be successful knowing that you

are up here and you care.

I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cameron follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Cameron.

Our final witness for this panel is William Allder, Jr. Mr. Allder

is Director of the Strategic Transformation Office at the National

Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Bethesda, MD. He is responsible

for NGA’s strategic planning, including enterprise architecture and

engineering, program analysis, evaluation and integration to align

the agency’s investments with the director’s transformational objectives in response to emerging geospatial intelligence challenges.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Allder served for 41⁄2 years as

NGA’s Director of Acquisition, leading the development of the national system for geospatial intelligence to national and defense

customers.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Mr. ALLDER. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here on behalf of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency [NGA]. I have a set of view graphs that I will step

through here briefly, and I want to tailor my remarks to what is

there.

The NGA is both a combat support agency in the Department of

Defense and a member of the U.S. intelligence community, and

that really defines our primary missions and our primary customer

sets. The vast majority of the services that we provide and the information that we collect and provide for our customers is outside

of the United States. So we are really here in a support role, and

I want to talk to what that role is, but I want to assure the committee that we and the Department of Defense strongly support the

objectives of what you are addressing here.

I want to talk through how we are supporting the E-Government

initiative of Geospatial One-Stop, what we are doing philosophically in the related standards initiatives, and then leave a few

words in response to the question that the committee posed about

whether we are on the right path.

If you go to chart 3, that shows a top level context, just to show

that of the 25 E-Gov initiatives, the Department of Defense participates in 17. Of those, highlighted in red is the Geospatial One-Stop

Initiative, where NGA is the lead agency for the Department, working back with DOI as the managing partner to support the objectives of that initiative.

On the next chart we indicate that we have an MOA between

DOD, NGA, and the managing partner that formalizes the roles

and responsibilities and what we are doing in support of Geospatial

One-Stop, and those are listed here. First, we intend to provide access, discovery capability for all of the domestic releasable information that we hold through Geospatial One-Stop. Some of the information is there today on geodata.gov.; more will be coming, and I

will show you what that is in just a minute.

Second, we participate in the establishment of the content standards for the foundation data themes. We participated directly in

four of the working groups. We are hoping to move that definition

through the standardization process in American National Standards Institute [ANSI] and hopefully onto International Standards

Organization [ISO]. We also have an implementation strategy that

says while we will always have unique requirements inside the defense and intelligence community for how we attribute and even

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look at common features like roads, we will be common and consistent at a core level with the foundation specifications that are laid

out here.

Third, we are working with DOI on the acquisition of the

Geospatial One-Stop portal; we provide people and some direct

funding to that process. And then, fourth, we are standing up our

own Web presence to help facilitate interaction with GOS, which I

will show you on chart 5, a very notional cartoon for how that will

work.

If you look at the upper right, you will see an NGA Geospatial

One-Stop portal that we are putting in place to provide support to

the metadata harvesting activity down in the Geospatial One-Stop

itself. Therefore, whatever customer I am sitting in that cloud on

the left, I can come into Geospatial One-Stop and just like I can

find out about information held by the U.S. Geological Survey, we

can find out by looking at metadata expressed consistent with the

FGDC standards what we hold inside of NGA.

Similarly, it is important to note on the left that we are representing our analysts, our employees in the Department of Defense as being customers of Geospatial One-Stop. We want to use

the information that is there. We do not want to replicate or copy

it over into our environment; we intend to access through the

Geospatial One-Stop portal.

We are in a security certification accreditation of our server

today. We are also going through a releasibility review of the data

that we will be making available, and we expect to have this capability operational in the fall of 2004.

On the next chart there is a top level depiction of the information

content that we expect to make available initially from very smallscale terrain information down to a very detailed representation of

the terrain that was created as a result of the Shuttle radar topography mission flown in the year 2000. We expect to make all of

that information available through the geospatial one stop.

Transitioning briefly to the standards development area, standards, of course, are a major enabler of everything Geospatial OneStop is trying to do. I want to point out that my boss, Lieutenant

General Jim Clapper, wears two hats in our community; he is the

Director of NGA, but he is also what we in the DOD community

call the functional manager for our discipline of geospatial intelligence. That says that across the elements of the IC and the DOD,

General Clapper sets the vision, he sets the future direction, he orchestrates investments without controlling them.

A key part of that is prescribing and mandating the set of standards that will be used for geospatial applications. We have in place

a national center for geospatial intelligence standards to help us

step up to that role. We work closely with the FGDC, and I will

not belabor it, but we, as the FGDC does, work on an open consensus-based process leveraging industry standards versus building

our own.

Last, sir, in terms of take-away, you asked the question here

whether we are on the right path or not, and I would like to give

you my personal perspective from having worked 30+ years in six

Federal agencies, always associated with geospatial information.

From a time in the early 1980’s when I served on some working

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groups in the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping,

working on digital cardiographic standards, to today, we have

made significant improvements. And, yes, we can do more; yes,

there is a lot more to do, but particularly in the last several years

there have been very dramatic strides forward. Technology, of

course, is a key enabler of that, and I will not belabor that, but it

lets us step up to that process.

What I would cite as perhaps more important is the focusing effect of the disasters of September 11. We found in our community

that during a time of crisis, it is very easy to break through the

ossifying bureaucracies we sometimes deal with and get right to

the heart of what do I need to do together to better support the

customers. I think that atmosphere and that climate permeates the

Government today. I think it will for some time, and I think that

has helped us in addition to the direction that we have gotten to

move forward in these areas to support what we need to do to

share and collaborate.

Second, I think we have a much better understanding today of

what drives the technology market in today’s environment and

where the Government should and should not become intrusive in

specifying standards. I think you have heard a lot of discussion

about consensus-based industry processes. We strongly endorse

that as what we must do. If standards are the area where industry

has agreed not to compete, we need to let industry come to what

those areas are on their own. We can encourage them, we can set

the policies, we can provide subject matter expertise, but we cannot

direct that to happen; we have to let it evolve as it goes forward.

I think that has been extremely successful today.

And, last, I think we have found a good way to balance long and

short-term investments that says simply I believe we need to resist

the temptation to try to push things faster in the areas of information technology standards by becoming overly prescriptive on industry. We need to let the consensus process play out so that we

can follow it. That genie is out of the bottle, and it is not going

back in. There was a recent June 7th issue of Newsweek that paraphrased a CEO of one of the leading GIS corporations as saying

that once geospatial information became pervasively available on

the Internet and could be rapidly integrated into applications, the

business model of a closed proprietary system to sell, to make profit was gone, was dead; and he and others needed to step up to the

open consensus standards process. I think that is something, sir,

that I would commend. We need to be willing to follow; let the free

market drive where this goes and find the right places for Government intervention.

Thank you very much, and I would be glad to take your questions as well.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Allder follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, sir.

We will begin with the first round of questions, beginning with

Ms. Evans.

Ms. Evans, last year during testimony before this subcommittee

your predecessor, Mark Forman, estimated that the Federal Government spends somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion per

year on geospatial products and services, and went on to say that

he estimated as much as half of that amount was wasted. I am

aware that a recent report estimates the annual cost to be closer

to $5 billion, with a high percentage of waste.

Empirically, what do we know about the Federal Government’s

annual expenditures on GIS, and what percentage of that do you

believe is duplicative or redundant?

Ms. EVANS. I would say right now that we still do not have a

good solid number that I can sit here and tell you, yes, sir, it is

$4 billion, yes, sir, it is $5 billion going forward. This is an area

where we are continuing our efforts, and as I included in my testimony, that we were going to give further guidance out to the agencies so that we could give a better definitive answer as to what is

the actual expenditures in this area, how much of it is duplicative,

and how much we intend to eliminate. So we are continuing to

work in this area. We need to continue to give better guidance to

the agencies, as was mentioned by GAO, so that I can provide a

better answer. But right now I would say that we are still continuing to work on this.

Mr. PUTNAM. Do you have a ballpark figure on expenditures?

Ms. EVANS. If we look specifically at the expenditures that have

been reported to date to us, the numbers are aligned with the

geospatial data collections that are associated with the A–16 layers. Those numbers are much less, really less than the $5 billion

number that you have given. So if we add in the other efforts that

are going on, we can come closer to the $5 billion amount, but

without all the level of specificity of what is involved in each of

these investments, I can’t answer the second part of the question,

as to whether it is duplicative and redundant and it needs to be

eliminated.

So we have numbers, but I can’t definitively say, as my predecessor did, that 50 percent of those are wasted.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Koontz, let me begin with this. Who in the

Federal Government has the responsibility and accountability for

coordinating all geospatial collection and data access activities

across the Government?

Ms. KOONTZ. There are actually a number of entities that have

some responsibility for coordination. That would include the agencies themselves. Agencies are charged under A–16 to coordinate

their investments of geospatial assets. The FGDC is charged with

the responsibility of promoting coordination both within the Federal Government and with State and local governments. And then

OMB is charged with overseeing geospatial investments as part of

their overall responsibility to oversee IT investments.

Mr. PUTNAM. So there is really not any one quarterback for the

effort.

Ms. KOONTZ. There is no single entity that is totally responsible.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Cameron, where do you fit into that?

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Mr. CAMERON. Geospatial One-Stop’s role in this context is to try

to help OMB uncover where Federal geospatial data spending is

going on, but I would suggest, perhaps more significantly, making

available to Federal agencies with the voluntary cooperation of

State and local governments, the data sets that State and locals

own and maintain. Personally, I think if we had better access to

the high quality and relatively recent data that State and local governments are producing, are acquiring, that would allow us to

much more intelligently, much more efficiently spend the Federal

dollar, whether that is $1 billion or $10 billion.

