Statutory Limits on Geospatial Address Data Necessary, GAO Says

GAO urged Congress to consider assessing statutory limits on address data to encourage creation of a national address database, said a report released Monday. The Office of Management and Budget should increase its oversight of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and federal agency initiatives, GAO said. Agencies agreed with the recommendations and showed implementation plans, it said. The estimated geospatial dataset investment by federal agencies and state governments is billions of dollars, but this is understated since agencies don't always track such investments, including billions spent on earth-observing satellites that produce a large amount of geospatial data, GAO said. The FGDC and OMB created an initiative where agencies will annually identify and report geospatial-related investments, as part of the FY 2017 budget process, it said. The data are sometimes collected multiple times by different entities, and statutory restrictions that agencies face on the sharing of certain federal address data can restrict data sharing, it said. FGDC initiated plans to coordinate geospatial data collection with state governments, but state officials GAO contacted aren't satisfied with the efforts, it said. Eight of the committee's 32 member agencies have started registering with the clearinghouse 59 percent of the geospatial data they view as critical, GAO said. "There will continue to be duplicative efforts to obtain and maintain these data at every level of government," until there is effective coordination among national spatial data infrastructure, GAO said.