Mike Thompson: “I appreciate my colleague's withdrawal of his amendment. As he knows, I agree with what he is trying to do with this…”

“I appreciate my colleague's withdrawal of his amendment. As he knows, I agree with what he is trying to do with this amendment. I was a cosponsor of it when he offered it in the Governmental Affairs Committee. I agreed to cosponsor his amendment in committee because the problem of interoperability of Government information systems is a real problem and one we have tried to address for years. I mentioned the IRS a while ago as being a very good example of that. Congress passed the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 in response to concerns about how the Federal Government was managing and acquiring information technology. Clinger-Cohen built on the information management requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, under both of these laws, is charged with the responsibility of overseeing and evaluating agencywide information technology management and acquisition. It is certainly consistent with OMB's own implementing guidance to expect that the Director will develop, in consultation with the new Secretary of Homeland Security, a comprehensive enterprise architecture plan for information systems, including communications systems to achieve interoperability. I agree with Senator Durbin that OMB should develop and meet time lines to implement this plan.”