Lawmakers try again with software licensing bill

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers are trying again to pass a proposal meant to rein in the costs of the government’s software licenses. 

Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va.,  Pat Fallon, R-Texas, April McClain Delaney, D-Md., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C. reintroduced the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets, or SAMOSA, Act on Thursday. 

The proposal passed the House late last year, but didn’t make it through the Senate. It was also introduced in the Congress prior to that. 

Now, the group appears to potentially have new allies in the war on extraneous software licenses, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has also apparently taken an interest in software licensing in government. The federal chief information officer has also reportedly asked agency CIOs to inventory their licenses with the five software vendors raking in the most federal dollars. 

The bill aims to improve oversight of licensing and reduce costs by prodding agencies to create a comprehensive software inventory. CIOs would have to come up with a plan to adopt enterprise licensing agreements to better their negotiating power and lower costs. The Office of Management and Budget would have to publish a governmentwide strategy for software modernization. 

Government agencies spend billions every year on software licenses that enable them to use various digital products. 

“By improving transparency, reducing duplication, and leveraging enterprise licensing, we can save taxpayer dollars and modernize our IT infrastructure in a smart, strategic way,” said Connolly, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government reform.

“The federal government wastes billions every year on software it doesn’t need, doesn’t use, or already has,” said Mace, who chairs an Oversight subcommittee on government technology.

It’s true that agencies generally don’t have good information on what software products are most used and which ones cost the most under those licenses, the Government Accountability Office noted in a report last year. A license from one vendor can include multiple products without pricing them out individually. 

GAO also found that agencies don’t necessarily check that they’re not busying too many or too few licenses. NASA, for example, spent over $15 million on unused software licenses over five years, according to a 2023 watchdog report. 

There are also problems with vendor lock-in. A 2023 report penned by government procurement expert Michael Garland and supported by the NetChoice trade association estimates a potential $750 million in annual savings with a 5% improvement in price performance due to better competition.

For its part, DOGE has posted on X many times about government software licenses and claimed millions in savings by deleting unused licenses and products — although big picture, savings quoted by DOGE have been full of errors, and Nextgov/FCW could not independently verify the claims of savings from license changes.

And although government oversight officials have documented problems with how agencies buy and track software licenses, there also may be legitimate reasons for agencies to have more licenses than employees — something DOGE has pointed to —  like to account for projected staff increases, as WIRED reported. 

“Across the federal government, policymakers are searching for easy ways to eliminate fraud and abuse, and return money back to taxpayers,” a group of associations in support of the bill wrote to House leadership Thursday. “The SAMOSA Act is a shining example of bipartisan cooperation, with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle coming together to promote transparency, accountability, and cost savings in federal software purchasing.”

Those organizations include the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, NetChoice, OpenPolicy and the Alliance for Digital Innovation.