OMBlog

A Critical Fix to Funding Our Wildfire Response

Today, President Obama signed into law the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Jerry Peak Wilderness Additions Act (“Boulder-White Clouds”).  This bipartisan bill protects three new wilderness areas over more than 275,000 acres.  As he signed this bill into law, the President also called attention to another bipartisan piece of legislation that has yet to be passed: a critical fix to the way we fund our response to wildfires.

In Idaho – where the Boulder-White Clouds bill preserves these important areas – and across the West, firefighters are battling dozens of fierce wildfires.  In Alaska alone, wildfires have burned approximately 5 million acres of land.  That is about the size of the entire state of Connecticut.  And with a changing climate, we know we will have even longer, hotter fire seasons.  As Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently highlighted in a new USDA report, for the first time ever, the U.S. Forest Service is spending more than half of its budget to suppress wildfires at the cost of mission-critical programs that can help prevent fires in the first place, such as forest restoration and watershed management.  

Senate Republican Bill Would Undermine Critical Financial Reforms and Consumer Protections

Wall Street Reform built a stronger and more stable foundation for economic growth and made our financial system safer and more resilient by curbing excessive risk-taking, closing regulatory gaps, and putting in place the strongest consumer financial protections in history. However, its full benefit to our Nation's citizens and the economy cannot be realized unless the entities charged with establishing and enforcing the rules of the road have the resources and independence to do so.  That’s why the President has been clear that we have to fund Wall Street’s regulators at levels that allow them to do their important work, and he’s repeatedly proposed funding levels in each year’s Budget that would be sufficient to implement Wall Street Reform.  And that is also why he has repeatedly fought to keep our regulators free from the political whims of Congress.

This week marked the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and we saw Democrats united in their commitment to defend it. As Democrats in Congress expressed in a report, “Republican appropriators in the House undercut the SEC and CFTC by refusing to adequately increase their funding, despite the fact that they are given significant new responsibilities under Dodd-Frank.”  We agree. 

Just days after marking this milestone, Republicans are making another attempt to gut these important reforms. Senate Republicans have introduced a bill that proposes almost the same unacceptable overall funding level as proposed by the House earlier this year and includes more objectionable attempts to undermine critical financial reforms and consumer protections.  The bill would impede regulators’ ability to better oversee the financial system and would erode safeguards in mortgage markets by leaving large financial institutions unaccountable.

Republicans have put forward bills that would undermine Wall Street’s watchdogs by funding them at levels well below what is needed to implement reform.

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): Compared to the President's Budget, the Republicans would cut funding for the SEC by $222 million, or 13 percent, hindering its enforcement, examination, and market oversight functions and thereby reducing investor protections.
   
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB):  Republicans would subject the CFPB to annual appropriations, which would weaken its independence and undermine its ability to serve the most vulnerable consumer populations. Politicizing the funding of bank supervision would be a step in the wrong direction.
   
• Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC): Compared to the President’s Budget, Republicans would cut funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission by at least $72 million, or 22 percent, which would hamstring the CFTC’s ability to protect our economy from the kinds of recklessness and excessive risk-taking that caused so much harm during the financial crisis.

In addition to underfunding the regulators, Republicans have included a large package of unrelated, partisan, special interest riders that would undercut Wall Street reform by impeding regulators’ ability to better oversee the financial system; eroding safeguards in mortgage markets; and letting large financial institutions off the hook, under the guise of regulatory relief for community banks. This tactic of using riders on budget legislation to chip away at crucial financial reforms is unacceptable, and the Administration has made clear we will strongly oppose these efforts. 

These are just examples of the broader Republican strategy to fund the government at the lowest level in a decade and undermine an orderly appropriations process by including highly problematic ideological provisions.  The only path forward in the appropriations process is for Congressional Republicans to join Congressional Democrats at the negotiating table and reach a commonsense bipartisan deal that lifts sequestration.  With strong job growth since the last bipartisan budget agreement and so much progress made reforming Wall Street since the crisis, there is no reason to go backwards by undoing critical protections that build a safer and stronger financial system.

