<DOC>
[108th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:91647.wais]
GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION: A PROGRESS REPORT ON IMPROVING OUR NATION'S
MAP-RELATED DATA INFRASTRUCTURE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION
POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND
THE CENSUS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 10, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-99
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
_____
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WASHINGTON : 2004
91-647 PDF
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut TOM LANTOS, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
DOUG OSE, California DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
RON LEWIS, Kentucky DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia Maryland
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania Columbia
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio JIM COOPER, Tennessee
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHRIS BELL, Texas
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota ------
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
(Independent)
Peter Sirh, Staff Director
Melissa Wojciak, Deputy Staff Director
Rob Borden, Parliamentarian
Teresa Austin, Chief Clerk
Philip M. Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental
Relations and the Census
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DOUG OSE, California DIANE E. WATSON, California
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
Ex Officio
TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Bob Dix, Staff Director
Scott Klein, Professional Staff Member
Ursula Wojciechowski, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 10, 2003.................................... 1
Statement of:
Forman, Mark A., Administrator of E-Government and
Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget;
Scott J. Cameron, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Performance
and Management, Department of Interior, and chairman,
geospatial one-stop Board of Directors; and Linda D.
Koontz, Director, Information Management, U.S. General
Accounting Office.......................................... 5
Kalweit, Susan W., Chairman, Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team, FEMA (DHS), former Deputy Chief, NIMA
North America and Homeland Security Division; Gene Trobia,
president, National States Geographic Information Council;
Jack Dangermond, president and founder, ESRI, Inc.; and
Michael Ritchie, P.E., L.S., C.P., president, Management
Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors.......... 67
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Cameron, Scott J., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Performance
and Management, Department of Interior, and chairman,
geospatial one-stop Board of Directors, prepared statement
of......................................................... 16
Clay, Hon. Wm. Lacy, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Missouri, prepared statement of................... 60
Dangermond, Jack, president and founder, ESRI, Inc., prepared
statement of............................................... 101
Forman, Mark A., Administrator of E-Government and
Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget,
prepared statement of...................................... 8
Kalweit, Susan W., Chairman, Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team, FEMA (DHS), former Deputy Chief, NIMA
North America and Homeland Security Division, prepared
statement of............................................... 70
Koontz, Linda D., Director, Information Management, U.S.
General Accounting Office, prepared statement of........... 28
Miller, Hon. Candice S., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Michigan, prepared statement of............... 47
Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida, prepared statement of.................... 3
Ritchie, Michael, P.E., L.S., C.P., president, Management
Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors, prepared
statement of............................................... 106
Trobia, Gene, president, National States Geographic
Information Council, prepared statement of................. 82
GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION: A PROGRESS REPORT ON IMPROVING OUR NATION'S
MAP-RELATED DATA INFRASTRUCTURE
----------
TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Putnam
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Putnam, Miller, Clay, and Watson.
Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior
counsel; Scott Klein, Chip Walker, Lori Martin, and Casey
Welch, professional staff members; Ursula Wojciechowski, clerk;
Suzanne Lightman, fellow; Bill Vigen, intern; David McMillen,
minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Putnam. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology,
Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census
will come to order.
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on geospatial
systems and improving our Nation's map-related data
infrastructure.
As many of our witnesses today will likely convey, getting
our arms around the array of geospatial systems issues and the
technical minutiae surrounding geospatial data and geospatial
technology is a monumental task. Geospatial not only provides
the same challenges we have discussed in past IT information-
sharing hearings, but it takes those challenges one step
further in terms of adding a mapping component, location
issues, data standards and intergovernmental interoperability
issues. In other words, one-dimensional IT becomes three-
dimensional geospatially.
Some of our witnesses and many in our audience here today
have spent their entire careers working on geospatial issues,
and yet emerging technology has created as many new geospatial
management challenges as it has provided benefits and
opportunities. But before we try to go too far down the path on
technical details, it's important for the subcommittee to hold
this hearing to get an overview and understanding of the
geospatial issue and the role that key stakeholders play in
meeting our long-term geospatial goals.
Today, we will examine the progress being made by the
Federal Government to consolidate and improve utilization of
the masses of data being collected by departments and agencies
across the Federal Government and by State and local
governments. We need to understand what programs exist across
the government, how much we're spending on those programs,
where we're spending that money, how efficiently, or perhaps
inefficiently, we share data across traditional Federal agency
boundaries, how we separate security-sensitive geospatial data
from those open for public use, and how we efficiently, or
perhaps inefficiently, coordinate with State and local
governments and tribes.
We also need to evaluate the important role that the
private sector plays to meet some of these difficult management
and technological challenges. The first and most critical
challenge involves data standards and interoperability. In most
cases, information is collected in different formats and
standards for one specific mission with little attention to
subsequent intergovernmental data sharing. This is true across
the Federal Government, as well as in States and localities
across this Nation.
This results in wasteful redundancies and a reduced ability
to perform critical intergovernmental functions. Within an
atmosphere of an infinite amount of collectible data and tens
of thousands of entities securing and utilizing data for
individual goals and missions, not to mention emerging new uses
of geospatial data, the development and use of common data
standards and an organizational or management structure to
coordinate these investments is more essential than ever toward
reducing redundant expenditures, providing the most up-to-date
information, and improving the utilization and variability of
accurate data for public and private use.
As simple as it sounds, it is critical that we are all
singing from the same sheet of music. Geospatial systems and
our geospatial infrastructure worldwide cannot operate without
resolving this standards issue, and it is my initial feeling
that developing a unified game plan is generally not technology
driven but rather management or personnel driven.
I'm especially pleased that we'll have an opportunity today
to discuss progress being made on the Geospatial Information
One-Stop Initiative, one of the President's key e-government
reforms intended to simplify the process of locating,
accessing, sharing and integrating geospatial information in a
timely and efficient manner.
I'm equally interested, however, in the end result. It is
important that taxpayers and those of us involved in deciding
how to spend their hard-earned money understand the return on
the investments being made, how we are using geospatial
information to solve everyday problems, how we plan to better
utilize that data, and how we plan to coordinate and share data
across all levels of government to improve the quality of life
for all citizens.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Hopefully we'll be joined later by additional
members of the subcommittee, and we will insert their remarks
at the appropriate place, but at this time we will move to the
witnesses. Each has prepared written testimony which will be
included in the record, and we ask that each of you summarize
your thoughts and do a 5-minute presentation. That will allow
us ample time for questions and dialog, although judging by the
attendance, we will have no shortage of time for questions and
dialog.
Witnesses will notice the time with the light on at the
witness table. The green light is for you to begin your
remarks; and red, we'll ask you to sum up rather quickly,
because your time has expired. In order to be sensitive to
everyone's schedule, we ask that you cooperate with adhering to
our time schedule. We also, as is the policy of the Government
Reform Committee, swear in witnesses, so if you would please
rise and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Putnam. Note for the record that the witnesses
responded in the affirmative.
I'll also note for the record we are being Web cast on
reform.house.gov.
I'd like to introduce our first witness, Mark Forman, who
is a frequent guest of this committee, and we're always
grateful for his insight. He has been appointed by President
Bush to be the Administrator for the Office of E-Government and
Information Technology. He is effectively our Nation's Chief
Information Officer charged with managing more than $58 billion
in Federal IT investments and is the chief architect of the
President's e-government initiative.
Mr. Forman also oversees executive branch CIOs and directs
the Federal activities of the CIO council.
Mr. Forman, you are recognized. Welcome to this
subcommittee.
STATEMENTS OF MARK A. FORMAN, ADMINISTRATOR OF E-GOVERNMENT AND
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; SCOTT
J. CAMERON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, PERFORMANCE AND
MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, AND CHAIRMAN, GEOSPATIAL
ONE-STOP BOARD OF DIRECTORS; AND LINDA D. KOONTZ, DIRECTOR,
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Forman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before this subcommittee to discuss
efforts by the Federal Government to consolidate and improve
utilization of geospatial information. I also want to take this
opportunity to thank Tony Freighter of my staff, who has done
outstanding work, really leading, as the focal point, to
improve the relations between State and local governments and
the Federal Government in so many critical areas of applying e-
government and information technology.
Geospatial data is critical to the business of government,
and I think it's important that we take this opportunity to
inform you of the administration's efforts. Delivering better
results for the citizens is at the heart of the e-government
vision.
As I've previously testified before this committee, this
effort is designed to make better use of information technology
investments to eliminate billions of dollars of wasteful
Federal spending, reduce government's paperwork burden on
citizens and businesses and improve government responsiveness
to citizens.
During the early stages of developing our e-government
strategy, we set up focus groups with State and local
officials. Repeatedly, State and local representatives told us
that geospatial information supported their most critical
functions. However, we were told that finding and obtaining
Federal geospatial information was overly burdensome. State and
local GIS users could spend months doing Internet searches at
Federal Web sites, making phone calls, writing letters to
Federal agencies in search of essential data that was
necessary, often to deliver a Federal service or comply with a
Federal regulation.
Our discussion has led to the selection of the geospatial
one-stop as one of the 24 Presidential e-government
initiatives. Because of its importance to State and local
governments, the geospatial one-stop is one of five G2G, or
government-to-government initiatives, and it is the focal point
for Federal Government geospatial consolidation efforts.
Indeed, nearly every government agency uses geospatial
tools in some capacity. However, not every agency needs to buy
its own data and build its own systems. In fact, strategic
coordination and Internet technologies enable organizations to
share investments across agencies, even across levels of
government.
The redundancies that we found trigger multiple problems
and also opportunities.
Clearly, from a resource perspective, we cannot afford to
buy the same data set over and over again. We have significant
opportunities to buy data once and use it many times instead of
buying the same data other and over, as you mentioned.
Second, redundant data sets in geospatial tools also result
in confusion and excess spending by our partners. State and
local governments do not have time or resources needed to
integrate the data sets and serve multiple geospatial surveys
and follow the various geospatial-related programs. By
consolidating around the geospatial one-stop, we have an
opportunity to fuse data from multiple organizations and
streamline the various geospatial programs.
Third, overlapping and disparate geospatial data assets
restrict multiagency or multijurisdiction collaboration, which
is critical for homeland security.
Obviously, efforts to coordinate and rationalize assets
across an organization will require significant coordination,
planning and leadership. Our governance model and a set of
guiding principles is described in the recently revised OMB
Circular A-16. This circular describes the effective and
economical use in management of geospatial data assets in a
digital environment for the benefit of government and a nation.
In addition, OMB and the CIO Council will use the Federal
Enterprise Architecture to implement and enforce these
principles. The strategic management of geospatial assets will
be accomplished through a robust and mature enterprise
architecture. As you'll recall when we discussed this before,
an enterprise architecture describes how an organization's
business processes, its data, its technology and its
organization work together.
OMB is nearly completed work on the first versions of the
Data and Information Reference Model. The DRM will provide a
consistent framework to characterize and describe the data that
support Federal business lines. This will promote
interoperability as well as horizontal and vertical sharing of
information. Geospatial information has been targeted as one of
the first data sets to be modeled.
I know that Mr. Cameron will go into much greater detail
about the geospatial one-stop. I wanted to provide you with the
framework we're using to manage and coordinate assets across
the Federal enterprise. Finally, I would like to leave with you
some of the performance targets that we will hit this year as a
result of these efforts.
First, launching the geospatial one-stop portal with an
initial 1,000 data sets and increase the amount of information
on that portal by 20 percent each month thereafter.
Second, having 10 Federal partners who will provide
resources to help run the portal.
Third, develop 10 geospatial data cost-sharing partnerships
between Federal, State or local governments. Fourth,
disseminate 5,000 data sets via the geospatial one-stop during
the first quarter of operation and increase data sharing by 10
percent per month thereafter.
And, fifth, develop and deploy standards for 12 critical
geospatial data layers.
Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Forman. We look forward to the
opportunity to delve a little deeper into your testimony, but
we'll continue with the other witnesses.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Forman follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. We'll call on Mr. Cameron next. Scott Cameron
is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance and Management
for the Department of Interior. Given Interior's extensive use
of mapping and intrinsic staff talent, Mr. Cameron took on the
important role as chairman of the President's Geospatial One-
Stop E-Gov Initiative.
He previously served in California's Washington office,
advising Governor Wilson on Federal environmental energy and
natural resource issues. He also served under President George
H.W. Bush as Deputy Chief of Interior Branch Issues at OMB.
Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.
Mr. Cameron. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm very grateful for
this opportunity to talk to you about some of the innovations
that are going on in the geospatial world these days. Since you
have my written testimony, I'm frankly not going to repeat much
of that information. There are a few new pieces of information
I'd like to share with the subcommittee this morning, so I'm
going to try to hit half a dozen high points.
First of all, fundamentally what is the geospatial one-stop
project all about? It's fundamentally about making it faster,
cheaper and easier for all levels of the government and
eventually the private sector to get access to the source of
geospatial information they need to solve real-world problems
on the ground, whether it's siting an industrial facility or
land use planning or homeland security.
One of the specific tasks of the geospatial one-stop
project, as has already been mentioned, is working on data
standards for 11 thematic data layers, such as transportation,
hydrography, elevation, geodata control and so on.
By getting the community around common data standards, we
can ensure that data is collected to common standards, and
therefore its interoperability or the opportunities for sharing
it among a wide variety of partners would be much higher than
if data were not collected to standards.
The second major element of the project is essentially
putting together an electronic card catalog of who owns what
data, what standards it was collected to, to what resolution,
how old it is, so that one could go to the geospatial one-stop
portal the same way one would go to a card catalog in a
library, an electronic card catalog these days, and find out
what the holdings are of the library, find out what level of
government, Federal, State or local, owns what data and whether
or not it would suit your purposes.
The third element of the project is what we call the
geospatial marketplace. The notion here is that initially all
Federal agencies and, by extension, eventually State and local
government agencies as well would post information on the data
they were planning to buy in the following fiscal year all in
one location, so that everybody in the community across all
levels of government, and indeed the private sector, would know
what level of government was planning on buying what sort of
data in what sort of location.
This is an opportunity to eliminate redundancy. This is an
opportunity to create partnerships. This is an opportunity to
collect data once and use it many times.
The fourth element of the project is actually creating a
portal, having an online computer capability to actually get at
the underlying data and to be able to pull data from various
sources, whether it's a data base that is owned by Polk County,
FL, or the city of St. Louis or the U.S. Geological Survey or
the State of Florida.
How are we organized to do this? We've taken a rather novel
approach, frankly, Mr. Chairman. Approximately two-thirds of
the government spending on geospatial data across the country
is by State and local governments. They own around two-thirds
of the data that's out there that would eventually end up on
this card catalog, if you will, that I described earlier. And,
frankly, the data that the local governments and the State
governments own is more current, higher resolution, by most
measures better than the Federal data.
So it was very obvious to us, as Mark alluded to earlier,
that this project, as part of the government-to-government
portfolio under the President's management agenda, really truly
needed to engage State governments and local governments in
meaningful fashion. We decided to do that by setting up
essentially an intergovernmental board of directors for the
geospatial one-stop project involving a wide variety of players
from the State and local community, Western Governors
Association, National Association of Counties, and so on.
So this project is truly being directed by the entire
geospatial community, Federal, State and local governments all
working together, all working in concert.
