MAPPS Commends Reintroduction of “Map It Once, Use It Many Times” Act in Congress

May 1, 2013, Reston, VA – MAPPS (www.mapps.org), the national association for private sector geospatial firms, today commended Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) for reintroducing H.R. 1604, the "Map It Once, Use It Many Times" Act on April 17.

H.R. 1604 is intended to reform, consolidate, and reorganize federal geospatial activities. Recently, a number of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports have identified duplicative and a lack of coordination in federal geospatial activities. This bill provides a priority-setting mechanism to enhance the use of geospatial data, products, technology, and services for federal agencies, Congress and non-federal stakeholders.

"This legislation will save money, make government more efficient, and eliminate not only government agency duplication of one another, but government duplication of and competition with private enterprise. Use of the private sector for geospatial data, technology and services is important to national economic growth and job creation, and is of particular interest to Colorado given the significant concentration of firms doing this work in our state," said Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO-05).

The bill creates the National Geospatial Technology Administration within the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to streamline geospatial activities throughout the government and establish a centralized and comprehensive database of geospatial data for use by the Federal Government. The bill does not create new bureaucracies, but rather consolidates existing agency activities and committees to focus on geospatial activities in the federal government.

"We know through multiple GAO reports that the Federal government is investing in geospatial technology, but lacking effective coordination of geospatial activities for use by the agencies and citizenry," said John Palatiello, MAPPS Executive Director. "MAPPS applauds Rep. Lamborn for reintroducing the ‘Map It Once, Use it Many Times Act’, which we firmly believe will enable the government to more efficiently manage its investment in geospatial data and to more effectively utilize the private sector geospatial market to provided the products and services that benefit the federal agencies and taxpayers of the United States."

H.R. 1604 includes several revisions to a similar bill that was introduced in the 112th Congress based on a hearing held in May 2012 and comments Rep. Lamborn received.

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is the only national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in the United States. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including Member Firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LIDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing, GPS, and GIS data collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes Associate Member Firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in the United States and other firms from around the world. Independent Consultant Members are sole proprietors engaged in consulting in or to the geospatial profession, or provides a consulting service of interest to the geospatial profession.

MAPPS provides its member firms opportunities for networking and developing business-to-business relationships, information sharing, education, public policy advocacy, market growth, and professional development and image enhancement.

For more information on MAPPS, please visit www.MAPPS.org.