Shaun Donovan is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Bringing Our Immigration System into the Digital Age

In November, President Obama announced a series of Executive Actions to fix the broken immigration system. As a part of these efforts, he charged the key federal agencies responsible for administering our legal immigration system to explore ways to modernize and streamline the system. The goal was to develop recommendations to bring the system into the 21st century to grow our economy, help businesses and workers, and protect families.

Today, we are taking the next step in this effort, releasing a report on Modernizing and Streamlining Our Legal Immigration System for the 21st Century. This report includes a wide range of new actions that federal agencies will undertake to improve the visa experience for families, workers, employers, and people in need of humanitarian relief.

State-by-State: Land Acquisition, Construction, and Repair and Rehabilitation Projects That Would be Prevented or Delayed by Congressional Republicans

This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill that fails to provide for the responsible protection and management of our Nation's natural heritage and resources or fully honor our obligations and commitments to tribal nations. Instead, the House Republican bill includes shortsighted funding cuts that would undermine fiscal responsibility, national conservation, environmental priorities, and our economic competitiveness.

Specifically, the House Republican bill blocks investments that rein in future costs to taxpayers by facilitating increased energy development; maintaining facilities and infrastructure; and bolstering preparedness and resilience against the effects a changing climate.  The bill reduces support for partnerships with States, local governments, and private entities on efforts to restore and conserve natural resources.  And the bill makes it harder for States and businesses to plan and execute changes that will decrease carbon pollution.

In addition to its unacceptable funding levels, the House Republican bill also includes numerous highly problematic ideologically-motivated provisions that threaten to undermine the ability of States and communities to tackle climate change, as well as ensure the most basic protections for our air, water, and America's special places and the people and wildlife that rely on them. American families are counting on us to take steps to protect the environment and the health of our children and communities.  This bill shirks that responsibility.

The impacts of that shortsighted approach will be felt across the country.  For example, almost every State would have at least one important conservation or national parks project obstructed or delayed as funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and national parks gets dramatically cut.

The LWCF has been a crucial tool for 50 years in conserving vital iconic landscapes, from the Great Smoky Mountains to Rocky Mountain National Park. The Fund reinvests revenues from offshore oil and gas development to support LWCF programs that enhance existing parks, conserve treasured landscapes, preserve historic sites like Civil War battlefields, and open land for all sorts of public uses – from hunting, fishing and hiking to establishing parks – while stimulating investment in the protection and maintenance of these resources across the Nation. 

Federal land acquisition can also reduce land management costs.  In the past five years, over 99 percent of the lands acquired by the Department of the Interior were inholdings within existing conservation units.  The acquisition of inholdings can reduce maintenance and manpower costs by reducing boundary conflicts, simplifying resource management activities, and easing access to and through public lands. This focus maximizes management efficiencies for the agencies and, in many cases, reduces costs.  Furthermore, the LWCF generates economic activity throughout the nation.  In 2012, recreation activities on federally-managed lands and waters contributed an estimated $51 billion and 880,000 jobs to the U.S. economy.

Instead of supporting these successful conservation efforts, Republicans in the House of Representatives are proposing to cut discretionary funding for the LWCF by $152 million, or 38 percent, below the President’s Budget.  Efforts in the Everglades to protect, restore, and conserve habitat for critical species would be impaired and delayed, and at Acadia National Park – where almost 1,500 species of trees, shrubs, and other plant life exist – the natural and scenic resources of the park would be left unprotected.  In total, the House would fund only 13 of the 86 projects proposed in the President’s Budget.  That’s not just bad news for these projects; it’s bad news for the individuals, communities, and businesses that rely on these recreation areas and ecosystems.   

The bill also fails to provide adequate funding to prepare for the National Parks Centennial in 2016, which would result in the delay of roughly 70 percent of line-item park construction projects and 36 percent of repair and rehabilitation projects. For example, construction projects at Yosemite National Park, the National Mall and Memorial Parks, and Grand Teton National Park would be delayed.  

For more information about the specific impacts of the House Republican bill on LWCF acquisition projects and National Park Service construction and repair and rehabilitation projects in your state, click here. For information about the impacts of the very similar Senate Republican bill, click here. These specific examples from the House and Senate Republican bill are archetypical of a Budget approach that fails the basic test: it’s an approach that doesn’t move our economy forward and one that doesn’t live up to our values and responsibility to the next generation.