I'm happy to announce this morning, Mr. Chairman, that we
have in fact taken the first major step toward realizing the
fourth task, the portal task that I alluded to. Last week, the
geospatial one-stop board of directors in fact selected a
prototype, a version 1.0 for the geospatial one-stop portal
that we'll be using for the next year or so. Frankly, we are
pushing very hard to get this done quickly. I imagine there
will be a separate procurement in about a year under a somewhat
more luxurious pace than what we had until now.
The fifth item involves the private sector, and from a
substantive standpoint, if we're thinking in terms of the
citizen, one really has to wonder if it's not appropriate, in
fact a really good idea, to make private-sector data accessible
through the geospatial one-stop portal. If you are a farmer in
Polk County, FL, and you're interested in elevation data
because you're thinking of irrigating and you want to know
where the water would flow if you brought it into your farm,
you might have U.S. Geological Survey data that is 10 years
old. You might have State of Florida data that is 5 years old.
You might have Polk County data that is only a year old, but
the resolution is only to the nearest 2 feet.
Well, if there's someone out there in the private sector
who can tell you, I collected this data last week and I've got
resolution to 1 foot, don't we owe it to that person to make
that knowledge available to them so they can make their own
decision about whether to use private or public data?
Now, speaking purely on my own in this regard, Mr.
Chairman, and we'll be bringing this issue in front of the
geospatial board over
the next several months, but I think if we're citizen-centric,
the role of the private sector is something I'll have to
consider, and I apologize for running over.
Mr. Putnam. None of the other members of the subcommittee
object.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cameron follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Oh, welcome to the subcommittee, Mrs. Miller. I
apologize. Do you object?
Mrs. Miller. Not a bit.
Mr. Putnam. We'll recognize the third witness, and then
we'll go back to Mrs. Miller if she'd like to make an opening
statement.
Our next witness is Ms. Koontz, who is from the GAO, and
she is Director of Information Management issues at the GAO.
She's responsible for issues concerning the collection, use and
dissemination of government information in an era of rapidly
changing technology, as well as a proliferation of e-gov
issues.
Recently, she's been heavily involved in directing studies
concerning e-government privacy, electronic records management
and governmentwide information dissemination. In addition, she
and her team have been preparing to support congressional
oversight of the Paperwork Reduction Act and the
reauthorization of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs. She has a BA in accounting from Michigan State
University.
Welcome.
Ms. Koontz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to participate in the subcommittee's hearing on the
challenges of developing an integrated nationwide network of
geographic information systems.
In my written statement, we discuss the many overlapping
GIS activities under way in the Federal Government, the Federal
Government's efforts since 1953 to coordinate these activities
and the long-standing challenges of adopting and implementing
GIS standards. In addition, we discuss the role of geospatial
one-stop, one of 25 high-profile e-government initiatives
sponsored by OMB. It is these latter two subjects that I'd like
to focus on.
Developing common geospatial standards to support vital
public services, while extremely important, has proven to be a
complex and time-consuming effort. The number of types of
geospatial data and the complexity of those data make
developing standards a daunting task.
For example, 34 different broad categories of geospatial
data, called ``data themes,'' have been identified. These
themes relate to all types of services provided by the Federal
Government, including climate, flood hazards, Federal land
ownership, public health and transportation.
The FGDC has been working to coordinate the development of
some of these themes and related standards since it was
established 13 years ago. Although a complete set has yet to be
assembled, we understand that the geospatial one-stop officials
have drafted versions of seven framework standards and an
eighth base standard and plan to submit them for approval in
September 2003. These framework standards define the simplest
level of geographic data commonly used in geospatial data sets.
Once standards are agreed upon, the government still faces
the challenge of gaining wide adoption of the standards. At the
Federal level alone, this may prove to be difficult. Agencies
may be unwilling to adopt framework data standards. Most
Federal agencies including Energy, Justice and Health and Human
Services have not been involved in the standards process, and
as a result, these standards may not meet their needs.
In addition, agencies have already made substantial
investments to independently develop systems using formatting
standards to meet their own needs. Migrating to a new standard
could be a potentially expensive effort. A similar challenge
exists at State and local levels where existing commercial
products are already meeting their needs.
In regard to geospatial one-stop, this initiative's plans
to develop a portal, finalize the seven framework standards,
create an inventory of Federal data holdings and provide
greater coordination among all levels of government represent
important near-term tasks. However, the geospatial one-stop
initiative is not intended to address the longer-term
challenges associated with developing and deploying standards.
For example, while developing and implementing an Internet
portal may offer additional functionality over existing
mechanisms, unless the underlying geospatial data is
standardized, this improved functionality is limited.
In summary, a coordinated nationwide network of geographic
information systems offers many opportunities to better serve
the public, make government more efficient and effective and
reduce duplication and costs. While steps, including the
ongoing geospatial one-stop, have been taken to improve the
coordination of government GIS efforts, much more work remains
to be done to round out a comprehensive set of standards and
ensure they are broadly adopted.
Existing draft standards may need revision to accommodate
the needs of Federal users and more extensive coordination may
be needed to ensure broad adoption. Further, this will require
a continuing effort over time due to the fact that significant
investments have already been made in nonstandard systems and
the task of replacing those systems and migrating their data
cannot be accomplished overnight.
We believe until these challenges are addressed, a goal of
a single, coordinated, nationwide system will remain out of
reach.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Koontz follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
I'll now recognize the vice chairman of the subcommittee,
the gentlelady from Michigan, for an opening statement if she
has one.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be brief here.
I'm sorry I was a little bit late getting here this morning.
This issue of geospatial information could not be more
appropriate, I don't think, for this subcommittee. Since the
passage of the E-Government Act of 2002 and the creation of the
Geospatial One-Stop Initiative, a new-found effort has been
developed by the Federal agencies here to coordinate with State
and with local, as well as private industry, to develop an
effective Federal policy and to increase the effectiveness of
government services. This subcommittee has jurisdiction, of
course, over geospatial information policy and has a great
opportunity, we all think, to ensure improved effectiveness and
efficiency of this developing technology.
Geospatial information is utilized by all government
entities--Federal, State, local--to effectively target
resources, from the best placement for a senior health center
to a rural district where the most effective allocation of
funds for Federal programs targeting inner city youth, the
amount of information available is abundant. However, Federal,
State and local governments and private industry find
themselves engaging in redundant tasks if information were
better shared. The Department of the Interior, the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, State governments and local farm
groups should have access to the same public information to
better allocate their resources.
In geospatial information many of the issues, such as
concerns over privacy associated with information sharing, are
avoided. A system simply needs to be developed so that accurate
information is available to all interested parties working
toward the public good.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing
today so that members of this subcommittee and the public as
well can gain an understanding of actually what geospatial
information involves and how it impacts their life.
I'm certainly sorry I missed Mr. Forman's testimony, but
interested to hear the testimony of the other witnesses here
today. I thank you all for coming. It's a fascinating subject.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Candice S. Miller follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
I will begin with a few questions. I'll begin with Mr.
Forman. How much does the Federal Government spend each year on
the collection and dissemination and use of geospatial data?
Mr. Forman. Despite the importance of this data and as an
asset for the management of the government, we do not have an
accurate accounting. I can tell you that it's in the billions
of dollars.
We have done a number of administrative approaches to
collect that information. So we have insights into the largest
IT investments. We have taken additional steps to gather data
on the data acquisition, which in some agencies is not
considered an IT investment because it's simply buying data.
We need to do more, and we need to be a little bit more
rigorous in enforcing, which we intend to do as part of this
next budget process.
Mr. Putnam. Is it fair to say that every agency has a
geospatial component, or most every agency?
Mr. Forman. I would say that it would be accurate to say
every agency buys the geospatial assets, the information or the
tools or a combination thereof. As Congresswoman Miller pointed
out, government at its core has to manage around geography, and
so it is implicit or explicit in the management of so many
programs that every agency has it.
Mr. Putnam. In order for us to find out how much we
actually spend, what reporting systems are in place to track
geospatial spending? And as it relates to the A-16 circular
that you referred to in your testimony, the agencies are
supposed to submit that on their collection activities. Could
you discuss how that information is used to manage the
geospatial issues at the Federal level?
Mr. Forman. There are three ways that we're collecting that
information, some of which are fairly new. First, through OMB
Circular A-11, as well as A-16, the agencies have to report,
and that has to come in with their budget justification
materials. So to the extent that agencies recognize that is
actually being asked of them, that we get that data in for an
IT investment with the business case, for program funding with
the program justification, that's the primary.
In addition, the Federal Geographic Data Committee compiles
an annual report that goes agency by agency and details the
data activities. Again, that tends to use, I think, primarily
the A-16 data.
And the third, as part of this year's fiscal 2005 budget,
we'll be getting reporting on the Federal Enterprise
Architecture components, as well, with the agencies; and
geospatial data and the tools are part of some of the reference
models.
So we hope to have it in those three forms--the OMB
Circular A-11, the A-16 with the FGDC reporting, and then the
Federal Enterprise Architecture reporting as part of the
budget.
Mr. Putnam. So assuming that every agency complies with the
requirements of A-11 and A-16 and their EA report, we should
know by?
Mr. Forman. September.
Mr. Putnam. By September we'll know how much we're spending
on geospatial?
Mr. Forman. I think it's fair to say we wouldn't need it in
all three of those, that clearly what's happening here is, A-16
didn't work. So we supplemented that with A-11, and our check
and balance is now this year.
We know if an agency is performing a mission or manages
their program as it relates to geography, they have to be using
some sort of geospatial or geographic information system; the
check and balance for us is going to come down to the
architecture. If they're not reporting yet, we see, that
linkage in the data reference model or in the business
reference model, we now have a basis to go back to them and
say, obviously you forgot to give us some information, or you
probably have a need here that we don't see being met. And I
believe absent that architecture, we would have a difficult
time identifying the gaps.
So I'm putting a lot of my bet this year on the fact that
we'll have the discipline of the architecture process to ferret
out people who haven't seen a need to report that before.
Mr. Putnam. We'll certainly be happy to help enforce some
of the discipline to ensure that everyone is complying with
your circulars.
In your testimony, you mentioned that in the next year you
will launch the geospatial one-stop portal with an initial
1,000 data sets with a goal of increasing the amount of
information on the portal by 20 percent each month thereafter.
How are the initial 1,000 data sets selected? And could you
give us some examples of what the public can see when you roll
out your portal?
Mr. Forman. For that question, I'd like to defer to Scott
as being the executive----
Mr. Putnam. Certainly.
Mr. Forman [continuing]. Director.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Cameron.
Mr. Cameron. OK. Mr. Chairman. This gives me a wonderful
opportunity to introduce the executive director of the One-Stop
project, my direct report--an individual who ran the New Jersey
State GIS office, Hank Garie.
And, Hank, I'm going to allow--encourage you to come up
here and field the question, because you're closer to the data
here than I am.
Mr. Putnam. Does the buck stop with you?
Mr. Garie. The buck stops right here, Mr. Chairman, and
I'll be happy to try to answer the question for you.
I think there are two aspects of your question. No. 1 was
which agencies are we working with on the initial deployment of
the portal.
We have been coordinating with a number of Federal
agencies, including the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as
NASA, EPA and others, and also working with, initially, a
handful of States who we've had good contacts with to initially
populate the portal with geospatial information.
Data sets that we're focusing on include items of national
significance such as topography and elevation, basic reference
information, as well as improving the capability to reach out
across multiple data platforms to pull information in to
support decisionmaking, decisionmaking such as homeland
security, environmental management, transportation planning,
those types of things.
Mr. Putnam. Could you walk us through a scenario where a
regional planner in New Jersey or in central Florida would be
seeking a particular type of information and someone would
refer them to this portal? And could you walk us through how
this would improve their ability to make decisions?
Mr. Garie. I'd be happy to take a shot at that.
Let's envision an incident was reported in Florida, a
hazardous spill, for instance. One would go to the portal and
be able to instantly, with one click of a mouse, bring up the
national map, which is a digital set of coverages for the
entire Nation that would help you zoom into Florida and get a
sense of that general community. One then could type in an
address and go directly to the area of the incident, perhaps go
to the State of Florida and bring up information about
emergency preparedness information that would be hosted data in
State government.
And, finally, if one were interested in the effect that
spill might have on natural resources, let's say a fishing
area, one could visit another server, one that I'm aware of
from the Marine Institute down in Florida and pull up a third
server, overlaying all that data instantly on the fly and then
be able to either save and print that as a map or e-mail the
information to the first responders or to the Governor's office
in the State of Florida.
So within a matter of minutes, we could pull information
together through the portal, get that information consistently
and quickly into the hands of relevant decisionmakers to try
and support that response effort.
Mr. Putnam. To what degree would you be able to access
private data on that portal?
Mr. Garie. To the degree that the policy decision is made
that we would encourage the private sector to report their
existing information, we could access that information as well.
It's really not a technical issue. It's a policy issue.
Mr. Cameron. That's perhaps my cue.
Mr. Putnam. You need to come to the microphone.
Sir, you can stay at the table. We'll probably have some
more questions for you.
Mr. Cameron. As currently designed, Mr. Chairman, we're
focusing initially on data sets that are owned by Federal
agencies, State agencies and local government agencies. From a
technical standpoint, there's no reason we couldn't provide
access to private sector information. However, there's some
policy issues.
Frankly, in addressing this question, we're going where no
one has gone before. For instance, the Joint Committee on
Printing here on the Hill has a policy guideline against
advertising. To what extent does making private sector
information accessible through a government site constitute
advertising?
I've commissioned a study by the Interior Department's
policy office to look at the statutory, the regulatory and
whatever policy guidance may be extant right now on this topic.
But from a citizen's perspective, as I indicated earlier, if
you're interested in providing the best information for that
person who's managing emergency response after an earthquake in
Los Angeles or whatever, you want to make the best information
available to them. You want to give them the opportunity to
select the data that they would need to best meet their needs.
And that begs a question, why not provide access to private
sector information?
But we don't know what our full regulatory and statutory
constraints are yet, Mr. Chairman, and so we need to explore
that.
Mr. Putnam. Are the utilities considered public or private?
Mr. Cameron. Well----
Mr. Putnam. Would you be able to find out where to turn off
the private company's gas line? Would you be able to find out
where to shut off the power?
Mr. Cameron. OK. Well, you're raising information that
poses some security dimensions to it. For instance--you
wouldn't want everyone in the country perhaps to have access to
that sort of information. So even data sets that were available
on-line, you might need to have some sort of security
protection to limit the number of folks who could have access
to that information, but in theory, yes, the portal would
provide that capability to get that sort of information by the
folks who have the right security clearances, who clearly had
the need to have information that might otherwise be considered
rather sensitive.
Mr. Forman. Mr. Chairman, I think there's another important
aspect of that, that clearly there is some geospatial and
geographic information that is collected by the Federal
Government. There's an awful lot of the data that we buy from
the private sector, and a big part of the issue here is, do we
have to buy it so many times?
As you know, I'm a big fan of Web services and leveraging a
transactions-based model where we don't actually have to buy
complete data bases; but in this scenario, we're buying it from
the private sector anyway. That doesn't mean we have to own and
have huge data centers hosting that data. There clearly are
commercial marketplace models that we need to be exploring, not
just in geospatial, but in other data areas, and we are
exploring, where we don't actually buy and copy the content and
host it ourselves, but as Scott has said, get access to that on
a different type of transaction model.
Mr. Putnam. We're going to return to this. My time has
expired, but before I call on Ms. Watson, Mr. Garie, could you
please state your name and title for the record?
Mr. Garie. Yes. My name is Henry Garie and I'm the
executive director of the geospatial one-stop program.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
At this time, I'll recognize for 5 minutes the gentlelady
from California, Ms. Watson. Welcome.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'm sorry
I'm late.
