Bush signs E-Government Act of 2002
Law establishes the Office of E-Government, allocates $45 million for FY 2004
By Mack Reed
Digital Government Communications Manager

E-Government Act of 2002
	Complete text of the bill: • PDF • HTML

In a potential boon for the field of digital government research, President Bush signed House Resolution 2458 into law on Dec. 17, devoting $345 million to e-government initiatives over the next four years.

The E-Government Act of 2002 formalizes and integrates e-government efforts that have been traveling on disparate tracks for several years now, by establishing an Office of Electronic government within the Office of Management and Budget. The new office is to oversee integration of IT training, development, policy and interagency implementation throughout the federal government on a schedule that would see $45 million spent in FY 2003, $50 million in FY 2004 and $250 million in the two subsequent years.

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The new office also is to spend $8 milllion in 2003 developing a framework for digital signatures and $15 million on a General Services Administration project to maintain and improve the federal Internet portal such as FirstGov.gov so that government resources are catalogued online "according to citizen needs, not agency jurisdiction."

The Act also codifies overarching e-government policies, such as requiring agencies to use electronic docket systems to publish federal regulations, requiring requiring agency heads to establish IT training programs and requiring the development of common GIS protocols.

And it proposes to standardize policies and guidelines for interconnectivitiy and interoperability of government electronic information with the goal of streamlining efficiency, security and search capabilities.

First introduced and sponsored in 2001 as a Senate bill by U.S. Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), the legislation passed with unanimous approval in the senate, but underwent some revision in the house that reduced its original funding levels.

The President said in a formal statement announcing the new law, "This legislation builds upon my Administration's expanding E-Government initiative by ensuring strong leadership of the information technology activities of Federal agencies, a comprehensive framework for information security standards and programs, and uniform safeguards to protect the confidentiality of information provided by the public for statistical purposes. The Act will also assist in expanding the use of the Internet and computer resources in order to deliver Government services, consistent with the reform principles I outlined on July 10, 2002, for a citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based Government." See Bush's complete statement.