Shaun Donovan is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Making Federal Investments Climate-Smart

Climate action makes fiscal and economic sense, and that is why we are taking new steps to code it into the DNA of how we do business at OMB.

Each year, OMB issues a revised Circular A-11.  This is the Federal Government’s budgeting playbook.  For the entire Executive Branch, the Circular provides the latest guidance and technical instruction on how to prepare, submit, and execute the Budget.  Agencies are asked to submit budget requests that reflect the priorities of the Administration, including improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government and returning the highest value to the American taxpayer.

To that end, for the first time, the Circular includes an explicit requirement for the entire Executive Branch to ensure that funding requests in support of Federal facilities align with the Administration’s climate preparedness and resilience goals. 

Specifically, OMB is asking all Federal agencies to consider climate preparedness and resiliency objectives as part of their Fiscal Year 2017 budget requests for construction and maintenance of Federal facilities.  We are making it very clear that this is a priority in proposals for capital funding.  Why?  Because making our Federal facility investments climate-smart reduces our fiscal exposure to the impacts of climate change.  It’s the right thing to do to run an efficient and effective government.  And it’s the right thing to do to return the highest value to the American taxpayer.

Of course, climate-smart will take on different meaning for each agency and asset. Our Federal portfolio of real estate is incredibly diverse, from office buildings to hospitals to laboratories to warehouses and beyond. For example, the Department of Defense alone manages over 560,000 facilities globally. The climate impacts the breadth of our Federal real estate portfolio. Specifically, many of these assets, and the critical domestic and national security missions they support, are vulnerable to climate-related extreme weather events – like hurricanes, wildfire, floods, and drought. For instance, just last week, the National Park Service identified more than $40 billion in national park infrastructure and historic and cultural resources put at risk by sea level rise. 

So, while the United States leads global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we are also taking action to better prepare and become more resilient to the impacts of climate change today. That is why the Administration is working to reduce taxpayers’ exposure to the impacts of climate change through grants, technical assistance, and programs in sectors from transportation and water management to conservation and disaster relief.  The reason is simple: we can reduce future costs by making smarter investments up front.  It’s true for communities across the nation, and it’s true for the Federal Government. 

Ali Zaidi is the Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy and Science at the Office of Management and Budget.

Protecting Public Health and the Environment

President Obama is committed to protecting public health and the environment. Just yesterday, the White House hosted a Summit on Climate Change and Public Health. The Summit brought together senior White House and Administration officials, doctors, nurses, students, mothers, public health organizations, and deans from medical, public health and nursing schools around the country to, in the words of President Obama, “address the gathering challenges and costs that the threat of a changing climate poses to our nation’s health.”

Congress is moving in the other direction. This week, the House will begin debate on H.R. 2822, a bill that would undermine the Administration’s efforts to protect the health of communities around the country, including those that are the most vulnerable like children and the elderly. It would block common-sense carbon pollution standards for power plants, which if finalized as proposed would prevent more than 150,000 asthma attacks in kids and up to 6,660 premature deaths each year.

The bill would also prevent EPA from updating one of our most important air quality standards – the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone. Updating national standards for ozone pollution, which is particularly harmful for children and adults with asthma, would, if finalized as proposed, prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions and prevent up to a million lost school days each year. These are just two of many provisions in the bill that would force EPA to ignore science at the expense of public health.

We have benefited from 40 years of success under the Clean Air Act. In fact, since the Clean Air Act was enacted with bipartisan support in 1970, the economy has more than tripled in size, while harmful air pollution has decreased by nearly 70 percent. The Administration will continue to defend the Clean Air Act and protect public health.

Ali Zaidi is the Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy and Science at the Office of Management and Budget. Dan Utech is the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Christy Goldfuss is the Managing Director of the Council on Environmental Quality.

Priority Goal Update

Eighteen months ago, the Administration committed to ambitious improvements in Government services and better outcomes for the American public.  We established 15 new Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) Goals and every Federal Agency published a small number of Agency Priority Goals (APG), totaling 91 goals across the Federal Government aimed at improving government performance.