I probably missed much of what I'm going to ask, but when
you talk about geospatial, are we talking about providing
information to certain individuals in government or to the
public? Let me give you a case in point.
I represent Los Angeles, CA. We have a whole lot of natural
phenomena, natural disasters; and let's just say, homeland
security, would there be capability in a geospatial system to
let us go into it, as elected officials, to be able to let our
constituencies know what transportation routes they could take
to get out of town?
We had a case in 1992 where many of the post offices were
closed down, and many of the drugstores. People called in and
wanted to know where they could go and buy their prescription
drugs. We went to the post office, picked up the welfare
checks, took them to the--so that kind of information.
We just knew it because we were on the ground, but I'm
wondering--you talk about business, commercial, and you talk
about government, and I'm wondering if your system would be
developed to be able to get into it and give them commercial,
retail information, transportation information, roadways that
are safe for evacuation. How extensive--how general will it be?
Mr. Cameron. Certainly in terms of the emergency response,
what-are-the-best-roads-to-get-out-of-town-type questions, I
think the answer would be yes. We would want to have this sort
of information available to the appropriate person, the city of
Los Angeles, L.A. County government, whatever it might be, to
feed information to the radio broadcasters, for instance, to
give advice to the general public.
You raise some very good questions, essentially how far
does one go? We don't want to duplicate services that are
already out there in the private sector. We essentially don't
want to become a service for retail companies to advertise the
location of their stores, for instance. So there are some
boundary issues that, frankly, we need to explore and we need
to nail down; and to be honest, we're probably a year or 2 away
from doing that. Our primary focus right now is getting the
Federal agencies, the State agencies and the local government
agencies to coordinate together to meet the needs of the
persons in charge of, how do I handle an earthquake in L.A.
County?
Ms. Watson. May I just give you this scenario.
We had an earthquake, as you know, in 1992, and we were out
on the streets. And when we got to the city hall, we asked for
help, because I just went around the district, and there were
collapsed buildings and homes everywhere. And they said,
listen, you've got to help us. Find the guy in the street with
the hard hat and direct him.
So we got out and we were a resource. I think whatever
system is set up, there needs to be coordination across areas,
and we need as elected officials, because we get the calls as
well, the first responders are so occupied--I was out there
directing traffic; you know, I mean, there were just fire
engines going every which way and the police occupying and so
on.
So I think as you look at a comprehensive system, you need
to consider how we coordinate into the public-private sector,
into the community base. There are many organizations out in
the community that would be helpful. So I think we should--and
it's not favoring a commercial establishment over--but there
are some NGO's that are in operation, could be in operation,
and there are commercial businesses that could be helpful, so I
think we ought to look into that if we want a comprehensive
system that can do the job.
Mr. Cameron. A very good observation, Congresswoman. One of
the more interesting features of this version 1.0 of our
portal, if you will, is our ability to essentially make a map
on the fly, as he had referred to, take data from the county,
from the Feds, take it from the city, lay them on top of one
another; and then you could actually e-mail that composite map
to some people that were on a distribution list that you
thought would benefit from having that information.
So a couple of clicks of a mouse, you could send out a
1,000, 10,000 copies of that map to key players in the
community who would benefit from that information.
Ms. Watson. If I could just----
Mr. Forman. Also, if I may, the disaster management
initiative is specifically focused on this; and in our written
testimony, we did talk about the relationship between the
geospatial information and those actual sets of tools for the
first responders.
I think your point is right on target. It's a critical
linkage that has to occur.
Ms. Watson. Just one more thing. I think you can buy into a
service called--what is it, Telstar or something-Star? And I am
just fascinated by it, you know. You just push a button on your
automobile and it tells you, hello, Ms. Watson, and you tell
them where you want to go, and they direct you go to that
light.
I'm saying, is somebody following me that knows where I am?
But I'm thinking--what is it, Telstar? What is the name of that
system? OnStar. Marvelous. Wonderful.
And so if we could, as you develop this, have the
capability to do an OnStar kind of process to get a map, it
would be very, very helpful. That's what they do, but as you
develop it for more practical use, you might want to consider
what they do.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cameron. A quick response to that. The public launch of
the portal will be at a conference here in Washington June
30th, but we'd be delighted to provide demonstrations to any
members of the subcommittee between now and the 30th, who might
be interested; and that will include staff of course.
Mr. Putnam. Is it on-line now?
Mr. Cameron. Yes, I believe the answer is, it is on-line.
We certainly saw an on-line demonstration last week. I'm not
quite sure it's ready for prime time today, but it is certainly
demonstrable.
Mr. Putnam. What is the address?
Mr. Garie. We have the portal now running on a development
server, and we would be more than happy to show you its
capabilities at any time that would be convenient for the
committee or individual members. The address will be
www.geodata.gov.
Mr. Putnam. Very good.
I'll now recognize the gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs.
Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of
questions, and I think I'll followup on this whole coordination
everybody is talking about, how you coordinate some of the
different layers of government, I suppose. And I've been
involved at the local, the county and the State and now here;
and I remember at the local level of government where we were--
GIS was sort of in its infancy in a former lifetime of mine
when this all started, and how fascinating it was.
At a local level we started with the GIS and you start
doing your mapping, your overlay with your infrastructure, and
the fire hydrants and water mains and all of that; and at the
county level you start putting on the park system and
demographics; and then the State level is doing interstates and
all these kinds of things.
But as you were outlining the possible scenario for a
homeland security, a terrorism attack, what have you, you need
to be able to access that. You would have to know what the PSI,
for instance, would be at a particular fire hydrant, what kind
of underground capacity you have and all of these kinds of
things.
What percentage of municipalities or counties or States are
even involved with GIS, and how much capacity is out there for
you to even access, as you begin your construct to some of
these overlays? Where are we? I mean, it is sort of a new
thing. I mean, the Internet is relatively new, and GIS is quite
a bit newer than even that.
Mr. Cameron. All 50 States are certainly involved. Hank, in
fact, is past-president of an organization called the National
States Geographic Information Council, that has been around for
quite a few years.
I think it's fair to say that virtually all the larger
local governments across the country have GIS. For instance,
New York City relied on GIS extensively after the September
11th attacks to figure out where the gas pipelines where, where
the subway tunnels were, to try to figure out how to respond.
So the medium-size and larger local governments across the
country are involved in GIS right now to a varying extent.
As you might imagine, the more remote areas and poorer
communities are probably less likely to have this sort of
capability.
In terms of the numbers, Hank, would you want to hazard a
guess on how many local governments have the GIS capability?
Mr. Garie. Well, let me begin by saying geospatial one-stop
is really all about partnerships. The information is on
organizational partnerships, not so much technology; and the
fact of the matter, as Scott described, that our
intergovernmental board of directors relies on inputs from
local associations is a testimony to our recognition of how
much GIS activity is happening out there locally.
I can speak probably most directly from my New Jersey
experience, where in New Jersey each of the 21 counties have
GIS capabilities that's tied in with the State partnership. And
so this partnering is happening across the country, where
States are working with counties, who are working with
municipal governments.
What geospatial one-stop is doing is putting in place this
Internet library card catalog, if you will, that we will work
through our associations on the board to encourage those State
and local governments to join into this national network, and I
think with the technological advances and the partnership
potential, we can wrap our arms around a lot of the local
digital data that you've alluded to.
Mr. Cameron. In fact, if I could followup, one of the
advantages that we hope will flow from the geospatial
marketplace that I referred to earlier is, any market tends to
create a situation where prices goes down, demand goes up and
more people can take advantage of what is being bought or sold,
so we're hoping that the geospatial marketplace will make it
easier, less expensive for a wider variety of local
governments, for instance, to afford and take full advantage of
GIS technology.
Mrs. Miller. And, you know, it would also seem to be a
critical element that you would--all of you talked a lot about
uniformity and having standards, and being able to access this
information. Who is driving the standards, for instance, at the
local level, the county level? Are there the different
associations? The State Associations of Governors, for
instance, does this drive the standards for the State? Is there
uniformity?
Is that a big problem?
Mr. Garie. It is a big problem. One of the things
geospatial one-stop is doing with respect to standards is
making sure that our process is inclusive, that we've invited
those State and local representatives to work with us. And
again we're focusing through the associations. And the fact
that NACO, the National Association of Counties, has an active
GIS presence and the National States GIS Council are all
involved helps us bring those locals to the table.
I do think there are leadership roles clearly at the State
level that can help promote and encourage that type of
consistency.
Mrs. Miller. You know----
Mr. Cameron. We have really gone out of our way to make
sure that State and local governments are actively playing in
standards developments.
I think one of the fair criticisms of first-round standards
development at the Federal level that started in the middle
1990's was that it was very Federal-centric. Maybe, in
essentially the 1990's, the Feds did have something of a
monopoly on GIS, but the reality is that the State and local
governments have more data, better data, right now and it only
makes sense to get State and local governments as actively
involved in standards development as they can stand; and we've
made a very intense effort to do just that, because if this
project does not meet the needs of State and local governments,
it fails, and that is essentially our perspective.
Mrs. Miller. Right. Well, not only the needs of State and
local governments, as you mentioned--in this case, I think it's
sort of the bottom up.
For instance, you're talking about a homeland security
situation; again, you would need the information from the local
fire department, who--their fire inspector has information
about a hazardous material in a particular building. There's no
way the Federal Government would have that. It all sort of
emanates from the bottom up.
Just one other question: In regards to private data that
was mentioned about private data and accessing private data,
could you give--some of you, any of you give me an example of
what kind of private data you would overlay? Is there a pool of
private data out there that you would like to have that you're
having difficulty getting?
Mr. Cameron. Well, if a policy decision were made and we're
not there yet--although we're awfully intrigued by the
possibility--if the policy decision were made to incorporate--
or make private data accessible through a portal, for instance,
probably elevation data would come to mind. There are a lot of
satellite companies--or companies involved in aerial
photography that can give you much, much higher resolution on
elevation, like to the nearest foot, or less than that in some
cases, that's better quality frankly than what's in the typical
Federal card catalog, if you will.
So if you're worried about a flood issue in St. Louis or
the Sacramento River Valley, for instance, you might need to
know to the nearest 6 inches what the elevation of that levee
was; and that is the sort of information that the private
sector can readily provide, and it would be one of the cards in
that card catalog. So the manager could make an informed
decision about which data base could best serve their needs.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
There's a recurring theme that the State and local data and
private data is superior to Federal data.
Is that because it is more current or it is a higher
quality?
Mr. Cameron. It is generally more current and to be fair
here, there are a large number of Federal agencies and NASA for
instance, that has satellites up there all of the time are
taking data, obviously, getting current information. But if one
were to look at the old standard, the U.S. Geological Survey
quadrangle, a lot of those quadrangles are 10 years old, 20
years old, 30 years old. They are at a scale of 1 inch equals
20,000 inches as opposed to 1 inch equals 1,000 inches or 2,000
inches.
Mr. Putnam. So does the government not need to update those
maps because the better map exists in the private sector, and
we don't need to buy the same data again?
Mr. Cameron. I think the way to look at it is as a society,
we have needs. The agencies have needs, the private sector has
needs, different levels of government have needs. Geospatial
one-stop is a way for the community to get at the best data
that's available in the community. So if a local government had
better information in a particular geographic location,
geospatial one-stop portal would allow a user to get that local
government's information, again, with the cooperation of that
local government. We are not in a position of dragooning
anyone's data.
Mr. Putnam. If a locality could purchase private data, that
is good to 1 foot on elevation, why would FEMA, as part of
their recurring updates, go in and remap flood maps for an area
if the data exists in the private sector?
Mr. Forman. That is exactly the issue. And FEMA is a
perfect place to look for that because they did have a similar
issue to that. Not just FEMA, but the Corps of Engineers, the
Interior Department, the Agriculture Department, they were
essentially buying that same data and then occasionally we
would come across another agency that would go out and collect
that data itself. So we had multiple people collecting the same
data and multiple agencies buying sometimes the same data
multiple times. We would like to see that money not go to buy
the same data multiple times, but buy the data once and invest
in the applications that allow us to get the value out of the
data.
I think one other key element of this to understand the
difference between urban areas or areas that might be regulated
by State or local organizations like the State Agriculture
Environmental Protection Department. Somebody's going to have
to collect that data. There's a lot of overlap in those
regulatory processes. But each regulator doesn't need its own
version of that data. And the portal allows us to start to
manage the data investments a lot better because we already
know something is there.
In an urban setting, there's no question that the local
government is going to probably have the best data across that
whole geospatial layer because they will have the permitting
that went into building whether it's the gas lines or the power
lines or the phone lines, they all basically go through a
permitting process that requires the geospatial data. A lot of
the local governments have made tremendous improvements in
aggregating that geospatial data and really at the heart of
governance to regulate how they manage that asset of that
community.
So we know the best data is there. What we're trying to do
is not have a Federal agency go then and survey that land
again, buy another copy of that data and then give out money
for government programs to the local government at the Federal
data set as opposed to the local government data set. So we
have to go through milestones to get to that nirvana of more
effective management of those investments.
Mr. Putnam. Let me run through a couple of fairly quick
questions, but they are important. This initiative is
classified under the government to government umbrella. Is that
because you primarily see your customers, your users, your Web
browsers being State and local governments?
Mr. Forman. Correct.
Mr. Putnam. And not so much a citizen who would like to
have a really great looking aerial photograph of Yellowstone or
a nautical chart for fishing off the coast of Florida?
Mr. Forman. That's correct.
Mr. Putnam. There is a board that is mentioned in Mr.
Cameron's testimony that includes representatives of tribes,
State and local governments, western Governors and several
Federal departments. How often does it meet?
Mr. Cameron. It meets on an as needed basis. We have been
doing conference calls as well as face-to-face meetings, I
think, we have probably been averaging about once every 6 weeks
for the last 4 or 5 months.
Mr. Putnam. Is there a representative from the private
sector on the board?
Mr. Cameron. There is not a representative from the private
sector on the board. That is a reflection of the fact this was
conceived as a government-to-government initiative from the
very beginning.
Mr. Putnam. Do you envision expanding over time as the
portal opens and the governments figure out how to get that
information on? Is that a natural evolution?
Mr. Cameron. I am not sure, because I think this will
fundamentally stay a government-to-government initiative. I
should say we are actively engaging the private sector in
standards development. We have clearly been relying on private
sector expertise for the portal for instance, and these board
meetings are open to the public. We don't lock out someone just
because they're not an employee of a Federal, State or local
agency.
So we're engaging the private sector. But since this is a
government-to-government project, I'm not sure it's appropriate
to put the private sector on the board, and besides, who would
speak for the private sector?
Mr. Putnam. We resolve those issues on a regular basis with
different boards in 100 different things in the government. But
your testimony says formation of this board is intended to
facilitate the ability of governments to leverage their
individual resources to become more efficient, more cost
effective, and to better serve. And your own answer to my
question, you said that the private sector in a lot of cases
has better information. How would the local governments know
that there's something better out there if they are not exposed
to something like this board?
Mr. Cameron. The vendor community is very effective at
marketing. And if a decision is made to make private sector
information accessible through the portal to add it to the card
catalog, if you will, then it would be very easy for anyone out
there to get information on private sector services.
Mr. Putnam. You made reference to that a couple times if
the policy decision is made to include the private sector.
Where is that decisionmaking process. Is it your call, Forman's
call? Who makes that call?
