Washington, DC – The Senate today passed a bipartisan bill to help reduce waste and government inefficiency by consolidating the total number of federal data centers and making those data centers more efficient.
The Federal Data Center Consolidation Act, introduced last year by Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and cosponsored by Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE), was included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an annual bill authorizing funding for the Pentagon.
The bill sets hard deadlines and requires federal agencies that have yet to act on consolidation initiatives to conduct inventories and implement consolidation strategies. In addition, the law would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to verify agency data center inventories, and would direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to routinely report to Congress on cost savings realized to date.
“This bill is one step toward a smarter, more efficient use of taxpayer dollars,” Bennet said. “Too many federal agencies have failed to meet their consolidation goals. We can now hold them accountable and provide a better way to manage the federal government’s IT infrastructure.”
Carper
“With our nation $18 trillion in debt, there’s no excuse to keep wasting millions on unnecessary federal data centers – some of which are utilizing a fraction of their capacity,” said Ayotte. “This common sense measure will save taxpayer dollars by improving consolidation efforts and increasing the efficiency of data centers across the federal government.”
A number of studies have shown a relatively low utilization rate of the current IT infrastructure, resulting in an enormous amount of wasted space and energy – and unnecessary costs. In 2010, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) instructed federal agencies to develop consolidation plans under the administration’s Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), which could save up to $3 billion by 2015, according to the GAO, with additional savings beyond that date. However, the GAO also found that a number of agencies have been slow to implement these plans – or, in some cases, to inventory the total number of data centers they currently manage.
The GAO has publicly endorsed the legislation, saying it is vital to ensure that agencies close down unnecessary data centers by the target deadline. The senators have worked closely with OMB and GAO to ensure that this bill will help strengthen the initiative and achieve meaningful savings.
The bill is also supported by the Professional Services Council and the Information Technology Industry Council.
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