Mr. PUTNAM. Help me understand all the different pieces of this

puzzle. How are the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s efforts

to develop a national spatial data clearinghouse different from

Geospatial One-Stop’s goal of serving as the primary portal for all

GIS information?

Mr. CAMERON. OK. Back in the 1990’s, shortly after President

Clinton signed the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Executive

order, the FGDC started assembling essentially a card catalog of

metadata on Federal data holdings. What we have done through

Geospatial One-Stop is taken that Federal data card catalog clearinghouse, I think made it easier to work with, made it more accessible, and introduced data holdings that are owned by State and

local governments and the private sector. So you have a much bigger clearinghouse and a much more accessible clearinghouse than

you did in the 1990’s.

Mr. PUTNAM. Where does the National Map fit into all of that?

Mr. CAMERON. The National Map is a project that is spearheaded

by the U.S. Geological Survey, and, actually, over the last year we

have had much tighter integration between the National Map and

the Geospatial One-Stop and the Federal Geographic Data Committee. The National Map is about pulling together data sets owned

by various governmental sectors and making them available centrally. The link with the Geospatial One-Stop is the National Map

would be accessed, if you will, through the Geospatial One-Stop

portal.

So USGS, through the National Map, is in the data acquisition

business, it is going out there and forging partnerships with State

and local governments to go acquire data this year or the year after

this; whereas, Geospatial One-Stop is a mechanism for sharing that

information with the world once it is collected. And the Federal Geographic Data Committee’s role is to help corral the Federal agencies’ participation in the National Map.

Mr. PUTNAM. What role does the private sector play in the collection and preparation and application of geospatial information for

the Federal Government?

Mr. CAMERON. Realistically, right now, most—well, I am not sure

of most, because I don’t have the specific knowledge, but a large

amount of the money that is being spent by Federal agencies on

geospatial data acquisition is in fact being paid to private sector

contractors to acquire the data. Perhaps with the exception of the

military or the defense community, I think relatively little time do

you have Federal employees actually acquiring data. So the private

sector has a significant role in physically collecting the data on beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:56 Jan 15, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97132.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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half of its own customers or various levels of Government for whom

they may be contractors.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Allder, would you address that as well, please?

Mr. ALLDER. Yes, sir. If I go back a decade, we had a significant

in-house work force that was doing geospatial data collection and

production. That has changed significantly over the last decade. We

now rely very heavily on the private sector and the capability that

has grown there to produce foundational geospatial information for

us that we then use to populate our data bases and support our

customer sets. We still have a work force internally doing some of

that work, but it is down to less than 20 percent of what it was

10 years ago as the work has moved to the private sector. So we

are heavily relying on partnerships and the very robust capability

that has grown there over the last decade.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does today’s current geospatial information sharing

capability provide the opportunity for military and intelligence

agencies to receive or provide access to data where there might be

shared uses in the unclassified space?

Mr. ALLDER. I would say opportunity, yes, but I would not tell

you there is a capability for exhaustively doing that to the point

where we understand we are minimizing redundancy. We have historically had agreements from NGA that would be case-by-case

with various civil agencies for exchange of information. An example

would be with the Federal Communications Commission, where we

exchange information on vertical obstructions that from our standpoint are important to safety of navigation, from theirs are important to understanding the state of the transmissions networks in

the United States. We have case-by-case agreements like that. We

also will get involved with either civil agencies or State and local

governments through civilian agency in the case of something like

a natural disaster through FEMA, and we, in those cases, would

have specific goals and objectives for sharing information that we

are able to do that. But we do not have a routine way to go in and

make sure that information does not already exist.

Before we go out to acquire any information for a domestic mission, we do a search to try to find if there is something useful already in the Government, but that, again, is not exhaustive. That

is exactly the kind of problem, though, that Geospatial One-Stop is

intended to address. We see, as additional information gets populated there, there will be a lot more opportunity for us all to be

more efficient in the use of resources here.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. My time has expired. I will

recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let us start with Ms. Evans. As I mentioned in my statement,

my hometown of St. Louis, as well as Missouri, have utilized GIS

for a wide variety of services and purposes. Can you outline for us

what OMB is doing to improve the services provided by Federal

Government geospatial programs for State and local agencies?

Ms. EVANS. I can highlight it at a high level, but I would also

ask if Interior could also talk specifically about the ongoing work

that is happening under Geospatial One-Stop.

We are, OMB, through its oversight and management through

the Circular A–16, trying to ensure that the partnerships are there,

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that they are established so that we can share the information.

And as my colleague said from Interior, many times the information that is collected at the State and local level is much better

than the information that is available at the Federal level. So

through the Geospatial One-Stop, the President’s initiative, we are

trying to maximize the work that has already been done in this

area.

I think that Scott would be glad to talk specifically about what

is happening in the Federal Government efforts to ensure that

partnership and that linkage at the State and local level.

Mr. CLAY. OK, thank you, Ms. Evans. I will give Scott a chance

later. One more issue. You know the GAO report before us today

states that OMB’s methods for oversight have failed to eliminate

duplication in geospatial investments across agencies. I know that

the chairman asked a question, but let me ask you to give us specific examples of building partnerships. You mentioned in your

statement that there was an effort to build partnerships. And tell

me also how you have worked toward streamlining the budgeting

process in this initiative.

Ms. EVANS. Specifically in fiscal year 2005, we specifically directed agencies that they needed to make this information available to Geospatial One-Stop, the President’s initiative, of where

they were going with their geospatial investments and that they

needed to complete and send this inventory in to Geospatial OneStop. We continue to work with the agencies to get that information. It is clear through Circular A–16 that there are oversight and

policy issues that OMB needs to do in order to go forward to ensure

the effective management of this.

I believe as we go forward and with the release of the Federal

Enterprise Architecture’s model of data, the data reference model

has not been released yet, and it is intended to be released; that

when you see that, we also talked about giving additional guidance

out to the agencies. What we intend to do at that point, when that

is released, is specifically talk about the data and how it relates to

the circular so that the agencies will know how to report those investments in to us so that we will be able to get greater visibility

into there and be able to promote the partnership between the

agencies as well as through the State and local governments.

We haven’t released that model yet; we are targeting for the end

of next month to release that model because there has been a lot

of discussion about how that model should read, and we want to

make sure that when the model is released, that no matter who

you are, you will be able to read it and understand exactly what

we are talking about as far as the data that we are collecting and

how we are going forward.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for your response.

Ms. Koontz, according to GAO’s report, the National States Geographic Information Council estimates the cost of building a complete NSDI at approximately $6.6 billion without factoring in the

likelihood of redundancy and duplication among participants.

Under the current organizational structure, do you believe such investments would be prudent? And what coordination steps do you

recommend for this project among Federal, State, and local agencies to ensure that redundancy is minimal?

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Ms. KOONTZ. To your first question, I think both the release of

the data reference model that is part of the FEA, as well as OMB’s

proposal to have agencies report investments through Geospatial

One-Stop are both promising in terms of providing the kind of complete and consistent and detailed information that OMB really

needs in order to identify and reduce redundancies.

I think, to your second question, in our report we outline a number of recommendations that we are making to OMB and to Interior that we think will help reduce redundancies. Those include updating the national strategy for developing the NSDI, the National

Spatial Data Infrastructure. We have also recommended that OMB

develop criteria for assessing coordination when they are looking at

particular investments, and we have also called for various measures to increase and improve OMB oversight.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Mr. Cameron, when will the Geospatial One-Stop project be completed? And at that time will all of its objectives be met, including

developing an inventory of Federal geospatial data holdings and

encouraging greater coordination among Federal, State, and local

agencies?

Mr. CAMERON. Good question, Mr. Clay. I guess I could answer

it on several different levels. There are obviously a couple of tasks

that at some point will have a definite ending. The standards, for

instance, will be completed in 2005; they will come out of the ANSI

process. We will, in fact, have a second portal, again, in early 2005,

late calendar 2004. But I think in the long run I would like to see

the activities of Geospatial One-Stop move out of a project mode

and become a normal routine way that the Federal Government

does business, moving standards quickly; interacting much more

heavily and much more on an equal-to-equal basis with State and

local governments than we ever have before; more thoroughly and

more reliably capturing our data investments.

So I think sometime, maybe 11⁄2 or 2 years out, there ought to

be an evolution, if you will, of where Geospatial One-Stop stops

being a project and becomes mainstreamed into just a normal routine way for the Federal Government to interact with its partners

and manage itself internally.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Mr. Allder, can you cite for us any collaboration your agency is

undertaking with other Government agencies, and are these efforts

improving the quality of data and information available within

geospatial programs?

Mr. ALLDER. Yes. I mentioned several earlier, and I can hit a few

more. I mentioned the Federal Communications Commission. We

collaborated with the U.S. Geological Survey on the production of

information over a data base for the 133 urban areas in support

of Homeland Security. We have a team of our analysts who are actually resident inside of the Homeland Security Department who

are working collaboratively with them. So, yes, sir, we have many

such activities ongoing. Again, producing domestic information is

not the major focus of our mission today; we do that on an opportunity basis, on an invitation basis. But, yes, sir, there are many

examples. I think they are growing and they are certainly improving our service to our customer set.

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Mr. CLAY. Thank you.

I thank the panel for their responses.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

Ms. Koontz, do you have any thoughts on the merit of establishing a geospatial information administrator within OMB or perhaps

somewhere else, or even a geospatial information officer type of position within agencies? Just share your thoughts on something

along those lines.

Ms. KOONTZ. I think either of those positions certainly have

merit to consider. Without knowing further details, it does appear,

though that if you are able to affix accountability with a single entity, I think experience has shown us that things tend to get done.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Evans, what are your thoughts?

