Government Operations Subcommittee Examined the Federal Government’s Use of Secure Cloud Services

July 17, 2019

Washington, D.C. (July 17, 2019)— Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, held a hearing on "To the Cloud! The Cloudy Role of FedRAMP in IT Modernization."

TAKEAWAYS

The Chairman, Ranking Member, and witnesses discussed the need to codify the existing program that provides standard security assessments and authorizations of cloud services.
Agency and industry witnesses testified to how processes for adopting FedRAMP have improved over time, but they indicated a need for continued commitment to improving the process, including through automation. Witnesses also advocated for more collaboration between industry and government stakeholders to further improve FedRAMP.
The Chairman and witnesses discussed the importance of ensuring that the resource-intensive FedRAMP certification process does not prevent small businesses, including women-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned businesses, from entering the government market for cloud services.
Industry witnesses said reciprocity of FedRAMP certifications across all agencies can still be a challenge for some cloud service providers. Chairman Connolly expressed a desire to fix this problem by making the FedRAMP authorization the "gold standard."

WITNESSES

Panel One
Anil Cheriyan
Director, Technology Transformation Services
General Services Administration

Jack Wilmer
Deputy Chief Information Officer for Cybersecurity
U.S. Department of Defense

Joseph Klimavicz
Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief Information Officer
U.S. Department of Justice

Jose Arrieta
Chief Information Officer
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Panel Two
Jonathan Berroya
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Internet Association

Douglas Barbin
Principal
Schellman & Company, LLC

Will Ackerly
Chief Technology Officer
Virtru

Lynn Martin
Vice President of Government, Education, and Healthcare
VMware

VIDEOS

Watch Chairman Connolly's opening statement.

Watch Chief Information Officer Jose Arrieta, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services testimony.

Watch Rep.Holmes-Norton Examine the Dept. Of Defense's FedRamp incentives.

Watch Chairman Connolly examine if JAB authorization would be taken into account at Dept. of Defense.

Watch Rep. Khanna examine ways FedRAMP can better help small businesses.

Watch Rep. Connolly examine how codification can make the process predictable and more effective.

Subcommittees