Biden signs GSA tech accountability bill into law
The General Services Administration will be required to more thoroughly account for many of its technology projects under legislation that became law this week.
The GSA Technology Accountability Act, signed by President Joe Biden on Monday, requires the agency’s administrator to deliver a yearly report to Congress that details each project funded by the Federal Citizen Services Fund and others that come via the Acquisition Services Fund.
The FCSF funds programs that provide shared digital services across the federal government, while the ASF uses reimbursable revenue generated from seven business portfolios, one of which is Technology Transformation Services.
The bill from Reps. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., calls for GSA’s report to Congress to include a laundry list of items about tech projects, including how they are funded, a detailed explanation of the project and the costs associated with them.
In a March press release announcing the introduction of the bill, Sessions said the impetus for the legislation was a GSA Office of Inspector General report that found that the agency misled customers about the compliance of Login.gov — the single sign-on platform provided by TTS — with digital identity standards. Sessions, who chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations and the Federal Workforce, opened an investigation into the matter.
The result of that probe was the bill, which Sessions said at the time was “aimed at providing answers to basic questions: what projects is TTS working on, how much do they cost, how much revenue do they bring in, and are agencies getting what they paid for when working with TTS?”
The legislation, Sessions added, would “allow the Oversight Committee to conduct appropriate oversight, rein in what for too long has been an unaccountable organization that seemingly thought it could play by its own rules, and protect both GSA agency customers and American taxpayers.”
GSA leaders have defended Login.gov and touted it as a prime example of the agency taking on transformative tech projects and implementing them across the federal enterprise. Dave Shive, GSA’s longtime chief information officer, said during ACT-IAC’s Imagine Nation ELC conference in Hershey, Pa., in October that the U.S. government is viewed globally as the leader in digital transformation at scale based on projects of that kind.
“There are a few countries out there that are getting it right, you know — Estonia, Singapore, places like that,” Shive said. “But as the facilitators surveyed all of these heads of these transformation entities all around the world … there was one country that was getting it right at scale. And that country is the United States.”
