NSGIC President Pens NSDI Goverance Article

NSGIC President Will Craig's article, Governance of the NSDI, made the front page of the Fall 2009 issue of ArcNews.

The US has been working its National Spatial Data Infrastructure -- the NSDI -- since 1994, he observes, but has not made significant progress. He says that the problem is institutional, not technical.

We simply haven’t figured out how to engage and coordinate all the significant players – federal, state, and local, and tribal governments, or the private sector. We need comparable data that comes from all these players and which meets all of their needs: Data for the Nation.

The problem is becoming apparent to Congress. In July a subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee held an oversight hearing on federal geospatial data management. That hearing was preceded by a report of the Congressional Research Service called Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Current Issues and Future Challenges. The report investigates coordination efforts both internally within the federal government and externally with state and local government.

The US has focused all its geospatial data coordination efforts in the Federal Geographic Data Committee. According to Will Craig, the FGDC has a good mission and a good staff, but comes up short in two critical areas:

First, it has no power to require federal agencies to deliver their assigned components of the NSDI. Second, it coordinates only federal activities, not state or local activities.

States have figured out how to coordinate their activities. Many have designated a Geographic Information Officer (GIO) – giving them the power to make state agencies work together and a mandate to encourage cooperation among other levels of government.

Mr. Craig notes that his home state, Minnesota, has two advisory councils -- one for state agencies and one for other GIS communities. Both have direct connections with the GIO.

He suggests that the federal government should follow a simple model:

• Add a GIO to work with the new federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
• Empower FGDC to coordinate federal efforts by moving it to OMB.
• Create a new council to coordinate non-federal activities – giving it the resources to make a difference.
• Finally, add a Congressional oversight committee to watch over all this.