Ms. EVANS. I have thought about this question a lot, and I would

say that I don’t agree necessarily that there is a need for a

geospatial information administrator or officer within the Office of

Management and Budget. I would tell you that recently this position, the Vice Chair position of the FGDC, has been delegated to

me from the Deputy Administrator for Management because it is

about information management. We are looking, though, internally

within OMB and the implementation and the oversight of A–16 is

it now are we at the point do we heighten this to the point where

we ask the agencies, similar to the way that we did when FISMA

was passed, who is the central point of contact within your agency

to deal with geospatial information? I also think that this person

should be located within the CIO organization, because the Chief

Information Officer is about the strategic management of information, regardless of what type, whether it geospatial, paper, electronic. And so we are really looking at what is the role and responsibility of this person and how we would like for them to go forward to get to the issue of accountability and be able to help the

agency with its investments and how to manage that type of information strategically.

So I don’t think that we need one within OMB because of the accountability and how we deal with things and how we work with

the budget side of the House, but I do think that it is worth examining how we move forward with the agencies. Two agencies to

date, EPA and DHS, have identified a geospatial information officer within their organizations. Both of those agencies do have that

position reporting to the Chief Information Officer.

Mr. PUTNAM. As we talk through these GIS issues, including

One-Stop, which is 1 of the 24 E-Gov initiatives, it leads me to ask,

in reference to last week’s action on Interior appropriations, the bill

included language that would prohibit funding on four E-Gov initiatives. What is the impact of that language, Ms. Evans?

Ms. EVANS. The administration has issued its statement on this

particular issue and the impact of that, and we do, in the statement, generally we said that it would have great impact on the

ability of the Government to be able to move forward as an enterprise to facilitate collaboration and coordination of our resources

and to be able to come up with a common solution so that we can

have one solution for the Government as a whole as we are moving

forward and eliminating redundancies and becoming more efficient.

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And so the administration has issued its statement on the effect of

that particular language in the appropriations bill.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Koontz, do you have an opinion on the effect

that this would have on the mandated requirements set forth in

the law, the prohibition of funding? What effect will that have on

the agencies’ ability to carry out their legislative mandate?

Ms. KOONTZ. I am sorry, I haven’t studied the language in the

appropriations bill. I don’t think I can comment on that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does anyone want to take a stab at it? Does Interior want to talk about what is in the Interior appropriations bill?

Mr. CAMERON. Interior very wisely, on matters of appropriations,

defers to the Office of Management and Budget, so I agree with

Karen.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well put. I think it sends a very disturbing message to our agencies and is something that we intend to work

through.

We have votes currently planned for approximately 3, so what I

would like to do, if there are no other questions, I would like to go

ahead and seat the second panel and try to get through the opening testimony on that before we are called away. So I want to

thank our first panel for your insight, and the subcommittee will

recess until such time as the second panel is seated, hopefully very

shortly.

[Recess.]

Mr. PUTNAM. The subcommittee will reconvene. I would ask the

second panel of witnesses to please rise for the administration of

the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Note for the record that all of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Our first witness is Zsolt Nagy. Did I say that correctly?

Mr. NAGY. That is correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. Welcome to the subcommittee. Mr. Nagy is president-elect of the National States Geographic Information Council.

NSGIC is perhaps the primary intergovernmental organization

seeking to develop interoperability and data standards between

local, State, and Federal levels of government. He is also the manager of geographic information coordination program at the North

Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, where

he has done work on national, State, regional and local GIS initiatives, including efforts to develop the National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

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

I would ask all of you to please help us stick to that. We will have

five votes on the floor shortly. So you are recognized.

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STATEMENTS OF ZSOLT NAGY, PRESIDENT-ELECT, NATIONAL

STATES GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COUNCIL [NSGIC], GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COORDINATOR, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES; FREDERIC W. CORLE II, PRESIDENT, SPATIAL

TECHNOLOGIES INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION; JOHN M.

PALATIELLO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION FOR PRIVATE PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SURVEYORS;

DAVID SCHELL, PRESIDENT & CEO OF THE OPEN GIS CONSORTIUM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPEN GIS PROJECT; AND

DR. DAVID J. COWEN, CHAIR, MAPPING SCIENCE COMMITTEE, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, CHAIR, DEPARTMENT

OF GEOGRAPHY, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

Mr. NAGY. Very good. Chairman Putnam and honorable members

of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me as president-elect

of the National States Geographic Information Council [NSGIC], to

participate in this important hearing on ‘‘Geospatial Information:

Are We Headed in the Right Direction, Or Are We Lost?’’

Mr. Chairman, we make maps for a living, so how can we possibly be lost? Let me continue.

NSGIC is a nonprofit organization that promotes effective government through the wise use and sharing of geospatial information. We provide a voice for the States to ensure that the State and

local efforts form the foundation of a sustainable national spatial

data infrastructure.

Core NSGIC members are senior State government managers

and policymakers involved in daily coordination and application of

geospatial technologies. Our members are nonpartisan in their passion for good government.

NSGIC has concerns about geospatial coordination in our country, especially as it relates to Federal efforts in data collection. It

really should be viewed as a national effort. Rapid advances in

technology have reduced the cost of geospatial systems, which are

now significantly used in State and local governments. To maximize the effectiveness of this technology, we need to be smarter

about how we collect and maintain the Nation’s geospatial data.

Federal Government must recognize that a new cross-cutting collaborative role is required to coordinate and leverage geospatial

data investments. To put it simply, we cannot afford to have duplicative geospatial initiatives horizontally among Federal agencies,

or vertically between local, State, regional, and Federal Governments.

NSGIC members perform much of their work through statewide

coordinating bodies. The most basic principle of a coordinating body

is ‘‘build it once, use it many times.’’ There is a potential that the

cost for broad-use data will be higher, but that one-time expense

is still much less costly than the alternative of redundant and incompatible efforts by multiple levels of government. Accordingly,

geospatial data must be built to address the requirements in local

government applications. With prudent adherence to basic standards and best practices, local government data can be rolled up to

meet the needs of agencies at all levels. There are many advantages to this approach, since locally used data is most likely to be

maintained, accurate and complete.

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Of course, it can be daunting for Federal agencies to contemplate

assembling a nationwide data base from thousands of local government systems, and we also know that many local governments do

not have the data. So this is where the statewide coordinating bodies come into place. They bring all of the relevant stakeholders to

the table to coordinate development in support of geospatial data

that meet multiple needs.

We know that statewide coordinating bodies work. What we did

not know until recently was how they measured up on a national

basis. NSGIC membership developed a set of nine criteria that define a model State program. They include having a full-time statewide coordinator that is paid; a clearly defined authority for statewide coordination; that there is a relationship with that group to

the State CIO; that there is a political or executive champion; that

there is an NSDI clearinghouse, a state-based clearinghouse; that

there is significant input from local government, academia, and the

private sector; there is sustainable funding; and they are able to

enter into contracts and receive and expend funds; and that the

Federal Government works through the statewide coordinating

body.

NSGIC conducted a survey among the 50 States to ask how

many of these nine criteria they met. Thirty-two States reported

meeting six or more of the criteria, including nine States that meet

all. Eighteen States reported meeting five or fewer of the criteria.

What this tells us is that most States are well positioned to coordinate with Federal agencies and that there are opportunities to

strengthen the remaining statewide coordinating bodies.

In summary, we respectfully ask the subcommittee to consider

the following recommendations: Coordination of Federal agency

geospatial activities need to be done in the context of national priorities, not just Federal priorities. One key element of this is to

work through the statewide coordinating bodies.

Two, partnering with State and local governments is absolutely

essential in meeting the country’s collective geospatial data needs.

In States where the coordination infrastructure is weak, Federal

programs can provide a powerful incentive to strengthen them.

Third, funding streams for Federal geospatial programs must be

adequate and sustained to support development and maintenance

of data that meet local requirements.

And, fourth, better mechanisms need to be in place for funding

to leverage the needs of Federal programs for the joint benefit of

State and local government.

I will close by saying there are many agencies involved in

geospatial information technologies, and many are heading in different directions. We are not lost, but there are certainly opportunities to streamline, reduce costs, and yet meet many important national and local government criteria. Borrowing from the well

known phrase that all politics are local, NSGIC submits to you that

all data are local.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for

the opportunity to share these views with you today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nagy follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Fred Corle. Mr. Corle is president of the Spatial Technologies Industry Association. The Spatial Technologies

Industry Association, established in 1996, supports the industry’s

business development efforts in the public sector, improving performance of government with GIS technology and promotes the industry and commercial markets worldwide. Over 100 companies

have participated in the Association’s activities. Prior to joining

STIA, Mr. Corle was national Federal marketing and sales director

for Sun Microsystems Federal Inc. He managed Sun’s Federal Government strategic market development efforts for civilian agencies.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Ms. CORLE. Chairman Putnam, Ranking Member Clay, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for the

opportunity to testify before the subcommittee on behalf of the Spatial Technologies Industry Association concerning our views on

Federal Government geospatial technology programs and policies.

I have submitted a detailed written statement for the hearing

record and will only briefly highlight the main points here.

You titled this hearing, ‘‘Geospatial Information: Are We Headed

in the Right Direction, Or Are We Lost?’’ Our opinion is that we

are not lost, although the road has clearly been filled with some

potholes, detours, and maybe even some wrong turns. Industry is

ready to partner with government to build consensus about the

best roadman that will help us achieve the great goals for our Nation of efficient and effective government services, security home

and abroad, and economic competitiveness. In response to the important issues you have raised, we offer some specific recommendations for Federal Government policies and programs to more efficiently, effectively, and rapidly spatially enable the business enterprise of all levels of Government.

