House Passes Federal IT Reform Yet Again, This Time With Defense Bill

A fundamental overhaul of how federal agencies build and buy information technology systems passed the House for the second time in 2014.

The chamber in February approved the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, or FITARA, which among other reforms would limit each federal agency -- including the Defense Department -- to one person with the title chief information officer and give that person authority over the agency’s IT spending.

This time around, the legislation was tacked on as an amendment to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House approved by a vote of 326-98.

A similar measure made it into the Defense bill in November 2013 but was stripped out at the last minute in the following month, when lawmakers also cut more controversial amendments -- including one addressing sexual assault in the military -- to ensure the bill would pass both the House and the Senate.