Mr. Cameron. We'll be happy to have as wide a conversation
on that topic as you like, Mr. Chairman. In fact, since we are
paving new ground here, if the committee has any insights or
any views on this, frankly, we would welcome the suggestion.
The first step is to try to figure out what the current
statutory, regulatory policy framework is. Once we get that
settled, then we'll know what our options are or are not under
current law. And if the prevailing views of the board, for
instance, are that we ought to have private sector information
available, then I'll need to consult with Mark, because our
friends at OMB have a controlling influence on information
policy administration-wide.
And as we move forward with it, then if there are any
suggestions that the committee would care to make. At this
point, the primary obvious issue, in fact, is a congressional
one. This Joint Committee on Printing. Does making private
sector information available through government portals, in
fact, constitute advertising? I don't know. Maybe the committee
can enlighten us on that.
Mr. Putnam. Who is ultimately responsible for implementing
the vision of geospatial one-stop. Is it you, Mr. Forman?
Mr. Forman. That would be Hank.
Mr. Cameron. I don't think we will put Hank there.
In consultation with the board, I make the decisions until
Mark Forman or Gail Norton tell me I'm wrong is sort of the
situation.
Mr. Putnam. So Interior?
Mr. Forman. Interior is the lead partner for this, the
managing partner for this. And Hank is the program director,
the executive director of the program. My view on this is we
come to an agreement via the business case process and what are
the milestones, the performance measures and program plan, and
it's Hank's job to deliver on that.
Mr. Putnam. Historically, Interior is where all the maps
were. We had all these tremendous natural resources, had these
public lands mostly in the West. If you go back far enough, we
had the whole settlement issues, homesteading and all of those
kinds of things that over time led to a lot of true pen-and-
paper type maps being in Interior. Then we put a man on the
moon and we started having satellites, and we're able to take
aerial photographs.
Now most of the discussion we have had on geospatial really
has focused, to a large degree, on first responders, homeland
security, things that would be much more important to the city
of New York than to the Bureau of Lands Management in the
middle of Wyoming.
So Interior--is it still the appropriate foci of
cartography, and now geospatial information for the Federal
Government?
Mr. Forman. When we posed this question to the Deputy
Secretary via the President's management council, that was the
choice to make them the managing partner. So that represents an
agreement among the COOs, chief operating officers of the
government.
Mr. Cameron. Your observation, I think suggests why it's so
important that we actively involve other Federal agencies, that
we actively involve State and local governments because of the
broad community of needs out there, broad community of
interests, broad capability of interests and it would be
foolhardy for one particular entity to try to go this alone. It
wouldn't make any sense and that's why we are making such a
special effort at bringing in the States, the locals and other
Federal agencies in the decisionmaking process on how this
project evolves.
Mr. Putnam. This time I will recognize the distinguished
ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing. I thank all the witnesses for taking the time to work
with us today. Mr. Forman, good morning. Implicit in your one-
stop proposal is collaboration between the Federal Government
and State and local governments. Some have suggested that this
is a one-way exchange. Has OMB considered a geospatial block
grant program where a part of the $4 billion spent federally is
sent to State and local governments to develop local
infrastructure?
[The prepared statement of Hon. Wm. Lacy Clay follows:]
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Mr. Forman. I'm not aware of any and that could just be my
lack of knowledge. So if I could get back to you on that, Mr.
Clay, I would appreciate that opportunity.
Mr. Clay. Sure, I would appreciate it. Ms. Koontz, as you
point out in your testimony, the objectives of geospatial one-
stop are not significantly different from those the government
has been struggling with for over a decade. For example, one of
the objectives is to finalize the seven framework standards
that have been under development for most of the last decade.
What has changed that would make us believe suddenly that these
objectives are going to be met?
Ms. Koontz. Well, in terms of developing the standards, I
think you have to remember that standards development is a
consensus-based process, and under the best of circumstances,
is going to take a long time. Whether, you know, eight
standards over 13 years is the most efficient pace, I don't
think I could tell you. The point about geospatial one-stop is
that its goals are very similar to what's been going on in the
past.
But I think what we saw as the task at hand is a near-term
kind of strategy. And I think what I would like to see and what
I think is lacking here is a longer-term strategy which is
really going to get us where we want to go in terms of having a
strategy for how are we going to address the other 26 standards
that still need to be developed. I think there needs to be
greater involvement with State and local governments. And in
the geospatial one-stop, despite the board of directors and the
involvement of many, many associations, I think there's some
question as to what extent those associations are reaching out
to their constituents and involving them.
The key thing here is, I think, to make the portal
ultimately work, you have to have the standardized data behind
it, and that will depend on getting enough involvement from all
the key players to make sure they agree with the standards and
will eventually adopt them. And that's what will populate the
portal in the end.
Mr. Clay. Ms. Koontz, I would like your reaction to a
proposal that an agency that does not adequately report and
document its geospatial holdings be fined a percentage of its
budget to go toward a contractor to perform those functions. In
other words, an agency can either do the work or be required to
pay to have the work done. What's your reaction to that?
Ms. Koontz. I sense there's a legal question lurking in
there somewhere, but I don't want to go too far with that.
That's OMB's role to ensure the cross-agency coordination and
also to work with agencies because they have the power of the
budget to take steps to make sure that agencies are doing what
they're supposed to do here.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Forman, would you like to comment on the
proposal?
Mr. Forman. I think there is room for many components.
Ultimately the funding and financing does rest with the
Congress. And I think that would be a very fruitful discussion
to enjoin your involvement in this process.
Mr. Clay. Has OMB considered this proposal?
Mr. Forman. Similar proposals, I wouldn't say one where we
just take the money away and then would use it to hire
contractors, because we generally don't get involved in the
contracting process. But withholding funds until agencies close
room gaps in business cases we have done frequently over the
last 2 years in this area as well. Budget data requests is
something else we have done in this area as well. And there is
a need for better reporting, there's no question about that.
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question
and not to keep going on about how important it is you have all
said that about coordinating with State and local governments,
but even when you use the example of FEMA, you know, another
example, I think, within the last maybe 5 or 6 years, I think
every county in the entire Nation has been required to
remonument as well. For all of that survey data, I mean, it is
all out there if you can access. And you know, just to followup
on what Representative Clay had mentioned about whether or not
it would be appropriate from a block granting standpoint.
We have a tremendous investment already at every level of
government and we intend to continue this level of investment.
Is there any thought at all, and I'm not sure whether it would
be appropriate or not, but is there any thought about having a
fee structure in place for accessing the data? Is there any way
for the government to recoup some of this cost as people may
utilize it particularly out in the private sector?
Mr. Forman. Personally, I think those are decent ideas.
Generally we would like to see that evaluated as part of the
business case. And when we originally evaluated this in the e-
government strategy, there were estimates that as much as 50
percent of the investment was wasted. So we chose the portal
approach and the Santos approach because it is the fastest way
to get to a buy one and choose many or collect one, choose many
paradigm.
And if we could save 50 percent of the spending across
Federal State and locals, that would free up several billions
dollars worth of resources. As we move to the next phases,
clearly we should explore some of the other aspects of the
business model. Those are fine avenues to take a look at.
Mr. Garie. Perhaps I could offer one insight with respect
to fees. A number of States and county governments as well have
explored this aspect of trying to recoup costs for data
development. The general consensus is that setting up fees for
data often provides a larger disincentive for people to access
and utilize the information than funds one can recoup.
Mr. Putnam. Would you yield for 1 second? There are some
geospatial products that the government does charge for. How is
that decision made about what products are free and which ones
are not? And how is the decision made about the price?
Mr. Cameron. The general policy, Mr. Chairman, and Mark can
correct me, the general policy is that Federal geospatial data
is provided at the cost of printing and reproduction. I think
that is in the OMB circular 130, but I could be wrong. The
general policy is you don't try to recapture the cost of
collecting the data in the first place. In some cases, the cost
of reproduction could be a dollar, and some cases, it could be
$10 depending on the product. Of course, if you are getting it
off the Internet, it's basically zero.
Mr. Putnam. I yield back. Thank you, Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Do any of you have any advice for us on how
the Federal Government could encourage the State and local
governments to do even more with their GIS to really supplement
what we're trying to do, even from an economic incentive
standpoint? What could we be doing?
Mr. Forman. This gets to the genesis of this initiative
coming out of our focus groups that we held. Local
organizations or a city organization can buy or assemble
geographic information. It's very unusual to have a county co-
use that information. Moreover, a State typically works with a
county and often wouldn't share information with the city. So
what the group told us is that the Federal Government had to
step up to a leadership role because we too share the data,
although oftentimes, not to that level of detail that a local
government needs. And hence, the focus on standards came out.
The ability to standardize or--from the bottom--literally from
the local government up to define what should be the content of
the data within the themes. And then the other aspect was that
creation of a portal, which, again, was seen as a central
Federal responsibility that the local governments could then
use to access that data.
Mr. Cameron. To be fully responsive to your question, it's
amazing how a very small investment in cash or a partnership
grant can make a difference to a local government. $10,000,
$20,000, can make a big difference. Without appearing to lobby,
I think I need to inform the committee there's $1.5 million in
the Presidents fiscal year 2004 budget that is part of the
budget for the geospatial one-stop project. This $1.5 million,
in fact, would be grant money to State and local governments to
foster some of these partnerships. So the committee might want
to be aware of that.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Koontz, GAO, in your testimony said,
``unless the underlying geospatial data offered through the one
State portal are standardized across data providers, the
additional functionality offered by the portal may be of
limited value.'' You also say while geospatial one-stop's
objectives are important they do not represent a significantly
new or different approach to the GIS integration problem that
the government has been struggling with for more than a decade.
Mr. Clay mentioned that as well. What's it going to take? What
did your report find that it's going to take either from the
Congress or from the OMB or the individual agencies to really
get its arms around standardization to make this a meaningful
customer service government-to-government tool?
Ms. Koontz. You're absolutely right. Standards are the key
to this entire undertaking. I think that at the risk of
repeating myself, I think there's a need for a longer-term
strategy. While the geospatial one-stop represents some short-
term goals, I think we need a longer-term strategy as to how to
develop the standards. And in addition, I think we have some
concerns about how extensive the involvement has been in both
the standards making process by all Federal agencies and we
have some concerns about State and local involvement in the
geospatial one-stop.
Mr. Putnam. The lack of?
Ms. Koontz. The lack of. I wouldn't say there's an entire
lack, but we are concerned there is not as much involvement as
is really needed here. Obviously geospatial one-stop has taken
some steps to involve the State associations, but we still have
questions about the extent of the involvement. And the key here
is that unless State and local governments agree with these
standards, it's--and they believe it will meet their needs,
it's unlikely they are going to adopt these. It is the same
with other Federal agencies.
Tremendous investments have already been made in geospatial
information systems. I think that Federal agencies, State and
local governments, need to have an incentive to change what
they're doing to conform to what's needed for geospatial one-
stop and the portal.
Mr. Putnam. Are you satisfied with the structure that's
been put in place that the structure provides a framework for
the right people to be making that long-term goal setting or
developing that vision?
Ms. Koontz. I think that the structure we have in place
could work. Having Interior as a lead, you know, makes some
sense. The reason that we have Mark Forman's position as
administrator for e-government is to ensure the coordination
across the Federal agencies; that needs to happen in order to
make this successful.
Mr. Putnam. In the old days, a lot of different agencies
have been tasked with collecting an awful lot of data and
mapping it. Do we have warehouses somewhere full of maps?
Ms. Koontz. Probably.
Mr. Putnam. Does anybody have a definitive answer? Mr.
Forman, do you know?
Mr. Forman. I intuitively believe its warehouses and we
should get back to you on that. It would be interesting to see
how many there are. I have seen places even in the Capitol
where we have--when I was on the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee staff, maps that had to be submitted to us and
archived. So I know these places exist. I don't know where they
are.
Mr. Putnam. We have a hearing coming up on preservation of
records and electronic archiving and things like that which
hopefully the results will lead us to a more efficient and
streamlined archiving process that might allow us to reduce the
number of warehouses under GSA's control that are storing maps
that no one uses or even is aware of their existence.
Mr. Cameron. With your indulgence, could I respond to a
couple of the observations made by GAO?
Mr. Putnam. You may.
Mr. Cameron. I guess I would fundamentally disagree with
the premise that this round of standards exercises is
essentially the same as what we have done in the past. There
are a number of significant differences. For one thing, we are
actively involving State and local governments in the front end
in ways that the Federal Geographic Data Committee did not do
in the 1990's when they were working on standards. And that's a
very significant difference.
The earlier round of standards development was really
standards by techies for techies by the Federal Government for
the Federal Government. We established, as a matter of policy
from the get-go here, that we are trying to develop standards
that work for the local person on the ground, flood plain
manager in St. Louis, the county extension agent in Polk
County, the State Recreation Department in Michigan.
So that's a difference in outlook and perspective. As a
point of fact, we are field testing these draft standards with
State and local governments. Dozens of them signed up for the
opportunity. That hasn't happened in the past. So I guess I
would disagree with the premise that this round of standard
making is the same as what we had back in the 1990's. I think
it's fundamentally different, both in its philosophy and its
practice.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Forman.
Mr. Forman. My experience would say that to be successful
in something like this, you are going to need processes, you're
going to need a governance structure and we would need to
bridge technology. I think there's something different in all
three of those areas. First of all, we really didn't have
standardization process, and that's one of the aspects that the
geospatial wants to help us build. It is very much a bottoms-up
from State and local government because that whole office was
set up to respond to the needs of State and local governments.
Second, there is no organization. I don't think anybody
could imagine that you could manage something like this by
committee, like the Federal geographic data committee was set
up. I know that was government as usual back then. This needs a
program office and it needs somebody that comes from the
customer or the user community. That's why Hank is here. He
understands that from the perspective of our customers at State
and local governments. That's a big difference. And third is in
the area of technology. 10 years ago, we didn't have portals,
Web services or shared services. The technology really did not
allow you to take advantage of a standard in a collect one,
choose many or buy one, choose many. That's new and that is
another integral part of this program.
Mr. Putnam. Obviously there is an awful lot of pride in
this program, and you guys are working hard to make it
successful. It's revolutionary or has the potential to be. And
we're certainly excited of being a part of helping to make it
work and involving State and local, private, the Federal
Government. But Mr. Forman, like we've heard so many times on
other topics whether it's information security, cyber security
a lot of this comes back to not being a process problem or not
being a technology problem, but being a cultural or a personnel
problem. Frankly, as long as these agencies are going to
continue to ignore circulars and directives and the law, we
will continue to have a problem. So the degree to which we can
be helpful in highlighting inadequacies and failures to comply
by the agencies who are given very specific missions, we would
be happy to fill that role and will be doing so.
So I look forward to working with you all in the future as
we review how much money the government's spending on this,
what the status of our map supply is in warehouses or wherever
and ways we can continue to make this portal a successful tool
for customers, citizens, taxpayers to use. With that, we will
dismiss the first panel and bring in the second panel. Thank
you very much for your testimony.
Second panel, if the witnesses are here, please come and
take your seats at the table. The subcommittee will reconvene.
We have our second panel seated. Did all of you take the oath
when we swore in the first panel or do we need to do that
again? Did any of you not take the oath? We are happy to do it
again. All right. Very good, we will move forward. We will
begin in one moment.