This hearing provides an important opportunity to raise awareness within Congress, and not only about the challenges, but also

about the present power and promising future of the application of

geospatial technologies and spatial data.

I describe the integrated spatial technologies industry and its

various sectors in my written testimony, but suffice it to say that

this growing industry is vital to our Nation’s future security and

prosperity. Its success depends on an effective partnership between

industry and Government. For example, the global positioning system sector grew out of the defense sector, but now, through private

sector innovation, employs thousands of workers in a $10 billion a

year commercial industry. In addition, the location technology developed for our Nation’s precision weapons systems can now precisely locate critically injured motorists from an emergency 911

call.

These are two of literally thousands of applications being developed and implemented by our member companies. We are committed to creating a private/public partnership that will depend on private enterprise to develop innovative products that protect property, save lives, and, through the genius of private enterprise,

achieve low-cost products to enhance our standard of living.

Federal policies should facilitate, rather than inhibit, the expansion of our industry so that it can achieve its potential as an engine

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of economic growth and jobs. That industry expansion will result

in cost efficiencies in data collection and availability and economies

of scale that lower the cost of products and services and enhance

our citizens’ well-being.

We support moving away from process-intensive and Federal

Government-centric geospatial policies to ones that are market

driven and citizen-centric. The Bush administration’s U.S. Commercial Remote Sensing Space Policy, which was issued last year,

is an excellent example of meaningful progress toward this goal.

We believe that the Federal Government needs a well-funded, highly coordinated business plan to acquire and maintain the key

framework data layers of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure

through cooperation among State, regional, local, and tribal governments, as well as private industry.

The Bush administration’s Geospatial One-Stop Initiative, U.S.

Geological Survey’s National Map program, the Federal Geographic

Data Committee’s grant programs, and a myriad of other Federal

programs do represent significant progress for the NSDI. We need

a true business plan for the NSDI and an integrated applications

and systems to accomplish high priority functions of Government

such as homeland security and E-Government. This new business

plan should match funding commitments to a business case and return on investment using an enterprise approach that maximizes

interoperability, integration, and sharing. The policies should spur

integrated interoperable systems and solutions rather than singlepurpose applications and data sets.

We have developed 10 recommendations which I will quickly run

through in my final moments. Action 1, is to establish a blue ribbon task force for experts from Government, industry, and academia stakeholders’ groups, White House, and Congress to assess

the progress made to date on spatially enabling the Government

enterprise and to recommend options for future policies; adopt market-driven standards for spatial data and GIS software interoperability; strength the management structure for geospatial programs

by establishing a dedicated person in the White House OMB Office

of Electronic Government; Action 4, establish a business plan that

includes a new grant Federal funding program; Action 5, develop

a national strategy to achieve the level of geospatial preparedness

required to address high-priority homeland security threat scenarios; Action 6, support the development of a reliable and consistent metrics and data about the geospatial enterprise; Action 7, ensure that geospatial technologies and spatial data are well defined

and fully integrated in OMB’s Federal Enterprise Architecture;

partner with industry and public sector organizations to raise

awareness about best practices; 9, more forcefully encourage Federal agencies and Federal grantees to make use of standards-based

commercial geospatial products and services to the maximum extent feasible; and, last, empower the DHS, in conjunction with

FGDC Homeland Security Working Group, to take a lead role on

issuing regulations and guidelines for spatial data security and access.

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Clay, I appreciate the opportunity to present our views to you today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Corle follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Our third witness on this panel is John Palatiello. Mr. Palatiello

is executive director of the Management Association for Private

Photogrammetric Surveyors [MAPPS], the Nation’s oldest and largest trade association of private firms in the geospatial field. Founded in 1982, MAPPS has more than 170 member firms. Mr.

Palatiello is also president of the firm of John Palatiello & Associates, a public affairs consulting firm in Reston, VA, providing government affairs and association management services to firms and

organizations with a specialization in services to the architect engineer, remote sensing mapping, and GIS communities. He also

serves as administrator of the Council on Federal Procurement of

Architectural Engineering Services, a coalition of the Nation’s leading design professional societies.

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

Mr. PALATIELLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and share our views.

As you indicated in your opening statement, this is a follow-on

to a hearing that was held in June of last year, at which time Mr.

Mike Ritchie, then president of MAPPS, was honored to testify. At

that time, he pointed to several areas where we thought improvement was needed in the Federal Government’s geospatial activities,

and I would like to take a few moments today to update you on

where improvement has been made and where we believe further

action is necessary.

In his testimony last year, Mr. Ritchie indicated that Geospatial

One-Stop was akin to a cable television system that only carried

PBS channels or a card catalogue in a library that only carried

GPO publications. We indicated that in order for Geospatial OneStop to become a true one-stop shopping portal for geospatial data,

that private data, as well as government data, must be included.

We are very pleased that steps have been taken to ingest private

data into Geospatial One-Stop, and we give Mr. Cameron, who updated you on that, a lot of credit for his initiative. But there is a

lot more data out there, and a much more aggressive outreach program must be implemented to ensure that the entire assets resident within commercial data providers is accessible via Geospatial

One-Stop.

One of the areas where there has not been any further action,

although I am pleased that there have been stakeholder meetings

and focus group studies and an attempt to at least identify problems, is the fact that neither FGDC nor GOS fully reached their

potential because of their limited structure and participation.

FGDC only includes Federal agencies; there is no representation by

folks like Mr. Nagy and his organization, by the States, by local

government, or the private sector. We simply do not have seats at

the table. The Geospatial One-Stop Board includes both Federal

and State and local government, but, again, the private sector does

not have a seat at the table. And we believe broader participation

by private sector interests in setting policy and strategy for FGDC

and GOS will result in a stronger offering to better represent the

interests of the American people and business and all stakeholders.

At the Federal level, we have come to the conclusion that FGDC

and GOS are not reaching their full potential because they are esVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:56 Jan 15, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00098 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97132.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sentially voluntary and secondary responsibilities for the participants. Other than very small staffs at FGDC and GOS, for everyone else it is not their full-time job; it is something they do as an

afterthought, after fulfilling the core mission of their agency. There

is neither a carrot nor a stick to incentivize or mandate conformance. And we think a change in the charter and implementation of

FGDC must be carried out in order to assure its full implementation.

I think it is worthwhile to look at a little history, and we have

this outlined in our statement. Prior to the issuance of what is now

OMB Circular A–16 in 1953, in the old Bureau of the Budget there

was a much stronger role in what was then called surveying and

mapping within the Bureau of the Budget. There was a Board of

Surveys and Maps that reported to BOB. That was later disbanded

and in the 1940’s it was brought into an actual staff position in the

Bureau of the Budget. All of that went away when the predecessor

to A–16 was promulgated and it was devolved down to the individual agencies.

We believe, as you alluded to, that we should explore the re-establishment of an OMB office or the committee should be directly

an OMB committee. It is our view that delegating responsibility for

coordinating mechanisms down to the agencies has not been the

most effective model, and that a stronger OMB role is necessary to

make coordination, interoperability, duplication avoidance, and

data sharing a reality.

We would take one exception to a response that Mr. Cameron did

make to his questioning, and that is the fact that there is still a

considerable amount of Federal Government competition with the

private sector in the geospatial area. There are still far too many

agencies that have considerable production capabilities that both

duplicate and compete the private sector, and a more robust effort

is necessary to harness the capabilities and talents and technology

that is resident in the private sector. So there is not only duplication across Federal agencies and on an intergovernmental basis,

but there is also duplication of the private sector.

With that, I was going to mention that we are not proceeding

with a good map, but I think my time is up. But thank you for the

opportunity to participate, and we look forward to working with

you on these initiatives.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Palatiello follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Palatiello.

Our next witness is David Schell. Mr. Schell serves as president

and chief executive officer of the Open GIS Consortium, a nonprofit

trade association with a current membership of 260 commercial,

government, and academic organizations whose primary objective

is to create a consensus forum and related industry collaborative

for the solution of critical, technical, and business development

problems in the geoprocessing community. In 1992 he left industry

to organize the Open GIS Foundation in order to formalize technology transfer programs for GIS and related technologies, and to

define and support the development of the Open GIS movement. In

1993 he initiated the Open GIS Project and reorganized OGF as

the Open GIS Consortium.

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

Mr. SCHELL. Thank you very much. I have not spoken in this

forum before, and I think before starting I would just like to say

that I would like to in effect spend my time clarifying the position

of my organization, and I think that is, in itself, a kind of policy

statement equivalent to what many of the other participants have

made, because what I am concerned with, what my organization is

concerned with is the technology that in fact sets policy.

I am very concerned about definitions, and you will not hear me

use the term GIS, you will hear me use terms like spatial

enablement of the enterprise. And I am very much concerned with

the issue of clarifying the difference between GIS application systems and issues like data standards. I think there is a great deal

of confusion in the language that is used by most people in policy

positions in government about these things. And now I will begin

my formal statement.

I am president of the Open GIS Consortium [OGC], a voluntary

consensus standards organization. OGC is a not-for-profit global industry association founded in 1994 specifically to address the

geospatial information sharing challenges that give rise to this

hearing. The OGC’s worldwide membership, which totals 260 entities, includes geospatial software vendors, government integrators,

information technology platform providers, U.S. Federal agencies,

agencies of other national and local governments and universities.