As we approach the half-way point in delivery of the CAP Goals, we are seeing real progress and success as agencies work together and break down silos. On Friday we published quarterly progress updates on Performance.gov and I wanted to highlight a few examples of the progress being made:

• Smarter IT –On March 30, 2015, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) Transformation program began using its new Electronic Information System to accept and process one of the agency’s highest-volume applications, the I-90 form, which is an application to renew or replace a Permanent Resident card. A U.S. Digital Service team from OMB worked hand-in-hand with USCIS Transformation program staff to prepare for this release. Digitizing America’s immigration application process will allow the agency to provide a better customer experience, combat fraud, improve accuracy, and reduce the costs associated with paper-based application forms and processes. This is one of many efforts under the CAP Goal to enable the federal government to procure, build, and provide world-class, cost-effective IT delivery for its citizens. Leveraging the U.S. Digital Service team to assist agencies in designing and delivering smarter IT is a key strategy under the goal. In the second quarter of FY15, digital services experts were involved with eleven IT projects across government. 
• Veterans and Service Members Mental Health – Data newly available shows that, for those Service members completing a Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA) in 2013, who screened positive for PTSD, depression, or alcohol abuse and received a referral to mental health specialty or behavioral health in primary care, 55% received care at the Department of Veterans Affairs or Department of Defense (FY13), up from 46% in 2011 and performing well against our target of 56% by FY16.
• Open Data – Earlier this year, the US Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior, and the Recreation.gov team hosted the open-to-the-public myAmerica Developer Summit. Eighty outside-of-government developers, entrepreneurs, outdoor enthusiasts, and representatives from other Federal agencies attended, half of whom traveled to DC for the event, with the goal of using publicly available recreation data to develop tools to allow travelers to discover and maximize their experiences on America's public lands. The "unconference" format, which allowed participants to form groups organically, develop and refine ideas, and work towards solutions, resulted in eleven teams working through the weekend to develop prototypes for applications such as in-park informational beacons, platforms for crowd-sourced trail data, and competitive games for kids. Hosting hackathons like this one is part of the CAP goal strategy of fueling the external open data ecosystem and feedback cycle. In the second quarter of FY15, the number of data views from Data.gov, where this recreation data resides, grew 25% to over 400,000 views.
• Lab to Market – This goal aims to help entrepreneurs take federal innovations into the market place. Successfully facilitating their access to federal labs and innovations requires that federal employees understand entrepreneurship. 534 teams who work on federally funded R&D projects have completed immersion courses providing opportunities for experiential entrepreneurship education. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has successfully completed the I-Corps curriculum geared towards Life Sciences, and the Agriculture Research Service at USDA has begun the I-Corps pilot.  The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office, and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences/NIH are exploring I-Corps partnerships with the National Science Foundation. I-Corps@Ohio, modeled after the NSF I-Corps program, is launching a statewide program to assist faculty and graduate students from Ohio universities and colleges to validate the market potential of their technologies and validate and launch startup companies.

While results to date have been encouraging, delivery across agency boundaries is not easy. In particular there is no established means of funding these cross-agency efforts, which stymies the Federal Government’s ability to quickly and fully address these challenges and deliver results for the American people. 

The President’s Budget included a high priority transfer authority proposal, which would provide a total of $15 million in agency-transferred funding to support key implementation activities and accelerate progress on current CAP goals. The House Republican Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill does not include this transfer authority; as such the bill fails to establish a means of funding the execution of cross-agency efforts on areas critical to the Nation's economy and prosperity. Without such authority, CAP Goal leaders are constrained in their ability to implement effective solutions across agencies, leaving various Federal programs and activities to address shared issues in a duplicative, siloed, and ad hoc way.

The experience of implementing the CAP Goals has reinforced our belief that Government needs to prioritize building the skills and capabilities critical to leading enterprise-wide change. Last week I wrote to my PMC Colleagues and formally launched the pilot year of the new White House Leadership Development (WHLD) Program, which the President announced in an address to SES last December.  This is an innovative rotational developmental experience which will create a cadre of high potential senior-level career employees with the skill-sets and networks needed to achieve results in an increasingly complex and cross-organizational environment.  In a number of cases I expect that participants in the WHLD Program will work closely with CAP Goal leaders in accelerating implementation and achievement of these ambitious outcomes. Agencies have been asked to nominate candidates by August 3 and the first year-long cohort will begin on October 1.  More information on this program is available at PIC.GOV/blog and we encourage individuals to apply. 