Again, under the ``ladies first'' principle, we will begin
with Susan Kalweit, Chief of the Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team, with the Office of National Preparedness
with FEMA. Ms. Kalweit is currently detailed from the National
Imagery and Mapping Agency to the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. At FEMA she is leading the Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team. The aim IGPT is to develop in 1 year's time
a strategy for underpinning our Nation's preparedness for all
hazardous emergencies through a geospatial information network.
She previously has been the deputy chief of the North
America and Homeland Security Division at NIMA. That means she
has officially taken all of our pictures a number of times in
her career. We welcome you to the subcommittee and we recognize
you for your testimony.
STATEMENTS OF SUSAN W. KALWEIT, CHAIRMAN, INTERAGENCY
GEOSPATIAL PREPAREDNESS TEAM, FEMA (DHS), FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF,
NIMA NORTH AMERICA AND HOMELAND SECURITY DIVISION; GENE TROBIA,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL STATES GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COUNCIL; JACK
DANGERMOND, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, ESRI, INC.; AND MICHAEL
RITCHIE, P.E., L.S., C.P., PRESIDENT, MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
FOR PRIVATE PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SURVEYORS
Ms. Kalweit. Chairman Putnam, Vice Chairwoman Miller,
Ranking Member Clay, thank you very much for this opportunity
to discuss the benefits that a map-related data infrastructure
brings to homeland security. I will be summarizing my written
statement here. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, we witnessed
how mapping technology played an integral role in our war-
fighting strategy. The global positioning system [GPS] and
highly precise terrain data guided precision munitions to their
targets. News correspondent used the combination of perspective
scene visualization tools, geographic information systems [GIS]
and commercial satellite remote sensing systems to show the
American public where battles were being fought, what areas had
been secured by the U.S.-led coalition, and the terrain
challenges that our Marines and soldiers faced as they moved
toward Baghdad.
These technologies used by our military can aid in
detecting, preventing and deterring terrorist activity and
saving lives and protecting property in all-hazard disasters.
In short, these mapping technologies which I will refer to as
geographic information technologies are as necessary to our
defense on the war on terrorism as they are to our offense.
Over the next few minutes, I will describe generally the state
of our Nation's geographic information infrastructure within
the context of how such an infrastructure supports homeland
security.
The convergence of GPS, GIS, visualization tools and remote
sensing technologies combined with advances in wireless
communication, grid computing and Web services present us with
the opportunity to leverage location as the common information
component for homeland security. I am talking about
underpinning our Nation's preparedness with an infrastructure
of current and accurate location-based information that is
available wherever, whenever and however it is needed. The
stimulus for geospatial one-stop is the fact that geographic
information is critical to many business areas in the public
and private sector and there's a tremendous need to share
information and eliminate redundant spending.
Data holdings and their stewards that comply with standards
and emphasize policies to share information model what our
Nation needs to build and maintain the geographic information
capacity critical to homeland security. When using this model
as a standard to measure the current state of our national
geographic information infrastructure, you realize that across
our Nation, the quality of the data, the use of standards and
the ability to share data varies widely.
This is insufficient for a Nation that needs to detect,
prevent and respond to all hazards anywhere. The graphics that
I have provided, which I hope you have, demonstrate the
significant advantage homeland security planners, managers and
responders have when they incorporate geographic information
technologies in their business processes. Graphic one shows the
results of tying the above ground infrastructure to the below
ground infrastructure in New York City during the weekend of
the September 11 memorial services in 2002. This graphic
depicts the proximity of the VIP riser to the Brooklyn Battery
Tunnel, highlighting a potential physical vulnerability at the
site.
While mitigation of the tunnel's general vulnerability was
included in the event security operations plan, NIMA analysis
of the area as depicted here resulted in additional security
precautions being taken. Graphic 2 depicts the damage created
by a tornado that swept through La Plata, Maryland in 2002. No
one in that local jurisdiction expected such an event, which,
in its aftermath, had a tremendous emotional as well as
financial impact on the town. The imagery in this graphic, and
others like it, were used by Maryland to assess the damage for
transportation signals, general structures and forests.
In addition, it helped settle some insurance claims
quickly. The imagery also was used as the best available map to
plan the reconstruction of the town. Graphic 3 depicts how
local responders use geographic information technologies for
incident management. This example was taken directly from the
E-government Initiative Disaster Management, which located and
pulled the imagery into its system using the technical
interfaces promoted by geospatial one-stop. These screen shots
from the recently completed TopOff II exercise in Seattle show
the enhanced value of the geospatial one-stop products, the
imagery in this example, to the incident managers. They stated,
``This is the interoperability picture we have been wanting for
years,'' and ``disaster management and geospatial one-stop
services will work together to save lives, property and
businesses.''
Graphics 4 and 5 depict the utility of geographic
information technologies for keeping the public informed in the
aftermath of September 11. These examples were taken from the
New York City Web site. The information provided by that Web
site and the interactive application of Emergency Management
On-line Locator Service helped local citizens stay informed on
the status of their working, commuting and living conditions in
lower Manhattan. Information provided included geographic
representations of water, gas, electric steam and the subway as
well as the status of water crossings, building conditions and
various access zones in lower Manhattan.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate you
giving me this opportunity to testify on this very important
issue.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kalweit follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. At this time we will recognize Gene Trobia, who
serves as the Arizona State cartographer which staffs the
Arizona Geographic Information Council.
Through his work with the SCO and AGIC, Mr. Trobia
establishes State GIS standards, coordinates multi agency
projects and improves access to data bases. He has worked in
the geographic information field for over 20 years. He
previously worked for the Utah-automated Geographic Reference
Center, and was the director of the Pima County Engineering
Geographic Information Services in Tucson, AZ. He holds a BLA
and MLA in landscape architecture from the University of
Arizona and is past president of AGIC. The Arizona Geographic
Information Council has received a FEMA grant for $50,000
through the Arizona division of emergency management to conduct
both an inventory of geospatial data resources and contacts and
a series of workshops in providing data to first responders.
Welcome to the committee.
Mr. Trobia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Putnam and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting the
National States Geographic Information Council [NSGIC], to
participate in this important hearing examining geospatial
technology as a national asset and a tool that can transform
the way government operates and connects to its citizens. NSGIC
is a nonprofit organization that promotes effective government
through the widespread adoption of Geospatial Information
Technologies [GIT]. NSGIC provides a national forum for State
GIT leaders and advocates for development of the National
Spacial Data Infrastructure [NSDI]. Members of NSGIC include
State government managers, coordinators and representatives
from lead State GIT offices and statewide groups involved in
the daily coordination and application of geospatial
technologies.
Nearly all information managed by government is
locationally based. Using location-based data with GIT allows
government decisionmakers to better understand and clearly
visualize the impacts of their decisions. Our members support
such functional areas of civilian government as public safety,
health, transportation, agriculture, land management and many
others. I offer three key issues for consideration by the
subcommittee.
They each represent a major focus area for our members.
One, effective statewide coordination is required between State
and local efforts. Two, the NSDI must be completed in a timely
fashion to support public safety applications. And three,
geospatial data is a public resource for effective governance.
On effective statewide coordination, I want to say NSGIC is
ready, willing, and able to help build capacity and coordinate
State geospatial activities. NSGIC believes that effective
statewide coordination bodies must be active in working between
local and Federal Governments. States can provide 50 points of
contact for the Federal Government instead of the Federal
Government working with 3,141 counties or 18,000-plus
municipalities across the Nation.
Many of our coordinating bodies and especially in Arizona,
I would say the coordination councils are made up of Federal,
State, local, tribal and private sector partners already. So
you are getting to the people. With proper incentives from
Federal Government, States can provide area integration and
create portals that can push data to Federal Government.
Federal field office staff should improve their communications
by working with State coordination groups and become involved
with those local, State GIS communities and completion of the
NSDI.
Implications of geographic information technology are
profound. Location is the single threat common to all data. A
fully implemented and robust NSDI will empower public and
private decisionmakers. For example, fire and police
departments can review locations and frequencies of fires and
crimes and redeploy their assets. This results in reduced
crimes, faster response and safer communities. NSGIC believes
the benefits of NSDI can only be realized through
intergovernmental and private sector coordination,
collaboration and partnerships. As a public resource, the daily
work of all agencies must be organized and made available in
unprecedented ways to feed emergency managers and others the
information they need to do their jobs effectively. Congress
should direct the FGDC and the Department of Homeland Security
to develop a sound national policy for data access in
consultation with State, tribal and local government, and the
private sector. These policies should provide for reasonable
access by all entities for their business purposes.
Restrictions and redistribution or disclosure of the data
may be appropriate, but access must be provided to all but the
most sensitive data. Changes we would like to see in Federal
Government, the FGDC, geospatial one-stop and national map are
good examples of collaborative efforts that State and local
government partners as equals. However, State and local
governments are constantly receiving multiple Federal surveys
about their geospatial data assets and policies. These surveys
are burdensome and are not coordinated between individual
Federal agencies. NSGIC will seek Federal assistance to
implement a more coordinated Web-enabled approach to develop
and maintain statewide geospatial data assets in real-time.
These State portals will lead to existing clearinghouse sites
and into the geospatial one-stop portal. NSGIC requests
Congress develop and implement a national strategy and policy
for a business plan and funding mechanisms which support the
coordinated implementation of the NSDI to support public safety
agencies.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank you
for allowing me to testify on this very important issue and
represent the views of State and, to some extent local
government.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, sir, and thank you very much for
being respectful of our time restrictions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trobia follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. I will next recognize Jack Dangermond. He is
the founder and president of ESRI, the world's fourth largest
privately held software company. Founded in 1969 and
headquartered in Redlands, CA, ESRI is widely recognized as the
technical and market leader in geographic information systems
software pioneering innovative solutions for working with
spatial data on the desk top across the enterprise, in the
field and on the Web.
ESRI has the largest GIS software install base in the world
with more than 1,000,000 users and more than 100,000
organizations representing government, NGO's, academia and
industry such as utilities, health care, transportation,
telecom, homeland security, retail and agriculture. He fostered
the growth of ESRI from a small research group to an
organization of 2,700 employees known internationally for GIS
software development training and services. They now have 16
subsidiaries and more than 72 distributors worldwide. He also
has 11 regional offices throughout the United States and
continues to grow.
He is the recipient of a number of awards, honorary
degrees, lectureships and medals. He graduated with a bachelor
of science in environmental science from Cal Polytech U in
Pomona, CA. He holds a master of science degree in urban
planning from the Institute of Technology at the University of
Minnesota, and a Masters of Science degree in landscape
architecture from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard where
he worked in the laboratory for computer graphics and spatial
design. Welcome to the subcommittee.
Mr. Dangermond. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members and staff.
I want to compliment you and acknowledge you for making
geospatial information an issue to look into geospatial and
focus on. I think this is an important hearing and an important
meeting in time in GIS history. GIS is about to emerge in a new
way. Historically, people in the early years used GIS for small
projects such as picking a site or doing a focused
environmental study. More recently, GIS has been considered an
information system. It is also moving to the Internet.
Mr. Chairman, I think that the concept of data bases and
warehouses of maps is an obsolete idea. Just like information
systems technology is used for managing financial information
or for personnel recordkeeping, we now see the need for using
them to maintain information about geographic things. These are
living GISs that are transactionally maintained and can view
spatial information dynamically in the form of maps and images
about the way things are. They can view the status of our
environment, the status of our crops, the status of homeland
security, the status of defense and so on.
My organization serves many customers in the public,
private and the educational areas. These users are learning a
new way about looking at their world, a way that's not beholden
to just the map but involves technology to look at dynamic
geographic changes that are occurring in our world. This new
vision, the notion of dynamically changing maps in a data base
is important because it affects not only productivity in
government and we have seen a lot of that, but when connected
to the Internet facilitates involvement and participation by
citizens and outside organizations in our government.
A new kind of civil society is possible through the
connection of all of these individual GISs to the Internet,
letting people and schools, citizens, NGO's as well as multi
tiers of government have access to the information. GIS can be
used for simple mapping, making maps of where SARS is or where
AIDS is spreading. GIS can be used for more sophisticated
things like forecasting crop production, forecasting threats to
security, forecasting drought, where will I find oil if I
drill, all private sector sorts of activities and thousands of
government applications as well.
In the government, GIS systems create and maintain
geographic information and then these data sets are used in
other applications by other agencies or organizations.
For example, the Federal Government creates, produces, as
Mark Forman suggested, billions of dollars of data, and States,
local governments and many of my private sector customers use
these data sets for very profitable and effective applications.
The power of a GIS is that it can integrate different layers of
information from different sources. With the Internet, these
sources can be in distributed locations. A Federal layer with a
local layer dynamically overlaid on top of each other can give
us a whole new view of geographic reality. Public policies that
affect this new infrastructure vision of GIS on the Internet
are in several domains, the data domain as you mentioned, Mr.
Chairman, the management domain and finally the technology
domain. Organizations like the OGC have been working on
standards for interoperability of the technology part of the
infrastructure. This includes getting the vendors together to
work on interoperability standards. This is a process that is
working.
In the area of data, the most expensive part of a GIS,
there are still some activities to do. The public policies that
have worked in the data domain are: No. 1, keeping government
data in the public domain and free. This has promoted
widespread use and access. No. 2, developing procedures for
quick and widespread dissemination of this data. This sort of
works but has some problems. The Internet offers some
opportunities here. No. 3, working with the private sector to
create and maintain data in partnerships. That's not working
very well, but has great potential. Finally, selective
licensing from the private sector of data for government use.
The policies that have not worked so well deal with lack of
coordination of GIS data content specifications. I think these
are being worked on by the geospatial one-stop group, and I am
looking forward to lots of success there.
I also would like to advocate a new notion, a new program
office, a new planning function, which would actually bring all
individual data collection and GIS efforts together. This is
not just another FGDC, but it calls for an architectural plan
for the infrastructure, the national spatial data
infrastructure, GIS on the Internet. This would take some time,
it will take some thinking, it will take some work, but the
results will be very fruitful. This plan would target
nationwide data that needs to be collected to organize
specifications that are interoperable at the data content
level, develop a contract agreement mechanism that would allow
participation of States and locals and Federal agencies, as
well as the private sector, in building and maintaining pieces
of this infrastructure.
The conditions must, however, remain that the data, the
infrastructure be maintained in the public domain. Why? A
concluding remark. I see geospatial data as social capital.
It's one of the capital assets of our taxpayers. Geospatial is
a kind of language that describes the world that we live in.
This should not be for a fee. Spatial data represents one of
the most important components of public access to government.
It characterizes opportunities and constraints, challenges and
risks. It often allows businesses to search out and discover
these opportunities and promotes a rich and important civil
society, citizen participation, education and the like. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman, and committee members. I'm sorry I spoke a
little longer than I was supposed to.
Mr. Putnam. No problem.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dangermond follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Mr. Ritchie, we will now recognize you for your
testimony. Michael Ritchie was elected in July 2001 as the
president and chairman of the Board of Directors of the
Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors
[MAPPS], the Nation's oldest and largest trade association of
private sector geospatial firms. In his professional practice,
he is president of Photo Science Inc., a full service aerial
photography surveying mapping and GIS services firm. And he
graduated from the University of Kentucky 1972 with a B.S. in
civil engineering. He has more than 25 years of experience in
his field, and currently holds professional engineering
registrations in 15 States.
He is past president of the Kentucky Society of
Professional Engineers and the Kentucky Consulting Engineers
Council. In addition, he is a former chairman of the
professional engineers in private practice a national director
of the National Society of Professional Engineers. Welcome to
the subcommittee. You are recognized.
