Much of the federal government’s information technology (IT) infrastructure is woefully outdated. Federal entities spend nearly 80 percent of their total IT budgets on maintaining aging, insecure, and expensive systems. Obsolete technology systems are inefficient and especially susceptible to cyberattacks and put citizens’ personal information at risk.
TechNet supports reauthorization of the Modernizing Government Technology Act (MGT Act) to allow for continued improvement of federal information systems. Congress should appropriate the full funding required for the Technology Modernization Fund, which facilitates the development of inter-agency or federal government-wide strategies to better manage cybersecurity risk and manage the hardware and software technical debt of federal agencies. Congress should require agencies to inventory the technology they use, identify a plan to either replace or mitigate the risk posed by equipment at the end of its lifecycle, and then prioritize use of the flexibility afforded by the MGT Act to eliminate products and services that are beyond their supported lifecycle. Congress should also equip federal agencies with the resources needed to implement the Cloud Smart strategy in addition to remaining committed to procuring commercial services, products, and best practices to realize government technology modernization more efficiently.
TechNet supports improvements to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) to ensure the federal government can acquire advanced secure cloud solutions products efficiently. We support increasing funding for FedRAMP, ensuring its authorization pipelines authorize AI solutions, and driving harmonization between civilian and Department of Defense cloud authorization regimes. We support FedRAMP providing greater transparency for applicants to know the status of their review, increased investment in Program Management Office (PMO) staff and a machine-readable process, where appropriate, to ensure timely reviews and the removal of duplicative review processes between FedRAMP and authorizing agencies. FedRAMP should also provide greater clarity to Cloud Service Providers on how to best meet the requirements to avoid conflicting guidance between the PMO, agency sponsors, or a third-party assessment organization (3PAO).
Modernizing the federal procurement process is also critical to acquiring, testing, and implementing cutting-edge technologies. The federal government should be building upon programs like the MGT Act and FedRAMP by creating technology-focused acquisition trainings and incentivizing startups to compete in the federal marketplace. In addition, clarifying requirements and exempting non-threatening products, especially related to proposals to secure the federal supply chain, will streamline procurement and reduce unnecessary delays for federal contractors.
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