To position my organization a little better, I would like to begin

by pointing out that the network of public/private partnerships embodied by OGC has accomplished literally for the geospatial information community something similar to what the U.S. railroad

companies had accomplished in 1986, when they achieved consensus on the adoption of a common rail gage. I think this is a very

important thing for everybody to understand because it is at the

heart of the issue of software versus data. By having a common

gage, they eliminated the excessive cost of transshipping freight

and passengers across previously impassible junctions defined by

differing and proprietary track designs. What the railroads did

with track gage the OGC has done with standards that enable

technology to transship geospatial information between and among

differing and proprietary computer application systems, with similar immediate cost savings and even more dramatic financial benefits for long-term institutional and societal developments. This is

the key issue.

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In this light, I would like you to imagine one of the results of

this. Imagine a road contractor who uses one vendor’s software to

develop a plan for a street, and then directly over the Internet updates a city highway department’s street data base, which the department holds in another vendor’s software. Notice, another vendor’s software which can be accessed in realtime. Next, a policeman

uses a third vendor’s software on a handheld device to view a simplified map generated from the highway department’s street data

base so he can route traffic around the scene of a fire. The multiple

vendor systems work together in realtime because they use the

same open standards-based software interfaces. Again, this is the

point, open standards-based software interfaces.

Due to the work of the OGC, ISO, and other standards organization, a framework of standard-based technologies now exists upon

which Government can build at reasonable cost capacity for interagency data sharing and decision support using geospatial information. Hundreds of commercial products now implement OGC member-defined standards. Hundreds of organizations. Major organizations now integrate location intelligence as a ubiquitous capability

in their enterprise architectures by implementing the OGC standards. With this acceptance in the market, we are at a critical point

in the spatial enablement of Government, that is, the barrier-free

use of spatial information in the enterprise.

But important work does remain. There are two kinds of standards relating to geospatial information. First, there are the data

content standards that govern what specific codes or alphabets are

used to record the details of spatial location or the shape of geographical structures. Developing data content standards is the

focus of the FGDC. Second, there are the interoperability standards

that govern the software interfaces used to access, manage, and

communicate geospatial data within operational IT systems, whether located in a single location or widely distributed among a variety

of different proprietary software systems and the Internet.

The OGC is the only organization that develops and promotes

such geoprocessing interoperability standards. The OGC does the

same kind of work the Worldwide Web consortium does, but our efforts are focused specifically on geospatial technologies.

Your theme for this hearing is ‘‘Geospatial Information: Are We

Headed in the Right Direction, Or Are We Lost?’’ We are headed

in the right direction in the sense that both the FGDC and the

OGC continue to develop the necessary standards. We are lost to

the degree that, in practice, policymakers have overlooked the importance of OGC’s interoperability standards efforts and have not

accepted and done what is necessary to reap the benefits of OGC’s

work. A policy commitment to the development and deployment of

both geospatial data content and geospatial interoperability standards is critical to a national strategy for geospatial information

sharing.

The way forward requires leadership and policies that promote

development and uptake of content standards and interoperability

standards. Our key recommendations are documented in our written testimony. Here I wish to emphasize one key observation: The

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cy participation in the OGC’s open and collaborative industry process. Only through active participation and support can Government

ensure that unfinished standards such as those evolving for broad

access and application of sensor data, geospatial data, geospatial

digital rights management and data security be developed to reflect

the needs of the public and the requirements of the Government

agencies entrusted to serve the public interest.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Schell, if you could just summarize real quickly, and then we will get to Dr. Cowen. We can revisit this in questions.

Mr. SCHELL. OK. In conclusion, on behalf of OGC, I thank you,

Chairman Putnam and Ranking Member Clay, and the distinguished members of the committee. And I am sorry I went over my

time; there is a lot to say.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schell follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. There is a lot to say, and we are going to try to

get to it. We want Dr. Cowen to have an opportunity, though, before we are called away for votes.

Dr. Cowen is our final witness on this panel. David J. Cowen is

Chair of the Department of Geography at the University of South

Carolina and a Carolina distinguished professor. He is the current

Chair of the Mapping Science Committee of the National Research

Council and has been actively involved in spatial data handling for

more than 30 years. He is also the co-director of the NASA Affiliated Research Center. He has served as the president of the Cartographic and Geographic Information Society and as a U.S. delegate to the IGU Commission on GIS. During his career, he has

been involved in scores of GIS projects relating to a wide range of

topics, including economic development, land use changes in real

estate.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Mr. COWEN. Chairman Putnam, Ranking Member Clay, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is my privilege to testify

before the subcommittee on behalf of the National Research Council’s Mapping Science Committee. We greatly appreciate being included in today’s hearing. The Mapping Science Committee was

created in 1989 and has severed as a blue ribbon committee of experts from all levels of Government, academia, and the private sector, and we provide pro bono service to the Nation. Our committee

provides independent advice on scientific, technical, and policy matters relating to spatial data, and we promote the informed and responsible development and use of spatial data.

Since 1989, we have conducted 15 studies that relate to the way

that we can improve the way the Federal Government makes spatial data available to all aspects of society. Today we are pleased

to present to the committee copies of our most recent report, a

Geospatial Framework for the Coastal Zone: National Needs for

Coastal Mapping and Charting. This report highlights the cooperation between NOAA and the USGS to integrate elevation and

bathimetric data.

I will point out to you, Mr. Chairman, that is Tampa Bay on the

cover.

We also will soon release our comprehensive study on licensing

geographic data and services that addresses one of the most significant obstacles that we have.

It is important to address the specific issues relevant to this

hearing. Most importantly, the Mapping Science Committee believes that in the last year the Federal Government made an important midstream adjustment and the path is much better marked

than it was previously. We are pleased to see the articulation of the

distinct but related roles of the FGDC, the National Map, and

Geospatial One-Stop. This model of a three-legged stool appears to

cover the major bases in a coherent manner.

We believe that the role of FGDC is clear and that the organization has served as a valuable focal point for the coordination of

Federal activities. However, and this is important, we do not believe the FGDC has had sufficient clout to get its work done in an

expeditious manner. We have found its partnership programs to be

underfunded, too short in duration, and not sufficiently rigorous.

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We also believe that its future plans do not express the urgency required to complete their valuable work. We would also encourage

the FGDC to adopt a less Federal-centric governance structure.

A recent committee report provided an in-depth analysis of the

USGS plans for the National Map. We found the concept of the National Map to be ambitious, challenging, and very worthwhile. We

also encourage the agency to develop a more rigorous implementation plan to place a priority on building the necessary partnerships.

We are pleased to see the progress that the USGS is making on

all these fronts. The National Map is the critical data leg of the

NSDI stool; it holds great technical and institutional promises for

changing the way that the public sector assembles, integrates, and

distributes geographical data. However, the plan requires voluntary participation from partners and unfortunately, from local

and State government perspectives, there are few incentives to create these partnerships.

Geospatial One-Stop is the third leg, and it represents the one

that we still have to evaluate. The committee has not conducted

any specific studies about this. These are my personal viewpoints

about Geospatial One-Stop. First of all, and most importantly, it is

the place where agencies come together and define what their future position is on spatial data acquisitions. However, the

Geospatial One-Stop is not necessarily the place their users are

going to go to acquire spatial data or to discover about it. We believe that the marketplace will determine whether that aspect of

Geospatial One-Stop will be important or not.

I would like to also comment on the importance of partnerships

and why I believe that the absence of partnerships is a major obstacle that we face. The Census Bureau and the USGS have

worked to establish partnerships with State and local governments

such as the North Carolina One Map program. I want to point out

the National Map and its partnerships. There are no Florida GIS

operations listed as partners of the National Map, although we

know there are some excellent GIS operations going on.

I want to comment a little bit about my county, my county, Richland County, SC. It has very high resolution data spatial data. I

have a little example of this. We have excellent digital aerial photography, existing building footprints, highly accurate street center

lines, complete addresses, and all kinds of very important data for

homeland security. The unfortunate message is that this data will

not be available to the Census Bureau for the 2010 census. This

is protected by a licensing program that prohibits that data from

going to the public domain. So I think it is an egregious error to

allow that to happen.

I think I better close my statements now, and appreciate very

much being asked to be here today. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cowen follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. I want to thank all of you. This worked out clearly

well for us to get through the testimony. We have approximately

five votes that I estimate will be 40 to 45 minutes before we can

return, so we will recess for approximately 45 minutes, until such

time as we can come back from the floor. Hang loose, enjoy your

orange juice, and we will be back as soon as possible.

The subcommittee is in recess.

[Recess.]

Mr. PUTNAM. The subcommittee will reconvene. If everyone

would please take their seats. And at the appropriate time, as soon

as everybody is settled, I will recognize Mr. Clay for 5 minutes.

Mr. CLAY. I thank the chairman and thank the panel for being

here. I will start with Mr. Cowen, if we may.

In your opinion, does the Federal Government have a business

plan that is equitably sharing the cost of building and maintaining

the framework data layers of the NSDI with non-Federal levels of

Government and the private sector?

Mr. COWEN. Let me put that in the context of what I think is

the most important aspect of geospatial data, and that is the land

record parcel data. The fundamental building block for society is

the property that we own. A land parcel, as defined by your tax

map, defined by your county assessor, it provides an authoritative

source of information about who owns a piece of property, its use,

and its value.

I believe that it is important to build what we call a nationwide

multipurpose cadastre to do that. The only information we know

about what is happening on the ground about property is developed

at the local level, so local level data should be forwarded to States,

States should organize that, and States should provide that to the

Federal Government. Right now there is no incentives for doing

that at the local level.

Several years ago, 20 years ago or so, when I first served on the

Mapping Science Committee, the Federal Government never

mapped data at a high enough resolution of accuracy to have individual parcel level data, but now it is possible to do that. In the

1980, the National Research Council put forth a proposal for what

we call a national multipurpose cadastre, and it called for a very

strong role by Federal Government to organize the information

that we are talking about. We think it is time to look at that again

and find out should the Federal Government be investing in supporting the local level data that is needed for a nationwide 911 system. When you call for an ambulance, that ambulance should be

able to find your house. Only the local government people have

that information.

