MAPPS Commends Congressional Letter to Board

09 September 2009, 8:16pm

Reston, VA, September 9, 2009 - MAPPS, the association of private geospatial firms, today commended House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-WV) for sending a letter to Earl Devaney, Chairman of the White House's Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, seeking to assure the efficient expenditure of stimulus funds on geospatial activities.

In a letter dated September 9, Rep. Rahall asked Devaney to "review the use of funds in ARRA on geospatial investments to ensure that they are being spent efficiently, and without any waste due to unnecessary duplication."

The Recovery Board is charged with overseeing Federal expenditures from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA; Public Law 111-5), commonly referred to as the Stimulus Bill.

The letter is a follow-up to a July 23 subcommittee hearing entitled "Federal Geospatial Data Management". The hearing evaluated the Federal government's current coordination and management structure for geospatial activities. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources has oversight responsibility for USGS, which is the home of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) staff.

The hearing focused on intra- and inter-governmental coordination, partnerships, data sharing, duplication avoidance, and governance in geospatial activities. The Subcommittee members questioned witnesses on Title 13 restrictions to Census data that are causing redundant data collection activities and expenditures in the broadband mapping program and government agency use of stimulus funding to buy equipment for in-house performance of geospatial activities that duplicate and result in government competition with the private sector, thus exacerbating unemployment.

Rep. Rahall's letter said, "one of the witnesses at the hearing expressed his belief that money could be saved from the broadband mapping effort if address data could be obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau, but the Census Bureau could not provide that data because of restrictions present in Section 9 of Title 13 of the U.S. Code."

Rahall also committed to exercising "greater oversight over geospatial activities occurring at the U.S. Geological Survey and in the Department of the Interior." He also wrote, "unfortunately, the federal government has not always done an exemplary job in coordinating its geospatial investments."

During the July hearing, John Palatiello, MAPPS Executive Director, and Susan Marlow, President of Smart Data Strategies, Inc. (Franklin, TN) and chair of the MAPPS Cadastre Task Force, were among the witnesses who testified before the subcommittee. Both Mr. Palatiello and Ms. Marlow commended the Federal government for its increasing use of geospatial data, technology and services to enhance government programs, but called for stronger leadership to make the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) a reality.

The letter from Chairman Rahall is available at the link below, from MAPPS.

Full witness testimony and video of the July hearing is available on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources website.

MAPPS

Chairman Rahall letter

Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources website

Geo: International