Date: 2002-04-10
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman. the Digital Tech Corps Act of 2002 will help the Federal Government do a better job managing complex information technology projects. It sets up an exchange program that will allow Federal information technology managers to be detailed to the private sector. hightech companies. and vice versa. The tech corps bill without this amendment will improve the skills of Federal IT managers by exposing them to cuttingedge management practices in the private sector and help Federal agencies recruit and retain talented IT managers by offering them a valuable career development tool. something that is not available to them today when we risk losing half of our key information technology workers in the government over the next 5 years. The bill will allow private sector IT managers to apply their skills to challenging information technology problems at Federal agencies. The amendment. while wellintentioned. can scuttle this whole program. It will prohibit private sector detailees from having access to proprietary information submitted to Federal agencies by the private sector. This will prevent them in many cases from working on virtually any major information technology programs involving private sector entities. which is exactly where they are the most needed. After the markups in both the Committee on Government Reform and the Committee on the Judiciary. the tech corps has very strong protection from proprietary commercial information. including a lifetime ban against disclosure with criminal penalties. something that existing government contractors and something that existing Federal employees do not even have. We have gone to the mat on this to ensure there will be no violations. Plus. you have to trust the Federal managers to make the right call in terms of what these detailees are going to be exposed to. One key thing to keep in mind about this amendment is that it purports to protect the nonpublic information of other companies. If concerns about the tech corps protection of proprietary information were wellfounded. though. as the gentleman from Indiana pointed out. all the major hightech companies that do business with the Federal Government would be opposed to this. They like this bill the way it is. They oppose this amendment. The hightech community strongly supports this bill. Indeed. Harris Miller. the President of the Information Technology Association of America. which is composed of 500 small. medium. and large technology companies. .says that the improved private sector training communication fostered by the tech corps will be a winwin for government and industry. ITAA believes that the bill. as revised. provides additional safeguards while still maintaining the attractiveness of the exchange program. Let us go through these ethics provisions for a minute. The strong ethics and revolving door protections that are currently in the bill include the Hatch Act. revolving door laws that ban lobbying former agencies. a lifetime ban on helping the private sector with matters worked on while on the detail. a ban from working on matters that af-. feet personnel or employers financial interests. a ban on acting as a lobbyist while on the detail. something that was addressed in an earlier concern after an article in the Wall Street Journal. a ban on receiving anything of value to influence an official act. a ban on representing private sector clients in front of agencies. a ban on disclosure of procurement information. plus felony penalties under the law. up to 5 years imprisonment and up to $50.000 in fines. for violations. The ethics provisions also include a lifetime ban on disclosing. publishing. divulging. or making known any trade secrets. business processes. operations. styles of work. statistics and data. and income profit or loss information of any other company. exactly the concerns raised from my friend. the gentleman from California. We go to a lifetime prohibition with criminal penalties. Interestingly. Federal employees. from the day they leave the Federal Government. can reveal all of this information. including trade secrets. They are not barred. The amendment does not touch them. If the concerns in this amendment are really about protecting nonpublic information. one would really think it might address both Federal employees. tech corps detailees. and government contractors. But I think it ends up gutting the bill. This amendment also proposes to create a new bureaucracy for governmentwide IT training. No hearings on this broadbased effort have ever been held. although I will tell the gentleman from Texas I think it is a good idea and I tend to support it. and although I have indicated my willingness to work with the sponsors to try to bring this legislation to fruition. This portion of the amendment advocates having the Office of Personnel Management essentially create and control a new continuing education type of IT training. Janet Barnes. the chief information officer of OPM. testified at a technology and procurement hearing on March 21. and she said. "What we are really trying to do is establish one stop. so there is a common place all Federal Government workers can go to access some of the best training programs already in existence. To the extent we need to. we can create new ones. but we really think there are a lot of good training programs already available. "For IT employees. we are developing our road maps and detailed task plans. Part of every one of our 24 egovernment initiatives is a communication. education. and training module." One of the problems is the first thing agencies cut when their budgets are on the chopping block is training. We have additional legislation we have proposed that will take money out of the GSA schedules and other schedules and put it into mandatory training. because that is where we are falling behind. We have outstanding Federal employees. but they need to .be continuously trained.