Update: Jan. 16

The House passed the Federal CIO Authorization Act by voice vote Jan. 15.

The legislation now moves on to the Senate, which has stood largely in deadlock as Democratic senators have refused to agree to votes on legislation that does not relate to funding and reopening the federal government.

Original Article:

Efforts to codify and elevate the federal government’s top IT position were bolstered Jan. 4 as Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Robin Kelly, D-Ill., reintroduced legislation that would make the federal chief information officer a presidential appointee that reports directly to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The legislation would also codify the federal chief information security officer as a presidential appointee reporting to the CIO.

“Reauthorizing and codifying the roles of the federal CIO and CISO will help streamline government IT processes and advance modernization efforts to bring government into the 21st century. This commonsense, bipartisan legislation to increase government effectiveness, efficiency and responsiveness unanimously passed the House during the 115th Congress; we need to get this done in the 116th Congress," said Kelly.

Though a previous iteration of the bill passed the House in November 2018, it was not taken up by the Senate prior to the start of the new Congress, therefore requiring lawmakers to resubmit the legislation.

“Every single minute of every single day, hackers are trying to steal Americans’ information. From credit card numbers, to Social Security numbers, our personal information is targeted by bad actors around the globe. Americans should be able to trust their government to keep their information safe,” said Hurd.

“This bill helps keep the vast information stored by the federal government secure from hackers by making clear that the federal CIO is in charge of the security of our data across the government. I am proud to introduce this bill with my friend Rep. Robin Kelly so we can continue to work toward finally catching our federal government up with the 21st century.”

Jessie Bur covers federal IT and management.

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