Beth Cobert is the U.S. Chief Performance Officer and the Deputy Director for Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Prepared Remarks of OMB Director Shaun Donovan, Williams Institute Spring Reception

Editor’s Note – The following prepared remarks were originally delivered by OMB Director Shaun Donovan at the Williams Institute’s annual Spring Reception on May 20, 2015. Director Donovan spoke about driving the President’s vision and budget for a whole range of issues confronting the LGBT community, including homelessness, poverty, HIV/AIDS and expanding and improving LGBT data collection.

May 20, 2015

Prepared Remarks of OMB Director Shaun Donovan, Williams Institute Spring Reception

I want to thank Brad Sears, Chuck Williams, and the remarkable team at the Williams Institute for inviting me to speak.

For 14 years, the Williams Institute has served as one of our Nation’s leading think tanks on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.  Your rigorous, independent research has influenced legislation codified in the halls of Congress, made its way into numerous Supreme Court briefs, and has helped make extraordinary progress in improving the day-to-day lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people across the nation.

To put it into context, in 2001, when Chuck Williams founded the Institute:

• a majority of Americans didn’t believe in equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples;
• no state in the union recognized marriage equality;
• the U.S. government banned people from entering this country because of their HIV status; and
• gays and lesbians had to lie to fight on the battlefield for the country they loved;

Today, a majority of States recognize the right to marry the person you love.  Today, you cannot be fired from federal service because of your sexual orientation or gender identity.  Today, you don’t have to worry about a spouse in the hospital with the added fear of producing a legal document just to comfort the person you love. Today, because of the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, perpetrators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for crimes based on one’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.  And today, if you are applying for federal housing assistance, you cannot be denied that assistance or shelter you need because of who you are, who you love, or what you look like – as former HUD Secretary, this is something I take a small measure of personal pride for.

At the Office of Management and Budget, we have a unique position in advancing and ingraining this progress into the fabric of how government serves the American people.  As the nucleus of the Federal Government, OMB’s core mission is to implement and enforce the President’s vision government-wide.  

We carry out that mission through all three of our functions: budget, management, and regulation.

Through the President’s budget, we have sought to support and expand opportunity for LBGT Americans.  In dozens of programs across the federal landscape – like healthcare, criminal justice, housing, and education – we have proposed expansion of the rights and benefits available to LGBT people. 

This year’s budget, for example, proposes to amend the Social Security Act to ensure all legally married same-sex couples be eligible to receive Social Security spousal benefits, regardless of where they live.  

This would mean that, for the first time, a couple that marries in a state that recognizes the dignity of their union, and then moves to another state that does not, is still afforded the protection that Social Security spousal benefits provides to families. During the debate on the Senate budget resolution, a bipartisan majority of Senators endorsed this proposal.

We’ve also leveraged the budget to make more strategic investments in health-related priorities. As part of the President’s HIV Care Continuum Initiative to further the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and galvanize the national response to HIV, Federal agencies were directed to step up their related data collection efforts, including strengthening data collection to improve outcomes.  As a result, the 2016 Budget makes smarter investments by prioritizing HIV/AIDS resources within high-burden communities and among high-risk groups, including gay and bisexual men, African Americans and Latino Americans.

Now as OMB Director I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we’re currently engaged in a major debate about the budget – whether we’re going to take the President’s approach and fund needed investments, or follow the Republican budget framework that would lock in the harmful spending cuts known as sequestration and bring base discretionary funding for both non-defense and defense to the lowest levels in a decade, adjusted for inflation.  That choice has major implications for programs that are critical to the LGBT community.  For example, House appropriations bills considered so far would impose:

• deep cuts on the Justice Department Civil Rights Division, which plays a critical role in protecting the civil rights of all Americans;
• they would also cut Homeless Assistance Grants by about 12 percent relative to the President’s Budget, setting back efforts to combat homelessness, including among LGBT youth, who are particularly at risk of homelessness.  The President set ambitious goals to end homelessness, and while we’ve made progress, limited resources and the 2013 sequestration have kept us from making ever greater progress;
• sequestration would result in 15,000 fewer at-risk individuals being provided with rapid rehousing relative to the President’s Budget, once again undermining our efforts to protect our Nation’s most vulnerable;
• and although we have not yet seen their Labor-H bill, we know that based on the Republican sequestration budget framework and subcommittee allocations, that support for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program would be cut, leading to 5,000 fewer patients receiving critical anti-retroviral treatments and 125,000 fewer medical visits at Ryan White clinics; and
• finally, under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies are no longer able to offer plans that discriminate against consumers due to pre-existing conditions, and because of the law, insurers can no longer offer plans that turn someone away just because he or she is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.  But Republicans would repeal the ACA, taking away health insurance from more than 16 million people who have gained coverage after five years.

Outside of the budgetary process, OMB has also worked with agencies to act without Congress to help combat discrimination, support equality, and make other important changes.  OMB’s Management arm oversees agency management of programs and resources to achieve legislative goals and Administration priorities.  

Through this team’s work coordinating implementation of Federal procurement policy, for example, OMB helped push forward the President’s recent Executive Order prohibiting Federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees and prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity in federal employment.  

And our Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) worked with agencies across the Federal government to review and update policies to reflect the Supreme Court’s historic Windsor decision and confer benefits to same-sex married couples.

Another role of OIRA is promoting the quality and integrity of Federal government statistics and scientific information on which public policy is based by providing leadership, coordination, and standards for the decentralized Federal statistical system.  

OIRA’s Statistical and Science Policy (SSP) Branch promotes the quality and integrity of Federal government statistics and scientific information on which public policy is based by providing leadership, coordination, and standards for the decentralized Federal statistical system.

Good data is often the first step toward good policy.  For example, in 2012 at HUD, I announced the Equal Access to Housing Rule which laid out clearly and unequivocally that LGBT individuals and couples have the right to live where they choose.

As part of that announcement, I told the story of Mitch and Michelle DeShane. Michelle wanted to add her partner Mitch, a transgender man, to the housing voucher she received to find affordable housing.  The local housing authority denied her request.  They told her that the couple did not meet its definition of “family.”  Then, the DeShanes were referred to a neighboring housing authority -- because, as they were apparently told, and I quote, that housing authority, “accepts everyone -- even Martians.”

Stories like the DeShanes’ were all too common.  So when we were looking at how to build a robust policy to combat these forms of discrimination, we knew we had to start collecting the data.  The results of that effort led to the nation’s first-ever national study examining housing discrimination against same-sex couples in the private rental market.  

While many in this room could share countless stories describing experiences of discrimination, until this study there was no measurable government data to quantify those experiences.  The data helped us better understand how we administered HUD programs and also how we enforced our nation’s fair housing laws more broadly to see to it that future couples don’t ever have to endure the experiences of the DeShane family.

What was clear in that process, as you know, is that there is no one “best and only” way to measure the LGBT population.  In some cases, such as measuring access to or discrimination from services, we want to know about sexual orientation or gender identity.  In other cases, such as in health research, we may want to know about sexual behavior.  

When collecting information from young adults, we may want to ask questions about sexual attraction, rather than behavior. And we want to collect that information using language that is meaningful to the LGBT community and yet precise enough for policy needs—such as collecting information about transgender Americans.  There are harder measurement problems that need solving, too.  Differences in language and cultural understanding can mean that our measurement misses components of the LGBT population that may be most vulnerable. 

And the way that many household studies are conducted (where one person responds to a question on behalf of another) may be a concern for accurate measurement.

But it is important to get it right.  To help us do so, OIRA is leading on an inter-agency process to explore LGBT measurement issues, with enthusiasm across agencies.  The office is leveraging the same successful model used for the Interagency Working Group on Measuring Relationships in Federal Household Surveys that brought statistical experts across agencies together to improve measurement of same-sex couples in Federal household surveys.  

This relies on a long-established process guided by the core responsibilities of official Federal statistics: relevance, accuracy, objectivity, and protecting the trust of data providers.

On April 9^th, OIRA held its first interagency meeting to explore LGBT Federal data collection issues.  The meeting was well-attended by statistical experts from across the government who are eager to discuss best practices around LGBT measurement, data collection and analysis, as well as research needs to inform improved measurement. 