When the census wants to do its 2010 update, shouldn’t it be

able to just go grab the most recent local level data? We are spending $320 million, the Census Bureau is, working with every county

in the United States to get the best set of street center line for the

2010 census. We believe that the Federal Government should help

subsidize local government so that they can use the data at the

local level. States can take that data and do such things as equalization of educational finance. Shouldn’t we know the value of property throughout a whole State so that we can equitably finance

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local education? Things like Leave No Child Behind require that

kind of information.

So the answer to your question, sir, is no, I don’t think the Federal Government is doing the right thing.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that comprehensive answer.

Mr. Corle, let me go to you. Are Federal agencies engaging in

geospatial data collection efforts that could be better conducted by

the private sector? And what kinds of geospatial activities would be

best undertaken by the private sector?

Mr. CORLE. Ranking Member Clay, the Federal agencies clearly

have a role in the data collection in this whole area, going back to

Lewis and Clark. I mean, there is a long history of this. So the

question I think in terms of the evolution of technology and what

the private sector role is and I think the NGA folks earlier today

indicated that they have now begun to outsource some of their

needs to the private sector.

Part of our role as a trade association is really looking at how

we can support the growth of our industry’s capabilities to meet

these growing needs. And as the capability develops and as the industry grows, you achieve economies of scale that lower the cost

and make this technology more ubiquitous and cheaper to address

protecting property and saving lives.

So it is really a long-term kind of a transition of government

agencies outsourcing capability, industry developing capability, and

ultimately economies of scale lowering the cost of this technology.

So it is a long-term process, but clearly Federal agencies are involved in some of this, but it is moving in the right direction.

Mr. CLAY. Thank you for that response.

Mr. Nagy, what incentives could the Federal Government use to

encourage States to better coordinate their geospatial investments

with the Federal Government?

Mr. NAGY. There are probably a couple answers to that. One, we

can take a look at some of the traditional methods, of incentives

of using dollars to provide to cost shares, as an example for equitable cost shares for data production in local government and in

State government and in the development of applications. There

are other programs where that kind of mechanism has been used

by Federal Government as an incentive, to withhold or to provide

dollars for cost shares. An awful lot of public funds are being expended to build local and State data systems, and it is not always

clear in where the Federa share is coming from, and they could

provide for some additional dollars to support that.

The other is relevancy. And I think that when we actually see

vertical integration between local data, State data, local regional

data, and Federal Government and see local investments in aerial

photography, street center line data showing up on a Federal product that actually has relevance back to a local ,government such as

a flood insurance rate map or for other emergency management

purposes, then there is an incentive for the local community to actually share that data, because it means something to them in the

end. So that joint ownership of that entire product is very important as an incentive, I think, for sharing data and working on systems together.

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Mr. CLAY. I thank you for your response. I think you and Dr.

Cowen make the point that some of this data collection could be

done in a more inexpensive way and a more efficient manner if

there was better coordination. So I thank you both.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Clay.

Mr. Nagy, I want to followup on that. We all appear to be in

agreement State and locals are doing an awful lot of this. What is

the level of maturity at the State and local level of their GIS information?

Mr. NAGY. There are pockets of maturity that are very advanced,

especially in metropolitan areas, especially in areas where there

have been long coordination programs established within States.

There are pockets of maturity where there has been a lot of involvement from all the stakeholders, and that includes local government, the private sector, academia, State government, and the

Federal Government as well.

The business case for organizing data within States is increasing,

and what I am seeing is that a lot of organizations within States

are making their own business cases for developing their own

State-based NSDIs. And I think part of what we are seeing is the

maturity of the coordination efforts and the characteristics that are

described in the exhibit here that show how important it is to have

an authority for coordinating GIS, some sustained dollars involved

in GIS, and also some of these other characteristics, as well lend

itself to the maturity we are seeing.

I think one thing we don’t see as often is many of the Federal

organizations participating in the development of those systems,

and that is one thing that we could actually suggest, is that more

Federal organizations participate and become involved in the planning for those systems.

Mr. PUTNAM. Could you elaborate on that? Let us name names.

Which department is doing a good job of coordinating and which

ones are; which ones ought to be?

Mr. NAGY. I can base some of those experiences on mine in North

Carolina. What is effective within States is when we are working

on the National Map program, where there is a liaison from the

National Map that is actually stationed within the State that is

working with us every single day on initiatives that bring

geospatial data programs together between the Federal programs

and the State programs and the local programs. That is a USGS

representative. We would invite other Federal organizations to do

the same and to work closely with us on developing those systems.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Cowen, is that the point that you are trying to

make in your slide presentation which highlighted God’s country in

Florida? The USGS map from space, or someplace close to it, just

about as useful, and the other one is Mapquest, that brings you

straight into it, is that the point that you were trying to make?

Mr. COWEN. That is exactly the point I am trying to make, sir.

It is clear that we have Web-based technology like Mapquest.

Mapquest was built on Census Bureau data and it expanded upon

that. It is time for the Census Bureau to work directly with local

governments and make sure that we have current and up-to-date

data. The USGS National Map program is a voluntary program;

State and local governments have to raise their hand and say we

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wish to submit our data. I don’t believe that this is any way to do

business. I think we can’t rely on voluntary participation, we have

to have a series of carrots and sticks that are going to make the

National Map truly comprehensive. I think it is a real shame. We

are missing the type of data that local government is collecting.

A report that we did on the National Map pushed forward a scenario that said if everybody worked together nicely, when we had

to do the 2010 census, all you would do is go grab the street center

lines and addresses from the National Map. We should have a coordinated program, and this was called for in 1980 by a National

Research Council Committee, active role by the Federal Government to incorporate local governments organized at the State level

and feeding the data up. And if you could do it in 1980, we certainly could do it today.

Mr. PUTNAM. OK, you triggered two paths here. Mapquest, the

basis of Mapquest is census data?

Mr. COWEN. Originally it was based on the Tiger data files. Now,

the Census Bureau starts with a process of they only have a decennial interest, right? So Mapquest started with taking the Tiger

data and saying that this isn’t positionally accurate, it is out of

date, so we are going to work out arrangements to track transactions at local government. But the fundamental building block

was an initiative by the Census Bureau.

Mr. PUTNAM. The National Map is voluntary. What carrots and

sticks do you suggest to make it comprehensive and complete?

Mr. COWEN. Our Mapping Science Committee met last week and

we heard about a very interesting program that the Department of

Transportation put together. They said we need a comprehensive

data base of all of the pressurized natural gas lines in the country.

Now, natural gas lines are owned by local utility companies. So

how does the Federal Government encourage local utility companies to provide that data? Well, they said you will do it in 6

months, you will do it in any format you have, a paper map or anything else, and if you don’t do it, we will fine you $1 million. It got

done.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is the stick.

Mr. COWEN. That was a pretty good stick.

Mr. PUTNAM. What is the carrot?

Mr. COWEN. Well, the carrot was in some cases a local utility

company just had a paper map that showed where its lines were.

Well, they submitted that and, in fact, the Department of Transportation then digitized that, made that into a GIS data base and

gave it back to them. So they got some value added as a result of

that. The problem with that, just take that little example, natural

gas pipelines in the United States. Shouldn’t that all be on a common base map? Shouldn’t we have high resolution photography so

we know exactly where those things are placed? Shouldn’t we know

how those things relate to other types of our infrastructure? We

don’t have this common base for this country, what we call framework data that FGDC has talked about. We ought to build out that

framework data, and the Federal Government should help do that.

Mr. PUTNAM. What is the data framework for the National Map?

What are the stated parameters for the National Map? The datums

that could be incorporated into it could be endless, I would think.

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Mr. COWEN. They are endless. They are absolutely endless. But

there is something that we call framework data. If everyone has

the same framework, which would include a high resolution aerial

photograph—I included that example in there. That is not a high

resolution aerial photograph. In my county, I can show you one-foot

pixels, I can show you the footprint of every building. I know that

my street center line falls in the right location. So we need what

we call digital oriphal photography so we have a high resolution

base so the Census Bureau can put its streets in the right place

and make sure that they fall not in terms of somebody’s property,

but on the right-of-way. So we need that. We need a high resolution topography data base, and FEMA has worked hard on that.

Zsolt didn’t talk about the program that FEMA has in terms of providing what we call lidar data, very high resolution digital elevation data. In your own State, it is not adequate to have 10-foot

or 20-foot contour lines, you need half a foot contour lines. If the

east coast of Florida gets hit by a hurricane, you would like to

know exactly where that flood is going to go and what property is

going to be impacted, the value of that property that is going to be

impacted by that.

So it calls for a series of framework data, and then other people

can put their layers together with that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Nagy.

Mr. NAGY. In terms of the implementation of those framework

data, those are very, very critical. When we get into settings with

local governments and when they are looking at building their GIS

systems to meet their local business requirements on a day in and

day out basis, they are looking at, easily, 16 to 20 different themes

of data that are important for them, everything from voting district

boundaries to infrastructure and water and sewer; and they are

building those for their own purposes.

One huge objective is to put the framework data sets in place,

into a seamless base map upon which all local governments can

build their data so that those data can be more easily shared

across the board to serve all applications, whether it is for economic development or homeland security, emergency preparedness,

or conservation and planning exercises.

Mr. PUTNAM. For all of you, what is the appropriate agency or

department to head up this effort? If you are looking for accountability, if you are looking for a clear sense of direction about where

we ought to be going, who ought to be in charge?

