Representative Darrell Issa from California introduced the “Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FIRARA) (H.R. 1232) last March. The bill passed by the House on February 24, 2014 would strengthen and streamline the information technology acquisition management process.
H.R. 1232 requires several changes that will affect the procurement process such as:
- The Federal CIO is required to develop and implement an initiative to optimize the usage and efficiency of federal data centers
- Each agency must track and report the costs and savings that result from acquisitions of IT and make the information public
- A government-wide inventory of IT assets is required with the goal to eliminate duplicate federal government web sites
- The bill also requires approval for potentially duplicative new government-wide contracts
- Encourages transitioning to cloud computing
- Authorize a pilot program to help agencies meet common IT requirements and to share services
The bill also establishes an optional Collaboration Center to promote coordinated program management practices that will need to be used when acquiring IT infrastructure and business applications used by various federal agencies.
The Collaboration Center would work with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, DOD, and GSA, and require Assisted Acquisition Centers of Excellence (AACE) to be established to improve government-wide acquisition, shared use, and dissemination of software.
The bill calls for a price list and catalogue containing current pricing information by vendors for each of their IT infrastructure and common applications categories. The price catalogue must contain any price provided by a vendor selling the same or similar goods or services to any executive agency.