Mr. Ritchie. Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. We appreciate this opportunity to discuss Federal
geospatial activities. I will focus on two major topics,
geospatial one-stop and the organization of mapping in Federal
agencies. We support geospatial one-stop as a single access
point for geographic information and believe it could create
opportunities for the private sector to help government meet
its geospatial needs, but by omitting access to commercial
data, geospatial one-stop, as it is currently designed, falls
short of a goal of one-stop shopping and reduces the ability to
make informed choices on data needs. We deeply appreciate Mr.
Cameron's announcement this morning. Allow me to illustrate why
it is important. Imagine that same Polk County planning
director in Florida is looking for mapping data for a new
highway. He goes to geospatial one-stop.gov. Up pops this menu
that includes a 7 year old USGS digital ortho photo, a 5-year-
old, a 30-meter land site image and a 23-year-old U.S.
Geological Survey quad map. At present, geospatial one-stop
will not let that planning director know that more accurate and
more current commercial data is also available.
We have heard geospatial one-stop compared to a library
card catalog or a satellite TV system. Presently it is a card
catalog that only includes books published by GPO or a TV
system that only gets PBS. We believe geospatial one-stop can
help to better organize the government's geospatial activities.
We commend the Bush administration for this initiative.
However, it is only a first step. Bold action is needed to
eliminate waste, duplication and inefficiency in the
government's geospatial programs. Revising OMB circular A16,
restructuring the FGDC and creating the NSDI all have one thing
in common. They treat the symptom rather than the disease. Let
me explain. MAPPS requests a comprehensive review of Federal
geospatial activities that is needed to eliminate the waste of
dollars and inefficiency in government operations. As we have
already heard in earlier testimony, it is estimated that more
than 40 Federal agencies have geospatial activities. There is
no line item for mapping in most agency budgets and
appropriations. But also, there is no record of how many
Federal employees work in this area.
There is no accounting of the capital investment made in
plant or equipment. There is no accurate data on the amount of
mapping performed in-house or by contract.
Interagency and intergovernmental coordination needs
improvement. There is considerable duplication, little sharing
of data and more to be done in standards for interoperability.
Most Federal agency performance of in-house mapping is more
expensive and less efficient than that in the private sector,
and there is no uniform application of government's
longstanding policy that it will not compete with the private
sector. The Federal Government has warehouses, some the size of
football fields, full of these paper maps as alluded to
earlier. They are out of date. Too many were printed. While the
world has moved to digital mapping, and print on demand, the
government is still spending money warehousing maps it will
never use, sell or even give away.
Federal agencies provide grants to State, local and foreign
governments to perform mapping that could be performed by the
private sector, as well as grants to universities for work that
is commercially available or for research on methods already
implemented in the marketplace. We're encouraged by two recent
developments, the Tenet memo and the White House Policy on
Commercial Remote Sensing. We support expanding the Remote
Sensing Policy to include airborne as well as space borne data
and imagery.
There are also two ominous clouds looming on the horizon
that deserve attention. First is the dislocation being created
by States with regard to licensing of photogrammetrists and
other geospatial practitioners. The current policy of the State
licensing board in Florida, and the manner in which several
States are enacting policy or legislation, threatens true
interstate commerce in our field, thus making it an issue of
Federal interest.
Additionally, offshore subcontracting of geospatial work
harms U.S. workers and impacts domestic firms, especially small
business. Given that mapping is location information about our
critical infrastructure, sending this work offshore is also a
threat to homeland security. We urge Congress to close the
loophole in the Service Contract Act that permits this on
Federal contracts and review offshore subcontracting of
nonFederal work.
Mr. Chairman, studies on coordination of Federal activities
and government competition in mapping date back to 1933. The
time for action is long overdue. We sincerely hope this hearing
will prompt that action.
We commend you for your interest and leadership, and we
stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to
better serve the Nation's geospatial needs and economic
development resource management, environmental protection,
infrastructure and homeland security.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Ritchie. You really tipped
around the big issues, didn't you?
Mr. Ritchie. The emperor finally has on clothes, sir.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ritchie follows:]
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Mr. Putnam. Before we get into questions, all of you had an
opportunity to hear the first Panel, and I would like to open
by recognizing each of you to take a minute if you wish, and
offer your observations on the key themes that came up in the
first panel, and we begin with you, Ms. Kalweit.
Ms. Kalweit. Thank you, sir, for this opportunity.
I think it was stressed in the last panel the importance of
partnerships--State, local, Federal partnerships to building
capacity. And, from a standpoint of the Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team with its focus of underpinning our Nation's
preparedness with a geospatial framework, I also can't
emphasize enough how important the issue of partnership and
interoperability and access to the data are.
As I've described, both in my written and oral testimony,
all hazards happen everywhere and anywhere. We can't
necessarily expect or anticipate them, but those who have to
respond, and those who have to plan to mitigate against, need
the data wherever they may be, and the way to get it is through
partnerships.
Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Trobia.
Mr. Trobia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I guess one thing I'd really like to focus on is having a
lot of experience in county government and setting up a county
GIS. What you have is a situation where counties and cities,
larger counties and cities that could afford it, have set up
these GIS systems all over the place, and they're doing it all
the time, and Mr. Dangermond said the data is very
transactionally based. Paper maps just don't do it. Parcels are
changing hands all the time. Permits are being issued, etc. It
needs to be electronic, so this transactual basis is forcing
local government to really utilize BIS technology. It's
happening in Tucson. It's happening in Minneapolis. It's
happening in Tallahassee.
Well, the trouble is that you've got all these folks doing
it for their own business needs. Now, what we're saying is with
homeland security, first responders, etc., that there's more
than ever a need to standardize data and get it to flow within
a network. If this is going to happen, it needs to be a win-win
situation for Federal and local government, and there needs to
be incentives that would encourage that data to flow upward.
Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Dangermond.
Mr. Dangermond. Yes. I'm very fond of the work that is
going on in the geospatial portal activity. I think it's the
right thing. I'd like to share with you a vision or a metaphor
for what I think is the underpinning of what will happen in the
next 5 to 10 years. I see the fusion of GIS and the Internet as
developing into a kind of nervous system, like you have in your
body. The nervous system sends information to our brain, our
consciousness, and is constantly measuring change in
temperature and how we feel. Our Nation needs such a system. It
will not be done holistically by the Federal Government. It
will be multiparticipant, where little pieces of things are
measured, that will be measuring the change, the changes in
land records or vegetation or water or in the environment, and
those changes will be served into the Internet and viewed,
analyzed, reported on like an accounting system, except this
kind of accounting system will measure and account for all the
things that most people really care about, a kind of geographic
accounting system. And this will demand--this national spatial
data infrastructure system will require or demand
multiparticipant formulas. This is a big piece that is missing,
the management vision of building that infrastructure. No one
really had the management vision to build the Internet. It just
sort of evolved into place. We didn't vote for it, but in this
case we do need to take a little bit more caution, because it's
more than just technology. It's the base way that organizing
the science of measurement and serving it up and integrating it
in the form of applications that can serve people from homeland
security to farming.
So I like what they are doing, but I think it needs a
larger context and a larger vision and a larger leadership
position. Because our government agencies are so fractured and
while they collaborate, it is almost like an unnatural act at
all levels of government, we need something that can tie them
together, and I think geography is a logical metaphor for that,
and geographic information, which reflects the actual practices
of what governing people do, how they organize their thinking,
how they organize their policies. It is a very natural way to
bring our Nation together at all levels, and also to connect
our citizens through its visualization and framework.
So I liked what they are working on, but I just think that
you and your committee should begin to think about how we
accelerate that into a kind of societal GIS, a GIS which is
open for everyone, that brings conscious to all of us, like our
nervous system does. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you. Mr. Ritchie.
Mr. Ritchie. Jack, I think you hit on a number of the good
points of the committee in earlier testimony. I think one big
difference is the emphasis that Gene alluded to, and others, of
emphasis on local coordination. I think that it is paramount,
promoting partnerships of this data and really involves
changing the committee structure to be heavily favored toward
local are all very, very good items. Stepping up and putting a
framework in place for some leadership, trying to develop some
standards, those are all the right things to do, but quite
honestly, we're falling a little bit short, because where is
the stick? In my years of practice--and let's talk about recent
events--if you look at 43 of our 50 States are running deficits
right now, but yet local government, as tight as the economy
is, are finding a way to buy and procure GIS data and GIS
systems. They find a way, even in the toughest of times,
because they are highly motivated to cooperate. They go to
church together. They see each other in the grocery line.
They're on the softball field in the schools, the PTA, etc.
They already have a common goal that breaks down a lot of the
barriers that sometimes protrudes when we get into the State
and Federal Government.
For example, when the Federal Government creates geospatial
one-stop, and once a local county that is involved, millions of
dollars over the recent 10 or 15 years, what's their incentive
to hand over that data, particularly when, in a lot of cases,
they've copyrighted that data and charged for it? What is the
incentive for them to turn that over to the Federal Government?
To be nice guys? To be cooperative? Where is the carrot? Where
is the stick? You really have to have a larger leadership role,
and I think also because of the evolving changing technology,
which some other testimony has supported, we've got to get a
longer-term, bigger vision.
The Federal Government is spending billions, not millions,
in this industry on GIS, on information and on data. Ms. Watson
referred to this morning about the On-Star System. I assure you
that is not backed by a government map system. Private
enterprise finds a way to make it happen.
A recent example, in our own community, we update a utility
map annually in a very growth-oriented community. We had one of
the technicians working on that map that actually had bought a
house and moved into it. On the date we took the photography
that wasn't even on the imagery, and yet she could order a
pizza and get it delivered using the GIS.
So private enterprise is there. We need incentive to marry
these up, because the private enterprise is thinking, as Jack
said in his case, coming from the private sector, is thinking
of the next turn of the wheel and the vision of where we're
going. But quite honestly, we need to get a handle on how much
money is being spent. We probably don't even need additional
money. We just need it to be harnessed and redirected with a
better focus and vision, because we're spending billions, and
we see it as private procurers of Federal services. We work for
agencies. In the event of a flood, we get calls from five or
six agencies that we have contracts with wanting us to go fly
it, and it takes 4 or 5 days, and sometimes we just have to
make a decision to go fly it and then have it in the can when
the dust settles down a week later and the water is receded, we
just happen to have the data, otherwise we couldn't wait for a
decision.
So although a lot of what is said has been very, very good
and very, very favorable, we need a super-charged leader with a
bigger vision to really pull this off, and we need incentive. I
think Mrs. Miller hit it, and it probably comes from her own
background experience in working with the local government. I
think this very definitely has to be from the bottom up rather
than the top down. If it's from a top-down decision, the
Federal Government is going to have to show up with, here's
your incentive to do it our way according to our standards if
we're going to pay for it. Anything short of that, they're not
going to do it, because they barely have money to do it through
their own standards. They're not going to invest the extra 20
or 30 percent to put it in a dataset or standard or even pay
for the metadata to put it on geospatial one-stop.
Thank you.
Mr. Putnam. That is an interesting set of observations, and
we appreciate that, and I'll recognize Mrs. Miller to begin our
questions.
Mrs. Miller. I suppose that we talk about incentivizing,
particularly local governments as you're well aware I'm sure
with a civil engineering background you do a lot of that.
Perhaps there's a mix to incentivize them properly of money and
legislation, I think perhaps as well. I guess that might be my
question to all of you. I think cooperation, obviously, is the
operative phrase. I mean, we've got to cooperate. Mr. Trobia
mentioned that it would be optimal, of course, to have 50
points of contact nationwide as opposed to--and I forget the
number you used. I think it was 30-some thousand. I don't know
how many local municipalities there are nationwide, but as you
look at how you--again, how you construct the--all of these
different mapping systems, are all of you and even Mr.
Dangermond, who is sort of advocating a new structure for
cooperation and coordination, when you're advocating that kind
of a structure, are you all advocating legislation? What is
really the proper role of the Federal Government? What do we
need to do? And perhaps some of it is monetary, but is there
legislation that is really required for us as we try to get
ahead of the curve of this whole thing of making sure that we
are setting standards, that we do have a point of contact that
makes sense, that we're not having a lot of redundancy with all
the different layers and all the municipalities, in the private
sector as well all trying to grab the same information and then
we're not really sharing it to the best benefit of the citizens
of our Nation? Sort of an open-ended question but where do we
go with this? This is a fascinating subject. It still, as much
as all of you--much of you live it, so you're much more
familiar with it than I am, but you can see how fantastic the
opportunity is here, and it is still sort of a new concept, how
do we get ahead of it?
Mr. Dangermond. If I could, Mr. Chairman, I have two views.
One is the library view. There are perhaps hundreds of
thousands of digital map layers that exist in the United
States. They need to be cataloged and put into a library
catalog for searching, and they need to be mounted on the
Internet so that people can get them or get the services that
they offer. That's one view.
The other view is something called framework that the FGDC
conceived of and has been working on, the idea that there would
be a kind of standard map for the entire Nation. It isn't this
scale for this and that scale for that. And the concept of a
national map of framework layers that covered the whole Nation
is what I want to address in response to your question.
To carry that out, we need a couple of things. One, we need
the content standards. It has taken us 10 years to get just
draft standards which are to be published in September. This
took too long. This should have been done in 10 weeks, not 10
years, and has irritated the entire community about the Federal
Government's initiative here.
Under this administration, things are going much faster,
and I like that.
The second thing that is necessary is some kind of
partnership program that says, I can do that map sheet--let's
use it from a mapping perspective. I'll capture and maintain
the map sheet of Redlands, CA. That will be my contribution to
the national NSDI, and by the way, I'll do it, but could you
give me 10 cents on the dollar to do it? Why am I saying this?
Because for me in Redlands, I really need that map sheet done
to run my government, and by the way, the reason why GIS is
still growing, even in the context of a down economy, is
because GIS really saves money. It helps local governments make
better decisions, and it allows people to communicate better.
So I'm willing to put in the 90 cents on the dollar to
build my tile of the mosaic because it helps me locally. If you
just give me a little incentive, I'll do it according to your
standards. So I will standardize and by the way, give you the
data, put it into the public domain so that the freedom of
information laws and so forth are protected, citizen right to
know, access to government records, all of that is maintained,
for just a little bit of financial incentives.
This kind of leverage was done very successfully in the
Surface Mine Act of 1977, where a grant was given to the States
to build GIS data bases. This is one of the origins of GIS, and
in fact, with just a little bit of match money. And then the
States took it on themselves to build these magnificent
systems.
So this framework is necessary, and I think block grants
are very valuable. In the Surface Mine Act, the block grants
were a lot of money up front. We will subsidize you a 100
percent year 1, 60 percent year 2, 40 percent year 3, and the
feds worked their way up. Meanwhile, this huge information
infrastructure was left in place and the States took over the
responsibility of maintaining it and publishing it, and it was
done according to the standards of the Federal Government, a
perfect example of what I'm talking about.
If we thought about such a program for the NSDI, with the
national, State, and local government cooperation, perfect, and
how does the private sector fit into it? They are contractors
to build it, or perhaps they could be participants building
some of the tiles where they could actually build it and resell
it to some of their other customers. I'm not sure how that
would work. I know how the first model works, but the second
one is a little bit unclear and need to be worked out.
Mr. Ritchie. I'd like to hitchhike on a couple of things
that Jack said there. One, on this idea of a national map, I
know we in private enterprise have debated that substantially.
We had our USGS quad sheets. We have our national digital ortho
photo quarter quads. Setting those to a single scale and
standard, we think, is a little bit naive.
