	Background

The federal government spends approximately $70 billion annually on information technology (IT) goods and services. An enterprise architecture (EA) serves as a blueprint of the business operations of an organization, and the information and technology needed to carry out these operations, both currently and prospectively. As such, it is an information technology management and planning tool. EA planning represents a business-driven approach to IT management that emphasizes interoperability and information sharing. FEA Leadership

Ongoing activities related to the development of the FEA are carried out through the FEA Program Management Office (FEA PMO), which was established in February 2002 and is part of OMB. Reference Models

The FEA is composed of five reference models: Performance, Business, Service, Data, and Technical. Each of the reference models represents specific aspects of the FEA, and provides a framework, or a shared language, for departments and agencies to develop technology solutions that can be used by the federal government collectively. The five areas included Financial Management, Human Resources Management, Grants Management, Case Management, and Federal Health Architecture. These initiatives were chosen, in part, because they represent core business functions common to many departments and agencies, and/or have the potential to reap significant efficiency and efficacy gains. They include IT Infrastructure Optimization, Geospatial Systems, and Budget Formulation and Execution. In contrast to the first six Lines of Business initiatives, which emphasize the consolidation of activities at shared service centers, the most recent three Lines of Business initiatives instead focus more on the development of common practices and information standards to facilitate cross-agency interoperability and collaboration. Oversight Issues for Congress

As the federal enterprise architecture initiative continues to evolve, Congress may decide to consider several issues related to implementation and oversight. These issues include, but are not limited to, the following:
the overall effectiveness of the federal enterprise architecture at improving federal IT management and reducing IT spending; the progress of ongoing efforts to update and enhance the five reference models, and how effective they are at identifying cross-agency redundancies; how well the enterprise architectures of the individual departments and agencies align with the federal enterprise architecture; how OMB is using the FEA to evaluate the IT business cases submitted by agencies with their yearly budget requests and how much money has been saved through this process; how the federal enterprise architecture is being used to address federal information security problems; how the federal enterprise architecture is facilitating and benefitting large-scale IT projects such as agency-level technology modernization efforts, the federal government's adoption of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the 24 Quicksilver e-government initiatives, and government-wide information sharing; the development and performance of the next generation of collaborative e-government initiatives based on the Lines of Business; whether current funding arrangements and interagency procurement regulations will constrain the ability of the centers of excellence to make necessary upgrades over time and to compete effectively in public-private competitive sourcing situations; potential collaboration opportunities and/or lessons to be learned from state government EA effort; and the continuity and future direction of FEA efforts with the upcoming transition of presidential administrations.
Congressional policymakers are concerned about potential inefficiencies and inefficacies in the operation of the federal government, particularly as it relates to decisions regarding information technology (IT) investments. These concerns have increased as federal IT spending has grown to approximately $70 billion annually. One approach being implemented to reduce duplicative spending and improve cross-agency collaboration is the use of enterprise architecture (EA) planning across the federal government. An EA serves as a blueprint of the business operations of an organization, and the information and technology needed to carry out these functions.
As an information technology management and planning tool, EA planning represents a business-driven approach to information technology management that emphasizes interoperability and information sharing. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) was started in 2002 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and continues to be developed today. The FEA is composed of five reference models: Performance, Business, Service, Data, and Technical. Each of the reference models represents specific aspects of the FEA and provides a "common language" for departments and agencies to use in developing shared technology solutions.
To focus efforts on specific areas that may yield savings, OMB has identified several "Lines of Business" (LoB), which represent non-core business functions common to many departments and agencies. Some of the current LoBs include Financial Management, Grants Management, Case Management, Human Resources Management, Federal Health Architecture, and Information Systems Security. Within each of the LoB initiatives, the longer term goal is to shift the locus of activity for these non-core business functions from being replicated by each individual department and agency, to consolidated shared service centers, or centers of excellence as they are also referred to, which serve as common service providers for the other departments and agencies. Departments and agencies are selected to serve as centers of excellence through a competitive process managed by OMB. Three other LoBs (Budget Formulation and Execution, Geospatial, and Information Technology Infrastructure Optimization) focus on the development of common practices and information standards to facilitate cross-agency interoperability and collaboration.
Some of the congressional oversight issues related to the FEA include, but are not limited to, ongoing updates of the reference models, the status of efforts to align the EAs of individual departments with the FEA, the role of the FEA in developing a second generation of e-government initiatives, and progress and implications of consolidating specific business functions across the federal government. In anticipation of an upcoming presidential administration transition, Congress may also wish to consider the broader issues of the continuity and future direction of FEA efforts. This report will be updated as events warrant.