Four senators have asked Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), the committee’s ranking member, to mark up a bipartisan bill that would allow federal agencies to establish their own working capital funds to upgrade their information technology systems.
The lawmakers said in a letter published Wednesday the Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017 also seeks to create a centralized modernization fund within the Treasury Department that would be managed by a board of federal IT experts.
They said reporting the proposed legislation out of the Senate panel would help advance national security objectives.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) co-wrote the letter with Sens. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), Steve Daines (R-Montana) and Mark Warner (D-Virginia).
The senators wrote the letter a week after the House passed a companion bill to the MGT Act by a voice vote.