Attendees expressed interest in pursuing ongoing conversations to address measurement challenges in this area, and OIRA will convene future interagency meetings with the goal of eventually developing recommendations for best practices that would inform Federal statistics in the future.

Before I wrap up, I want to acknowledge that over the last six years we have indeed made tremendous progress as a nation, but as the President often says, “we are in the 4^th quarter of the Administration, and there is still work to be done.” 

This past Sunday, we commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.  We took the opportunity to reaffirm as a country that LGBT rights are human rights, celebrate the dignity of every person, and underscore that all people deserve to live free from fear, violence, and discrimination, regardless of who they are or whom they love. 

As the President stated, “We work toward this goal every day.  There is much more to do, and this fight for equality will not be won in a day.  But we will keep working, at home and abroad, and we will keep fighting, for however long it takes until we are all able to live free and equal in dignity and rights.”

We have made progress and we will make more.  I thank the Williams Institute, and everyone here tonight, for the remarkable work you do every day to ensure that LGBT rights are, indeed, human rights.  

Thank you for having me here today.  Thank you for the privilege of serving with each and every one of you.  As you work to ensure our country is a more perfect union, President Obama and I will be standing by your side each and every step of the way.  Thank you.                                                                        

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A New Foundation for Technology Management

It has been over four months since I was appointed the U.S. Chief Information Officer (CIO). In that time, I have come to appreciate both the complexity of Federal information technology (IT) as well as the unprecedented opportunity of technology to accelerate the quality and timeliness of services delivered to the American people.

I am excited to help drive the Administration’s Smarter IT Delivery Agenda and the four core objectives across the Federal IT portfolio – (1) driving value in Federal IT investments, (2) delivering world-class digital services, (3) protecting Federal IT assets and information, and (4) developing the next generation IT workforce. The Administration launched the Smarter IT Delivery Agenda last spring in order to dramatically improve customer satisfaction with federal technology services. Smarter IT Delivery is focused on bringing the best IT professionals into government, establishing effective processes to drive outcomes and accountability, and partnering with the most innovative companies. Under this agenda, we have made great progress in delivering world-class digital services by setting up the United States Digital Service, publishing the TechFAR Handbook and Digital Services Playbook, establishing a central Cyber unit within my office, and releasing government data to inform better government service. 

However, my past experience has taught me that without a strong foundation, it is difficult for new initiatives to fully take root. My previous work as a CIO taught me the importance of having foresight into IT spending, forging strong partnerships with program leaders, and having a solid understanding of the critical role that IT plays in serving the organization’s mission. This critical foundation does not exist consistently throughout the Federal Government. One of my top priorities going forward will be to build this new foundation for effective management of technology through full implementation of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) in a way that is workable, collaborative, effective, and consistent.

To aid in that implementation, today OMB is releasing the guidance to agencies on FITARA implementation—Management and Oversight of Information Technology Resources. This guidance is a result of extensive outreach and collaboration conducted over the past four months, including a month-long public comment period. The guidance takes major steps toward ensuring agency CIOs have significant involvement in procurement, workforce, and technology-related budget matters while continuing a partnership with other senior leaders. It also takes major steps toward positioning CIOs so that they can reasonably be held accountable for how effectively their agencies use modern digital approaches to achieve the objectives of effective and efficient programs and operations. Over the next year, you can expect to see a major push from OMB to leverage the implementation of FITARA, implementation of Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014, and stronger approaches to the acquisition and management of commodity IT and data infrastructure to achieve our objectives.

Our guidance not only fulfills the new law’s requirements but also empowers Federal executives with the means and information necessary to help Federal IT become an effective strategic partner to mission programs. As drafted, this guidance aims to establish government-wide IT management controls that will meet FITARA requirements while also providing agencies with the flexibility to adapt to agency processes and unique mission requirements. This, in turn, will ensure that IT investments align with agency mission, goals, and programmatic priorities.

My intent is that this approach will allow FITARA to have its envisioned impact and further the Administration’s ongoing work under Smarter IT Delivery. This will ultimately result in a more efficient, effective, and secure government that better meets the needs of the American people.

Tony Scott is the United States Chief Information Officer.