Mr. COWEN. I would volunteer that if you look at the OMB Circular A–16, it defines custodial responsibility. It specifies which

agencies should be responsible for different layers of the framework

data. I think it is pretty clear. I mean, the USGS, I think, has the

lead role for coordination of those activities, and setting up that

framework and getting it done, and I think the National Map provides the umbrella to put all that together. I mean, A–16 spells it

out pretty directly.

Mr. PUTNAM. Anyone else?

Mr. PALATIELLO. Mr. Chairman, my organization has been looking at this issue for a great number of years, and I think we have

come to the same conclusion or are narrowing our options to the

same conclusion I think that you may be coming to, and that is

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that it has to be at OMB, for accountability reasons and primarily

for budgetary reasons.

I have here a 1973 report that OMB did, the most comprehensive

governmentwide study of Federal, what they called then, mapping,

charting, geodesy and surveying. I have loaned this to your staff.

They recommended the creation of a single Federal surveying and

mapping administration in 1973. The model that they used is what

is now NGA. NGA was NIMA, and before NIMA it was the Defense

Mapping Agency. The Defense Mapping Agency was a consolidation

of very disparate mapping activities spread among a big part of the

Department of Defense and the intelligence community, and there

was a consolidation into a single agency. And that model is what

OMB recommended in 1973. Unfortunately, President Nixon had to

leave office and didn’t have a chance to implement this, but this

was on his desk the day he resigned.

Now, the creation of a new Federal administration, a new agency, I don’t think, our organization does not think, it works anymore, and the reason is that we talk a lot about duplication and

redundancy, but there is a lot of very special purpose, single-purpose mapping and geospatial data collection that is done by agencies, and some duplication and redundancy is unavoidable. And in

order to fulfill each individual agency’s mission, it is going to have

to have its own program and its own activities in the geospatial

area. So trying to have a one-size-fits-all agency, I don’t think

works.

The idea, though, of having a stronger traffic cop in OMB, I believe does work. Let the agencies still have their own missions and

program, but right now I would respectfully disagree with Dr.

Cowen. We do not believe A–16 works because there is no enforcement. And I think you heard testimony here today that steps are

being made in the right direction, but, for example, I have been

very disappointed that both the staff of Geospatial One-Stop and

the staff of FGDC are located in Reston at the USGS. To me, that

sends a message across the Government. It is a message that this

is not a high level OMB activity that everybody has to pay attention to. I think it sends a signal that is a USGS program, and if

we can play nice with them, that is fine, but we have our own mission to carry out.

So putting it in any individual agency, whether you try to put

it in DHS or you try to put it in USGS, or any of the current operational agencies, I think would be a mistake, and I think that OMB

is the place to do it, either through some position or, as you suggested, some coordination with a geographic information officer in

each agency. But there has to be some (a) leadership and (b) some

accountability and relationship to the budget process to make this

work, and, to me, OMB is the place.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Schell.

Mr. SCHELL. I have to agree with that, but for a different reason,

and one that I tried to express before. This issue can no longer be

looked at as simply a geographic information issue. You have

issues that relate to the information technology infrastructure of

the Nation, issues of system architecture. I think where you see

some of the most important activity going on in agencies that are

concerned with spatial information, like in Homeland Security

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there is an enterprise architecture effort underway. The same is

true in the DOD, which probably has more use of spatial information than anyone else. You find that spatial information becomes

a really vital aspect of enterprise architecture.

Now, I think that one of the problems we have had so far is that

the National Spatial Data Infrastructure has been under the control, you might say, of organizations that have been primarily concerned with geography. It is not geography, and it is not even

framework data; it has to do with spatial information and the way

spatial information is used within enterprise architectures, it is integral to it. Everything about the Web, the spatial Web, the semantic Web, these are things that are embracing information technology issues, and I believe that if we have a central—I believe you

are referring to the fact that OMB is in a position to provide some

supervision over information technology architecture in the Government in general—if that is the case, then I see there is no other

location within the Government to deal with this.

I think people don’t understand the incredible significance of spatial information in terms of the way the whole information infrastructure is being evolved. It is not just geospatial, it is much more

general. So it needs to be in a location where the issue is management, and not simply a question of figuring out issues that relate

specifically to geography.

Mr. PUTNAM. I am trying to digest all that.

Mr. SCHELL. Well, it is a big thing to digest, but I will tell you,

from where I sit, running a private sector consortium that deals

with major industry all over the country, what I see is that our industrial base is critically dependent on spatial information. Almost

any major corporation you go to, you will find that there is a major

dependence on spatial information one way or another. Look at

utilities; look at all your distribution and logistical organizations.

You find that our economy runs to a very great extent on the integration of spatial information with enterprise architectures. We are

talking about, in a way, in our national spatial data infrastructure,

of enfranchising the whole commercial sector, and you are talking

about what is turning into one of the most important management

approaches within the commercial sector of this country.

And one of the issues that has been brought up today is that the

Government is depending more and more on the commercial sector

for its spatial data resources. Well, the commercial sector is ubiquitous, and it is doing more in the area of developing and using

and processing spatial information than the Government will ever

do. So you have to look at this as quite literally a management

issue, and you have to have ways of assessing how much activity

there is in the area of the development use and general, you might

say, management efficiencies involved in using spatial information,

and the Government becomes, you know, a special case of that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me jump to the private sector. One of the inefficiencies that was identified in the Federal Government is the situation where the same geospatial data is being purchased by a number of different agencies at varying prices. Obviously, that might

actually be beneficial to the vendor community. So help walk me

through where you see the first bite of the apple in efficiencies are

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and how that will help the public sector save money and help the

private sector as well.

Mr. Palatiello.

Mr. PALATIELLO. A very good example, Mr. Chairman. This came

up when GAO did a focus group session with my membership, and

one of my members brought to GAO’s attention the fact that about

a half dozen different Federal agencies were mapping Mobile Bay,

AL at the same time in the same year. Now, again, some of that

you can shake your head at and say that is terrible. Part of it is

unavoidable. For example, if one agency has a lower resolution,

smaller scale mapping requirement and another has a higher resolution, larger scape mapping requirement, the latter can be aggregated to fit the former, but you can’t go the other way technically,

so there are reasons why two people would need to map the same

area at the same time at two different scales and resolutions.

But the fact of the matter is you had five or six different agencies

mapping the same area at the same time, and one would say, well,

you guys in the private sector, if those were all contractors doing

it, you benefited from that. But think of it this way. When is the

Federal Government going to revisit Mobile Bay? It is probably

going to be 10 or 15 years. If we had taken that money that we

spent in 1 year and duplicated it and remapped and instead revisited over a period of years, that would be in the better interest of

the taxpayers. The business would still be there for the private

companies to do the work for the agencies, but it would be a sounder investment by spreading it over time and revisiting.

Remember that there is some mapping data that is somewhat

static and can be used over time, but also keep in mind that every

time a new road is built, every time a new house is built, every

time somebody goes to the courthouse and files a survey plat for

a new subdivision, the geography of this country has changed.

There are thousands of those transactions that happen in courthouses in the 3,200 counties of this country every single day. So

one of the biggest mistakes that is made with GIS, particularly at

the local government level, is they will make an investment in the

first year and say we have this great system, and then they don’t

budget for maintaining it over time and the data gets stale and the

utility of that GIS goes down. So if you spread that investment

over time and keep the data fresh and, again, collect it once, use

it many times, and then go back in the next year and collect it

again, that is more efficient than five or six agencies mapping the

same area at the same time.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does the technical capacity exist under Mr. Schell’s

framework that it would automatically update itself, it would automatically make itself accurate every time there is a property transaction? I mean, obviously you have to physically take the picture

to see movements of sandbars in Mobile Bay, but the other pieces

of the puzzle, an extension of a natural gas pipeline, the construction of a new transmission line, does the capacity exist for that to

automatically correct itself without having to reinvent the wheel,

so to speak?

Mr. Schell.

Mr. SCHELL. The technology exists, it is a question of your priorities as to whether or not you are going to implement that in a

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given situation. These things happen now. The situation you just

described happens now in many places. It is a question of whether

or not you have software architectures that are capable of integrating the various data sets, for example, a base data set and then

a set of changed data that might be, in fact, collected with a different system, perhaps a more modern system, perhaps different

technology, and then merging the two. The technology does exist.

Again, my message is that the priorities need to be set so that we

can look more at the technology. I don’t mean less at the data, but

more at the technologies that enable us to automate some of these

processes, because in automating some of these processes, what you

can do is eliminate some of the costs in building multiple versions

of the same data set.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Palatiello, did you have a comment on this?

Mr. PALATIELLO. There are not in the commercial sector artificial

intelligence systems where you can do what you described without

human hands touching it and doing some processing to do the

change detection. It is highly automated, and your second generation map is going to be much less expensive than your first generation map because you don’t have to go and remap every feature,

you just map the changes. But there is still a professional service

involved in working with that data to identify those areas that

have changed from time A to time B.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Cowen.

Mr. COWEN. Yes. One of the things that we in universities do is

look at cutting-edge research, and that has changed with respect

to the quality of the data that is being provided now in the private

sector. In this past year I had a master’s thesis that looked at what

we call digital globe data, which is satellite data of basically twofoot resolution, and it said could we look across our county and

identify by using commercial satellite data where new roads and

where new houses have been constructed, and the answer is yes,

we can, because we have basically 2-foot type resolution.