For example, you need more resolution near the World Trade
Center on September 11, 2001 than you do in the corn fields of
Kansas. Setting the same scale with the same resolution is two
different needs. They're two different situations. Why not rely
on what the local community has determined is their needs? I
assure you there is much better data and much more need and
much more revenue-generating tax bases in lower Manhattan to
pay for higher quality data than you do in the urban or rural
areas of central Kansas. So my point being, one size fits all
doesn't necessarily work in our environment, particularly in
the bottom up series. We need certain information. Why not get
it at the best available resolution? We go on the Internet, to
search engines, for information. Why shouldn't we be able to go
out there and find any type of data, wherever it is? It's not
necessarily endorsing it. It's just saying it is there. It's
let the buyer beware. Go find it, research it. Look at the
metadata, and yes, at cost. We'll determine if it costs too
much for your need or if you now need a partner to go share it
with. So you do it together, but it is an engine. It is
running. It helps fuel our economy.
The coordination can probably be achieved on this greater
vision we're talking about administratively rather than
legislatively. If we look at geographic information as being
like any other part of our infrastructure, you can almost set
it up like a Federal highway program, and through the gas tax
you fuel it, you regenerate it. It is a renewable resource. We
create this information, this network, this nervous system that
Jack referred to, and it's going to be continuous, and it's
going to evolve. And if we become better doctors, we're going
to learn how to interpret the data better so that we become a
better society, a more informed society, and we can respond
before rather than after.
Ms. Kalweit. And I'd like to comment on the issue of
incentives. First the three premises that are coming across,
particularly from the first panel, and also here in the
discussion, are the issue of interoperability through
standards; the need for partnerships to create capacity; and
the idea of buy once, use many.
In the May issue of Harvard Business Review, there was an
article on IT--on the IT infrastructure. In many respects, you
can read that article and see a commonality with the geospatial
infrastructure. The premise of that article had to do with
looking at the power grid as it first evolved, and the rail
transportation system as it first evolved. What it said was
what made these a public good, what made those things able to
be plug-in, ride was interoperability, through standards. And
what that has driven is for the cost of those infrastructures
to go down. It went on to talk about IT and the IT
infrastructure that we have today and the fact that information
technology, quite frankly, today is a commodity item. It's not
something that businesses use to get that extra advantage as
they did in the early 1990's. Because it is a commodity item,
costs have been driven down.
If we liken that to geospatial where geospatial
information, geospatial data becomes ubiquitous, it becomes a
commodity item. What happens then is the private sector is able
to leverage that and build the kinds of value-added services
and provide value-added products that in the public sector
we're looking for in terms of government support to citizens
and government to government operations.
I gave some examples in public safety and homeland
security. Those are all about value-added services using the
data. You've got to have the data. So, again, I would encourage
interoperability through standards, partnerships, buy once and
use many to build the infrastructure as a commodity item so
that we can get and leverage what is really valuable about this
infrastructure, and that is the value-added services.
Thank you.
Mr. Trobia. Thank you. I'd just like to add a couple of
other things to what I'm hearing, and I would say from the
State perspective. I like the idea of block grants. NSGIC has
put together a coordination model for State organizations,
identifying the roles of States in geospatial coordination?
That paper states that if States are going to coordinate with
the Federal Government and with locals, then these are the
things that would make us successful and these are the things
you can expect from State. That's No. 1. That's part of the
written testimony I submitted. No. 2, NSGIC also got involved
with Al Leidner, who was the GIS manager for New York City
after September 11, regarding some of the lessons learned
there. We put a white paper together and it's been signed off
by a number of States and other professional associations. The
concept of the white paper really gets at homeland security
issues.
If cops on the beat can find bad guys, that's good for
homeland security. It's a local issue. If fire departments can
get the route to a fire and know where the hazardous materials
are quickly, that's good for them at local level, and it's good
for homeland security. If health departments can track
incidences of disease, that's good locally and for homeland
security, etc.
There needs to be robust GIS at the local level, because
the data is highly transactual. America is moving too quickly
to rely on paper products. We need to bring good data together
through the network. Block grants and developing standards are
a way to do that.
The other question that was asked was what are the
incentives: legislation or funding? I'm not just talking about
funding. I agree with the comment that was said earlier. If you
look at the amount of money that is being spent on geospatial
activities, if some of that money is redirected, it would
probably go a long ways toward accomplishing the things that
we're talking about. So it becomes a leadership issue. That
gets at my last point, regarding legislation versus not
legislation. I commend the FGDC for doing the things it's done.
I do think that they have involved local communities for the
long run in a consensual way. So what is it going to take for
the FGDC or geospatial one-stop, or whatever this migrates
into, to have the longevity so that geospatial data turns into
a national asset? Because it is really an infrastructure that
helps America in a lot of ways. That may require legislation,
but so far I don't see that Congress has been involved that
much. So whatever Congress can do to support these initiatives,
whether it's new legislation, or finding a home for where this
can happen, or providing a significant carrot and stick, those
are the leadership things that Congress may be able to provide.
Thank you.
Mrs. Miller. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mrs. Miller, for your insightful
questions, and let me followup on the funding question. Mr.
Forman, indicated that there may be up to 50 percent of the
funds spent on geospatial wasted, and so there's clearly room
for some savings.
What's your recommendation for improving our return on
investment on the Federal money being spent on the systems and
the data? We'll begin with Mr. Ritchie.
Mr. Ritchie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think one of the
best pieces of advice I would say is that technology is ever
changing, and I would highly encourage the government to do
some of the things that the FGDC has done, and that is setting
some data standards, that data is what it's all about. You
create the data. It evolves, changes and lasts a lifetime.
That's your point of reference. You're going to get new PCs.
You're going to get new hardware. You're going to get new
versions of software. You're going to get increased capability,
but once you start out with a base map, a base set of data base
in a GIS, that evolves years and years and years over time. The
local community has transactions every time there's a property
transfer, every time there is a building demolished, every time
there is a new subdivision added. The data is where I would
highly encourage you to put your money so that it isn't wasted,
and, ironically, most of that data is generated locally, not
federally. The Federal Government has issues with the built
infrastructure, our Defense Department, etc. But generally
speaking in our 50 States, it is the State and local
governments that are producing this data.
Mr. Putnam. Let me followup on that. Everyone is in
agreement, and the data backs up the fact that State and local
governments are generating the vast majority--two-thirds, I
believe, is what the first panel said. Are they the leaders on
this, because the needs and the uses and applications of that
data are inherently local? Or are they doing it because the
Federal Government is just not any good at it?
Mr. Ritchie. I think they're doing it out of a need. It's
sort of like, why did we eventually stop using our typewriters
and go to word processing? Why did we go to scanning systems?
As some of the others have said, it is a tool. We find that it
really in the long haul doesn't cost. It pays. It's a valuable
decisionmaker. In fact, it's probably one of the more open,
trusted open records processes. People will trust the data that
they get out of a computer, out of a system. And it's open, and
it's open to public scrutiny and public view, public
information, so to speak, and open records.
I think one of the biggest issues is that local communities
have been doing it out of necessity. Generally, they have been
doing it not just to create a GIS, but they had a storm-water
problem. They had a neighborhood sewer problem. They had a
school bus routing problem, they had some other issue, and the
GIS was an ad hoc tool that helped them achieve that goal. And
that helped them--or you have, as we said many times,
consortiums where local agencies, city, county governments
working together with airport boards, with water utilities. In
some cases, these are privately run utilities that invest into
that base layer, that base mapping set of data.
I think what's happened is the Federal Government hasn't
had the money and hasn't had the standards and hasn't had the
engine behind the motivation for the cities and counties and
the States. The technology is there, so they have all been
solving their own problems when they didn't have the governance
and the money behind the Federal Government. If the Federal
Government had shown up with the standards and the money to,
say, start a series of block grants, if you go back 10, 15, 20
years ago, the State of North Carolina envisioned a statewide
land records modernization program, land information system. It
was good economic development. They had tax roll problems. They
couldn't fund doing the whole State in 1 year. So they put up
$5 million. Every city there had to then compete for that pool
of $5 million. Well, guess what happens? The larger cities with
the biggest problems won it first. Then they got their city's
maps. Well, then they're off the rolls. Guess what happened?
The second greatest needs competed for that pot the next year
and pretty soon the whole State is mapped and they're mapped to
a set of standards all across the State and North Carolina is
probably one of the premiere States of doing that. That mold
could be followed by the Federal Government like we're talking
about, putting some money to the State and locals, but you have
to get them some incentive to adopt your standards and your
data, and it's the data that is imperative, as Sue mentioned,
in the event of emergencies and September 11-type disasters,
you need immediate access. So you need some standards for that
data, so you can get it in the hands of the first responders
and those who have a need to know.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Dangermond.
Mr. Dangermond. Mr. Chairman, I disagree with Mark's
assessment that we have 50 percent wasted data collection. I
have seen some mistakes made that were poor mistakes, and yes,
those things happen. But, first, I'd like you to understand
that data collected at a local level for a mandated activity at
the local level and a local government GIS is often not useful
to serve the national government's need, or vise versa.
Take, for example, a very detailed engineering topographic
map. It may not be the data set in its current form that is
necessary to build a topographic map of 24,000 scale, and it's
not simply a matter of changing the scale. The data grain is
not appropriate for that.
So I imagine that there's going to be many scales of
geographic information systems. These different information
systems will respond to different needs, and utilities and
local government and State government and in response to
Federal mandates. The Federal Government has a GIS in just
about every department. BLM uses it for the public land survey.
It's a different system and a different level of grain of
detail than what is maintained in a local government. USGS for
the topo, census for geographics, and so on. Some of these data
sets that are collected at the Federal level are useful at the
State level and useful at the local level. Some. Especially
when you apply the overlay method, but one does not redundantly
do the others data collection. OK, there are some examples
between States and Feds, particularly where there is more
redundancy activity going on.
So I don't entirely agree that there's huge wasting going
on, but I do believe that more collaboration could occur.
My second point here is the big waste is not leveraging
what we have. You know, there's stove pipes of data that are
separated and not involved, and those will help here, the
geospatial one-stop, because it will let people know that
there's a big library out there. There's a whole library out
there that you can go and see and view and use information
about, and the vision also starts to allow for publishing, I
need this data, anybody else need any data, like that? Or is
there any data like this for my little location? That's it,
portal responsibility of searching and also I need this, and
then other people will say, I also need it. By the way, I have
50 cents, you have 50 cents. Let's get together, that kind of
Internet bartering, I think, will naturally emerge as an
institution, but it does require, I think, more investment in
that and more coordination.
Mr. Putnam. Ms. Kalweit, the NIMA by definition is focused
on national security issues. You have, as a detailee to FEMA,
been made aware of civilian uses of data and the needs on the
geospatial side. Obviously, if we had this hearing 3 or 4 years
ago, prior to September 11th, we'd be spending a whole lot more
time talking about earthquakes and forest fires and floods than
we have about homeland security. Do you believe that there is
an adequate process in place to bring appropriate data into the
civilian realm on a timely basis?
Ms. Kalweit. Sir, the short answer to that is the civilian
community has been using the national capabilities for a long
time to support what you described we would be talking about
had September 11th not happened, and that's through the Civil
Applications Committee. So there is and are processes in place
for the civil community to leverage the national assets, and
there are specific policies that need to be followed in order
to protect the citizens of the United States period.
The other thing that I would also like to mention is again
to show that the civil community for a number of years has been
able to leverage the national capabilities, for example the
support that NIMA has provided to FEMA since Hurricane Andrew
in support of disaster response.
So, again, I would say that the processes are in place.
Mr. Putnam. Well, for example, in your handout, these maps,
some of them are generated by NIMA. For example, the lighting
ceremony on September 11th, the Maryland tornado damage, was
that a NIMA map?
Ms. Kalweit. No, sir. The Maryland tornado damage was
commercial imagery that the State of Maryland collected for
that particular incident.
I would also like to just say that the data that you see
here, for the lighting ceremony, is also a combination of State
data--or city data and data that the Secret Service had for
that particular ceremony.
In this case, the national assets that are being used are
the analytic assets for a national security objective, which is
the mission of NIMA to support national security objectives.
We've been able to use our skills and expertise that we apply
in the foreign arena to support Federal agencies in the
national homeland security mission.
Mr. Putnam. Well, the map, for example, of lower Manhattan
has a seal on the bottom of it, city of New York emergency
mapping and data center, Rudy Giuliani, mayor. So presumably
that data was generated by the local government; is that
correct?
Ms. Kalweit. Absolutely. And in fact the city of New York
prior to September 11th--for years prior to September 11th, had
been involved in a very robust mapping program to establish the
New York City base map. Al Leidner, who has been responsible
for that New York City base map, has publicly stated that
although the tragedy in New York City on September 11th was
horrendous, in some ways, thank God it happened in New York
City, because they had the base map information to support the
response and recovery efforts. So, in fact, to a large extent,
their data is very robust for many purposes, although, there is
still work left to be done.
Mr. Putnam. So is it fair to say that in general the major
cities of this country are ahead of the Federal Government in
their GIS systems or States? We've heard about the North
Carolina system. We've seen the New York system. Then we go on
the Internet and look at a NOAA map, and it's 9 years old. So
is it fair to say that State and local governments are way
ahead of the Feds on this, or is that not the case?
Ms. Kalweit. Sir, I'd like to emphasize that, in some
cases, you're comparing apples to oranges. While the data in
New York City, for instance, is very robust for New York City,
it's really only the USGS that has coast to coast border
coverage for any kind of mapping data across the United States.
So if you really wanted to create a map of large regions or of
the entire United States, you'd have to go to Federal sources,
because you couldn't do a patchwork quilt of all the State and
local governments. Quite frankly, this is a patchwork quilt,
where some States are very robust, some cities are very robust,
some counties as well, but there are vast--what we've
discovered in the IGPT, there are vast inequalities.
So, again, I'd just emphasize it depends on what resolution
you're interested in viewing the data, and in many cases, some
data, no matter how old, is better to have than no data at all.
Mr. Putnam. For instance, there's a disaster in Maryland--a
tornado. The State of Maryland gets a commercial person to fly
over and give them the aerial photography they need. There's a
disaster in New York City, the city of New York goes to their
own system to retrieve the information they need. So what
category of information is uniquely Federal? What would occur
that you would need border to border maps of the United States
that we could then categorize as being a unique Federal
geospatial responsibility versus State, versus municipal?
Ms. Kalweit. Sir, I haven't really studied that problem to
any large extent, but I would state this, that the reason why
USGS has the border-to-border, coast-to-coast coverage of the
United States has a lot to do with the environmental issues
that they are addressing, where you're following watersheds
that cross regional boundaries and things like that, and so you
really need the full expanse of that data.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Trobia.
Mr. Trobia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It really depends on the business case of the problem that
you're addressing. For instance, during the World Series when
we wanted to find out where all the manhole covers were when
the game was held in Phoenix, the best source of information
was the city of Phoenix. I could look at detailed digital
aerial photography that the city of Phoenix had. That is by far
the best data that I could get.
Last year, however, Arizona suffered the Rodeo and Chedeski
fires. I happened to be flying east and I saw the plume from
that fire. I could see a distinct plume come across Arizona,
New Mexico, the Panhandle of Texas and dissipate in Missouri.
It was such a large fire. There we were using USGS geospatial
products. We, at the State, had put together the digital ortho
quarter quads. They aren't 6-inch pixels. They're 1-meter
pixels of imagery for the whole State. They can be a couple of
years old, but if we can take the DOQQS as a base, we can
overlay county data, where that existed or other Federal,
Forest Service, USGS or BLM data or State data. That's where
you can start--that's where the Federal Government can help
with the standards in putting these things together over larger
areas that cover multiple municipalities or multiple counties,
especially in large-scale natural disasters.
Mr. Putnam. Does that create a basis for beginning to
develop some guidelines for what the priorities of Federal
geospatial information gathering would be versus State and
local?
Mr. Trobia. I hear Jack wanting to jump in, but, yes, in my
opinion, yes. The Federal Government should develop the
guidelines. The traditional way of the Federal Government
making the paper maps and doing everything themselves is just
not cost-effective and doesn't meet the business need of what
is on the ground. Develop the standard, but then let the data
be developed where the events are happening, locally where
those business needs are really happening.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Dangermond.
Mr. Dangermond. Mr. Chairman, I think it's fair to say that
there are many GISs at the Federal level that respond to
various mandates. One such system is the Public Land Survey GIS
at BLM. It has a layer of information that it maintains, and so
when somebody wants to lease or buy or sell Federal lands, a
transaction is done on that information system, and it updates
the map of Federal land ownership and status. And then there is
another one which is the USGS topo map, and when they do a new
survey, a new map sheet is created. Think of it as a
transaction on the data base of the national map. The same is
done with the census that happens every 10 years. There's a
transaction on the census. The oceans by NOAA, FEMA with
hazards, and EPA has a mandate to collect and maintain
environmental data on every pollution site, and Housing and
health with CDC. Each of these are separate GISs.
So, Mr. Chairman, there's many GISs at the Federal level,
and then there's many GISs at the State and local level. And
what the connections are, it's not all one system, because each
of these separate systems has its own business needs and
information reports that are necessary to get from it. Take
EPA. The Congress mandates that they generate certain reports
out of this GIS system about the environment. So it's not just
about maps. It's not just about local maps. It's about
geographic information, and maps are a kind of way to view that
changing information that's happening all the time.
We need, actually, Mr. Chairman, a design for a ``national
GIS'' which would bring together all of these individual
systems. In business computing, they call this enterprise
systems. You know, instead of having every department have
their own accounting system, they say let's have one business
accounting system for the whole corporation, enterprise
computing or enterprise approaches.
We need, actually, for our Nation at the national level, a
kind of enterprise vision for realizing such a system rather
than the kind of bottom-up approach everybody does their own
thing with some tools and data. We need a top-down
architectural vision.
The Internet allows us some of the technical components to
bring it into being. The policies for data sharing that we've
been talking about are ways to implement some of the pieces of
this enterprise vision, the nervous system, and certainly such
a system should involve State and local transactions, as well
as the national transactions, and certainly the private sector,
where appropriate, to realize that. But that kind of visioning
work needs to be done by an architect. Architects designed this
magnificent building that we're in. That required a blueprint.
Somebody just didn't show up with some 2 X 4s and panels and
throw it together. No. They thought about it. And this is
something I think, at this particular moment in our history,
what we need to do is sit back and say, what is the overall
architecture? And it will change. It will evolve.
Mr. Putnam. Is it your sense then that the plan outlined by
panel one, while it lays out steps, does not lay out a vision?
Mr. Dangermond. It has a major building block in the
overall vision, and that was, and is, a significant one. The
card catalog in a library was the kind of key that brought the
whole concept of a library together. What they've done at GOS
is similar and very significant. I think it will drive other
parts of the architecture. But I would like, if I were in
charge, I would certainly want an overall architecture to
realize this national GIS in all of its parts. That will
require leadership in many things will. But I would not go as
far as to say that GOS is out of context, because I think it
envisions a larger architecture. It's a key building block that
can go forth on its own, but we need also to fill the other
parts, and those show up in little statements that all of us
have been talking about. We need the standard data
classifications. We need the partnerships for who's going to
play. We need the various protocols and so on. Those are all
pieces of the overall vision, but it would be nice to have that
overall architecture so we wouldn't have to explain it in the
bits and pieces bottom up every time somebody asks a question.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you.
Mr. Ritchie. Mr. Chairman, I think hitchhiking on some of
the things that Jack referred to, this bigger vision, if you
really look--and going back to Mark's statement that maybe 50
percent is wasted, I guess that is a number that could be
debated, because in my own testimony I said I know our
organization has been trying to figure out how much the Federal
Government spends, and we can't do it. It's just not cataloged
or coded that way. So therein is one of the problems.
But I think, legislatively, if you look at the stove pipes
that we've referred to organizationally, the Federal Government
is built around stove pipes. We've legislated them. FEMA
responds to disasters. That's their mission. They map. They
create the GIS that supports that mission, and only if they're
locally involved with some other agency--and it's getting
better, but what I'm getting at is legislatively FEMA is out
doing their job. The Corps of Engineers is out supporting the
Air Force to build a new dining hall. They are only going to do
topo and map just that area to those standards to get the
mission done, which is get the dining hall built on a base.
The Navy is looking at the naval shipyards, etc. So we've
got all of our entities, our Federal agencies, the BLM, NOAA.
They've all got their needs for GIS, and they are focusing on
their needs. The spirit of cooperation is getting better, but I
think what Jack is saying is, we don't have a head coach here,
we don't have someone--we don't have the master architect.
We've got a lot of----
Mr. Putnam. The Department of Interior doesn't do it for
you?
Mr. Ritchie. Well, the Department of Interior has its
mission, and what is the stick for the Department of Interior,
Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Putnam. So who should be the coach? Where should that
position reside?
Mr. Ritchie. OMB probably has the money, as Office of
Management and Budget, it's a management issue, and it's a
layer above all of these other agencies. And it's the one that
can set the issue, the standards and mandate it. You know, what
is the stick today if someone--and I would dare say there's not
even intentional violations. There's nonintentional violations
of OMB circulars, because it's sort of secondary, and
participating in geospatial one-stop is sort of voluntary.
Where is the stick if I don't make my data available? Where is
the stick if I don't exactly follow the FGDC standards?
Mr. Putnam. I don't think your business ought to ignore
some IRS circular. There could be a stick there.
Mr. Ritchie. Yeah. But I guess my point being, like Jack
said, having the master architect to look at the process,
because the technology is going to change over time. You know,
we talked about the national map. Going back to that, when we
talk about, say, homeland security, let me give--you know, we
talk about our biggest cities, and I would dare say our larger
cities are better mapped. They've been at it longer. That's
where the greatest need is. But what happens with our space
shuttle disaster that spread debris all over the western part
of the United States in a lot of remote areas, as well as
urbanized areas? What would have happened? Can you just
envision for one moment, all of a sudden a need was created for
information. What if there had been a Federal program in place,
a master architect, a block grant, however you want to say it,
that over a period of time stood up and created the definition
of standards to ensure data operability? That doesn't mean that
city X doesn't put blue water lines on a map and city Y puts
brown. It doesn't matter. If I can get to water line, I want to
come up, I want to see them in green. They will come up that
way. That is the kind of data inoperability. But had we had
those standards, just imagine. The Federal Government couldn't
stop and all of a sudden go to the BLM map or the USGS map,
which is going to be tile by tile. This one is 23 years old.
The next one to it is 26 years old. Imagine if we had State and
local government that the closing on a house was yesterday, and
you knew to call the new owner today and not last week's owner,
moment by moment in time? What the Federal Government needs is
to have access to that data. They don't need to build these
football size warehouses. They need an interagency operating
agreement that when the Federal Government needs it, and
whether it be NIMA or other in a lead role that jumped in to
support NASA, they should have access online to bring up all of
that data to mobilize whether it was National Guard, FEMA or
wherever, even local citizens, even to put out information, not
just CNN or Fox News. I think that is the kind of thing that
we're talking about, because the Federal Government can't
change all the transactual analysis that is going on in our
State and local communities. It is happening day in and day
out. Let them do that, but let the Federal Government have
access to it when they need it, and let them have access to it
to work ``what if'' exercises.
Mr. Putnam. If the shuttle disaster had not occurred until
after the agencies had successfully implemented the steps they
laid out in the first panel, they had this online card catalog
through the portal, they had an enterprise architecture, they
had interoperability, what would have been different about that
operation?
Mr. Ritchie. I can't speak for the data that would have
been in there, but what data would have been available, they'd
have had a one-stop shop to go look at and then determine if it
met their needs, and perhaps in places it did and other places
it didn't, but then they could immediately assess the situation
as to where are we adequate, where are we inadequate.
Mr. Dangermond. I have an answer to that, Mr. Chairman.
My staff actually did support, for 6 weeks, all of the
mapping and data, assembly and management for that project.
They spent weeks of time calling local government agencies for
their data. It was all done through a kind of a friends'
network. ``Oh, you know, Joe has this.'' And, finally, they
were able to assemble into a data base all the datasets that
were necessary to do the analysis, which were quite profound.
If they had it before, they could sit, find what was available,
assuming that all the local governments are participating with
their metadata published in the card catalog, and then download
the data in minutes to hours. In reality it took many weeks of
time calling on relationships to be able to accomplish.
So, again, I think geospatial one-stop is enormously--just
enormously valuable.
Going back to your other question, if I may, we do need a
cross-cutting national organization which would bring the
different stove pipes together. People have advocated creating
a new organization for this. This scares me. I wouldn't
recommend it. But there should be a GIO someplace in the
Federal Government, like a CIO, somebody that really is in
charge of managing and protecting our $20 or $30 billion of
government geographic information assets, the Chief or the
Chief Geographic Information Officer. I like that notion a lot.
Mr. Putnam. But you don't have any suggestions on where
that should be?
Mr. Dangermond. My second thought is probably just because
of the bulk of ownership of geospatial data, it belongs in
Department of Interior, and oddly enough, that is where it has
evolved. The USGS, the manager of the national map is certainly
one of the participants there, and they have lots of experience
in it. They were certainly one of the first ones to use GIS at
the national level in the government. So I feel no discomfort
with leaving it exactly within the management structure, but
getting executive management involved at the policy level and
giving it some teeth and set it on some tighter timeframes,
which again is beginning as both Mark and Scott mentioned
earlier.
Mr. Putnam. So, I mean, I'll grant that the Interior has
the technical expertise and history, but if you're the
Secretary of HUD or the Secretary of Agriculture, why do you
care what the Secretary of Interior is telling you to do?
Mr. Dangermond. I don't know. You could do it like in
computing. In computing, they always pull computing out of each
of the departments, and they have a CIO and an IT department.
There are some dangers with that, because it sort of sets up a
``single czar that is in charge'' culture. GIS is becoming
pervasive like word processing. There isn't any longer a word
processing department. It's pervasive, and I think geospatial
data will be pervasive. There will be nodes that publish data
all over the nervous system of the country, and we just need to
give it--my view as a manager is the ``light touch.'' The light
touch would be to help coordinate standards, particularly data
content standards. The technology will take care of itself and
is, but the data content standards, like how a soil map relates
to something else, a geologic map, this kind of integration at
the science level is really where we need help. We're at risk
here.
I am a very strong believer in something called the
national map. This is actually a program that is in search of
funding right now. It is the base map for the Nation, the wall
to wall, end to end digital framework on which all the other
layers of data gets organized. And, yes, you can have data at
many other scales like the notion of books in a library. All of
that is valuable. But in addition for science purposes and for
national kinds of problem solving purposes, a complement to all
of that must be a national framework that guides the Nation.
Mr. Putnam. There's a reference in the GAO report to the
global map that the shuttle had undertaken to map. What's the
status of that?
Mr. Dangermond. The mission was carried out several years
ago. It was done through the sponsorship of NIMA and is being
processed rather slowly, by my view, by various contractors.
Mr. Putnam. And who decided the resolution of the scale for
that? What standard was that?
Mr. Dangermond. In part the technology did. So it's a
sensing device that measures. There are policies associated
with how much of the resolution scale will be released for the
public as opposed to NIMA, which basically holds that data. But
it is gradually coming out. My own perhaps radical belief is
that it should all be published as soon as possible because it
will provide a base map for global science.
Mr. Putnam. Mr. Trobia, final thoughts?
Mr. Trobia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just coming back to
your question about where should the leadership for this be.
NSGIC has been involved with FGDC and the FGDC steering
committee for years. If it wasn't for Secretary Babbitt driving
the FGDC at Interior, I don't know that the FGDC would have
happened. But there were issues of non-DOI departments and why
should they comply? I would say that it wasn't until OMB got
involved that FGDC got more of a cross-cutting nature. I have
been a director for a non-GIS department and GIS departments.
And I would say as a director for a non-GIS department I got
kudos for protecting my department, for making it stronger, and
for getting resources. As a GIS manager I have to go after
multiple departments because the data, the most expensive part
of making a GIS work, is in different departments. So
organizationally, I'm the odd guy out. I have to go across the
barriers of different departments.
And that's the nature of what I believe Mr. Dangermond is
talking about with creating the enterprise. The cost savings of
connecting the stovepipes are incredible. I don't see how
that's going to happen if, at the OMB level, there isn't a GIO,
or somebody that can really get the department's attention.
This is especially true regarding budget and performance
measures for departments and to say, ``you all need to play in
the same sandbox.''
Mr. Dangermond. You would argue that it would come out of
DOI and be a special organization.
Mr. Trobia. Actually I would say that the leadership should
because I do agree that in Interior, NOAA, and a number of the
agencies, GIS is pervasive and there's business cases in all
the departments. But what we're talking about here is creating
the enterprise and getting the players to work together and
connecting the stovepipes. And if that doesn't happen at OMB or
with legislative support, I don't see how it's going to happen.
Mr. Dangermond. I would agree with him.
Mr. Ritchie. I would agree also. You have the Office of
Federal Procurement Policy within OMB which could be a good
place to start to look at a model for how to create this
champion that has some authority in lines above all the
stovepipes to sort of set the ground rules for operating in a
sandbox.
Ms. Kalweit. Mr. Chairman, just a couple of observations
that are relevant to this discussion. First of all, I want to
call your attention to a comment that Mark Foreman made
regarding the Federal Enterprise Architecture. He was talking
about how we in the Federal Government are going to be using
that for our framework, if you will, for our business cases.
And, among the priorities in terms of what is to be mapped into
the Federal Enterprise Architecture is the geospatial
component. OMB has made that among the priorities. And so we
will start to look at or we will start to be able to frame what
that overarching architecture looks like as the piece of the
FEA starts to come to fruition.
In addition, I would like to make an observation as a
program manager in the Federal Government that moneys are
appropriated by programs and agencies, and this makes it very
difficult to coordinate programmatically on cross-cutting
issues. And so as much as individually program managers may
shake hands and say we want to partner, buy once, use many,
again the programmatic appropriations sometimes can make that
challenging.
Mr. Putnam. Congress shares some of the blame. I would
agree with that. I want to thank all of you for your testimony,
and I want to thank the audience for their patience in staying
with us. I don't think we ever carried an audience quite this
long before, so it certainly demonstrates the interest in this
issue which, as I said earlier, is revolutionary in its
potential to transform the way the Federal Government provides
information to other governments and interacts with its
citizens. So your insight has been very helpful, and we look
forward to additional hearings and comments on this.
In the event that there may be additional questions for
panelists or statements that we do not have time for today, the
record shall remain open for 2 weeks for such submissions. And
without objection we will include additional testimony that was
submitted for the record in the appropriate place. Thank you
all very much, and we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:05 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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