April 13, 2016

Committee on Oversight and Government Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.  20515

Dear Representative,

On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I ask you to support the Making Electronic Government Accountable By Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act of 2016 (MEGABYTE Act of 2016) during your markup consideration on April 14, 2016.

The federal government spends more than $80 billion annually on information technology (IT), which means that every dollar should be accounted for, particularly the purchase and use of software licenses.  In May 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that highlighted chronic mismanagement and missed opportunities to save money on software purchases.  In an April 2015 report, GAO recommended that all agencies should improve software license management in order to achieve “hundreds of millions of dollars in government-wide savings.”

The MEGABYTE Act of 2016 continues the important work begun by this committee’s consideration and passage of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) by requiring the director of the Office of Management and Budget to issue a directive on software license management.   The bill would require federal agencies to establish a comprehensive inventory of 80 percent of software license spending, as well as enterprise licenses; track and maintain software licenses in order to improve the agency’s software life cycle management; analyze software use; provide training to employees on software license management; and, establish goals for agency software license management.

By understanding each agency’s software needs and implementing software inventory optimization, chief information officers will be enabled to determine how these funds can be most efficiently and effectively utilized.  All votes pertaining to the MEGABYTE Act of 2016 will be among those considered in CCAGW’s 2016 Congressional Ratings.

Sincerely,

Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW