Description:
As reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on November 6, 2013
S. 1611 would require agencies to submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) long-term plans for phasing out unnecessary data centers and optimizing performance at the remaining facilities (a data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components). Agencies would prepare comprehensive inventories of their information technology equipment as part of those plans. Agencies also would be required to prepare estimates of the savings that would be realized from consolidating data centers. Finally, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) would report annually to the Congress on the implementation of the legislation.
Assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts, CBO estimates that implementing S. 1611 would cost $22 million over the 2014-2018 period. Although optimizing the use of federal data centers ultimately could reduce spending, CBO does not expect that there would be any significant savings from implementing this legislation for the next few years. Enacting the bill could affect direct spending by agencies not funded through annual appropriations; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. CBO estimates, however, that any net change in spending by those agencies would not be significant. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.
S. 1611 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal governments.