So that means that you don’t have to—a lot of money is spent

on aerial photography missions that cover the entire county again,

when in fact we know all we are really interested in is where have

the changes taken place. So, therefore, if you can identify where

the changes are, even if you have to go out and visit those things

in person, there are ways to identify where the changes are taking

place and then to trap those kinds of transactions. And, of course,

the individual transactions take place at the courthouse, but clearly, my little example there is every developer is required to do a

digital submission of any planned subdivision. Now, the beauty of

that is the planned subdivision is in the data base. I have an example there that shows you where planned roads are. Well, again, you

are on a constructionsite, there is a new house being built, and you

have an accident. In most 911 systems, the ambulance can’t find

that address. In this system, with digital submission of the plans—

and that was just county government requiring that of the developers to do this; you won’t get permission for your new development plans, your new roads or other type of utilities unless you

submit things digitally to us, and that has happened. So then you

trap those transactions even before they are constructed. I mean,

it is happening out there in local government.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Final comments before we wrap up. We will start

with Mr. Nagy. Anything that you would like to leave with the subcommittee that you were not asked or you would like to complete

a thought, perhaps.

Mr. NAGY. Well, for the past few years, maybe a decade or so,

we have been working off of this notion of discovering data for our

business applications and our GIS systems and such, and I think

we are transitioned to a point where, because of many other business requirements that transcend an entire region, an entire State,

an entire country, we need to be at a point where we have reliable

data that is in place across the country, and that is for those seven

or eight framework data sets, and probably another 20 data sets

as well. In terms of maturity, there are many haves out there; we

also have many have-nots. And then we also have what I call the

half-nots, which are the folks that are in between that are able to

participate to a certain extent, but not completely.

So we have to solve for the complete picture and we have to solve

at the local level, and it has to include Federal participation. Local

government consortia and State government consortia need to have

an easy way to get to Federal Government to negotiate things like

equitable cost shares or talk about what the payback is for participating in sharing of data and such, such as the FEMA map or the

USGS National Map, because it really is relevant for local, States,

and Federal groups altogether.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Corle.

Mr. CORLE. I would just make a brief comment. I think I certainly agree with many of the comments that have been made here

today in terms of the role of the private sector and certainly the

role of Government. I would like to suggest, however, that we have

talked about the stick, and certainly OMB, as a coordinating body,

there is a lot of merit to taking a look at what their role would be

in coordinating at the Federal level. I think that one of the things

that our industry association has worked on with industry, with

our member companies, is looking at the carrot aspect of it, and a

funding program that would provide resources on a cost-shared

basis over a sustained period of time, along the lines of mapping

and doing it on a sustainable basis that would develop this sort of

national level capability.

So our view of the world would be to first address the coordination and the issue that your hearing today is focused on, and then

second of all would be, in the medium to longer term would be to

create a national Federal funding program that would require

standards and a series of other requirements that communities

could then make those investments that would support Federal requirements. For instance, the Secret Service is tasked with providing security at national events. They are going to be supporting the

conventions in Boston and New York this year; they were in Salt

Lake; they go to New Orleans. So there are a number of activities

that the Federal Government is involved in, and certainly since

September 11, that building this national capability will support

those kinds of activities. And so from a high level perspective, it

is really creating that kind of partnership, that Federal funding incentive, the OMB stick that would kind of transform these relationships so that we can build this national capability.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Palatiello.

Mr. PALATIELLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three points I would

like to highlight. One is in terms of intergovernmental partnerships, I think there are some best practices models that would be

worth the committee’s attention. One is the National Map. The

USGS, over the years, with their digital ortho program and the National Map, have had two ways to provide, in some respects, both

a carrot and a stick, and that is they do what they call innovative

partnerships and what they call joint funding agreements. A joint

funding agreement is when a State brings money to the USGS and

says we will partner with you and cost-share the mapping of our

State, and the State agrees to do it to the USGS standards so that

it contributes to the National Map.

The innovative partnerships is basically a grant, it is when Federal money goes to the State along the same lines. Then the mapping will be done to USGS standards and it ends up going in the

National Map.

The problem is that Congress has not provided sufficient funds

for USGS to meet the demand of what they are getting from the

States. So the demand is out there, but the seed money from the

Federal Government has not been sufficiently appropriated.

The second is NOAA has a Coastal Services Center in Charleston, SC, where they will do a data buy and they will provide the

geospatial data to the States in a coastal zone and work with them

to have the data they need for permitting and infrastructure maintenance, environmental management, and all the other applications

that are necessary in a coastal zone.

And the third was a program that is now gone, but it was called

the National Aerial Photography Program [NAPP], and, again, the

USGS coordinated that; there was an interagency coordinating

committee. Their goal was to refly the entire United States on a

7-year cycle, and they set priorities based on who came to the table

with funding, whether it was other Federal agencies or State and

local government. When sufficient money came to the table to do

your State, it got done. But, again, that was the incentive, that was

the carrot, if you helped pay for it, you got to the top of the line.

Two final things. One is as long as we have been in this business, there is still not a clear definition of the respective roles of

all of the parties and all the stakeholders. You heard it today about

Federal, State, and local on an intergovernmental basis, and there

still is not a good definition of roles and responsibilities on the part

of the Federal Government with regard to the role of the private

sector. The Government is still trying to do too many things that

are best left to the private sector.

And the final thought that I would leave with you, and perhaps

Mr. Schell is the expert and can elaborate on this more than I, but

I am convinced that the challenges and the obstacles that we have,

they are political, they are bureaucratic challenges, they are not

technical challenges. The technology in this community is extraordinary. For example, interoperability is not a technical issue, it is

a political and administrative issue.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Schell and Dr. Cowen quickly?

Mr. SCHELL. I appreciate the lead-in, because I think you are absolutely right in mentioning that it is policy issues, it is not techVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:56 Jan 15, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00130 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\97132.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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nology issues which are our barrier. Technology exists right now to

do things like compilation of heterogenous data sets, the integration of diverse data sets, the aggregation of all kinds of diverse

data sets, fusion of data sets, change detection, I mean, you name

it. You really need to take a tour of some of the advanced laboratories in some of our integrators and advanced government laboratories to see the magic that they can do.

Now, the issue really has to do with the way these techniques

are applied, and standards are what make these techniques applicable broadly across our national resources. I would argue that it

would be far less expensive for us to create a policy to apply standards in terms of aggregating existing data sets consistently across

our national infrastructure than it would be to continue to develop

new data resources. We have data of all kinds; there is data everywhere. The biggest problem is that the systems that create the

data sets can’t communicate, and, therefore, two data sets that represent adjacent areas can’t, in effect, be put together because the

software that is creating them is simply incompatible.

The technology exists right now so that—shall I say the standards exist right now so that if the standards were applied uniformly across our country, we would be able to reduce the cost of

compiling some of these national data sets dramatically, and the

question is why aren’t the standards applied. That is what I tried

to say before. We don’t have a policy at the top. We don’t have a

national policy that says that the technology standards have to be

applied consistently. Now, this is where I think the FGDC has a

real opportunity. You know, we usually think of the FGDC as having a mandate for data standards. In fact, it has a mandate also

for best practices, and standards for technology fall under that.

And I think, again, that it is that kind of approach we should take

within the FGDC, with the leadership that we were talking about

before, central national leadership that related to the building of

an information infrastructure with consistent standards, I think we

would go a long way to solving our problems. That is purely a matter of policy and the will to do it.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Cowen.

Mr. COWEN. First of all, let me thank you very much for inviting

me today. I have devoted my life to this business, and this is the

highlight of it, so thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Mr. COWEN. I guess my takeaway message is if it is important,

it shouldn’t be voluntary. That is no way to do business. A–16 is

there; it should have OMB enforcement behind it. So I think the

structure is there, we have just got to enforce it. Maybe you need

standards police or whatever we need. That needs to be done.

The other comment I would like to make, put my academic hat

on for just a moment here, I am the chair of a geography department. The Department of Labor has identified geotechnology, along

with nanotechnology and biotechnology, as the hottest labor market

issues in this country. We are going to face a labor market shortage, and I know that President Bush has an initiative to try to address some of those issues, and I think it would be remiss of me

not to have at least concluded with the fact that we need to train

the next generation of the labor force.

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Thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

Before we adjourn, I want to thank all of our witnesses from both

panels for your participation. I appreciate your willingness to share

your lifetime of knowledge and experience and thoughts with us

today.

I also want to thank Mr. Clay for his participation.

While the progress we have made toward the development of

standards and toward collaboration on the issue of collection and

dissemination of geospatial data is encouraging, we have much

work yet to complete. Because oversight is not as stringent as it

should be, we still have agencies acting unilaterally to collect and

maintain duplicative data and systems, resulting in costly

redundancies.

Part of the problem is logistical; the infrastructure for efficient

information sharing is not yet complete. But as has been pointed

out, a great deal of it is cultural. Agencies are not forthcoming on

their GIS expenditures because they have little or no incentive to

coordinate with sister agencies. In fact, they have disincentive: a

fear of losing funding for future years. The fact that agencies are

slipping their projects under OMB’s radar is in itself disturbing.

We need to institute more stringent oversight to ensure that redundant GIS investments are identified and corrected. OMB must be

prepared to withhold funding approval and allocation for projects

that are determined to be redundant and fail to meet the requirements of a review process.

I believe OMB is adding tools and strategies to address the issue

identified by GAO at this hearing, and perhaps with the addition

of a central figure responsible for GIS coordination or some similar

strategy, more efficient investment and information sharing will

become a reality. I believe that we are on the right track and that

these efforts will lead to significant cost savings as this work advances.

In the event that there may be additional questions that we did

not have time for today, the record shall remain open for 2 weeks

for submitted questions and answers.

I particularly want to thank the second panel for your patience

with our voting schedule. We appreciate your efforts.

And with that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

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