The U.S. Stimulus Package – The Rest of the Story for Geospatial

Last week, while attending the ESRI Federal Users conference in Washington DC, I was trying to gather as much insight as possible to discern what exactly happened after the initial three letters (COGO, ESRI initiative for a National GIS, NSDI Proposal by various geospatial vendors) were sent from the various entities representing certain geospatial interest groups to influence the U.S. Stimulus bill, now law. The short answer is that nothing specific from these letters made it into the final bill, but that doesn’t explain why or what happened. The somewhat longer answer is that meetings were held with both congressional staffers and with some Congressmen but no specific language to fund GIS for the Nation or any other effort was added to the bill. Directions Magazine shared the responses to questions we asked of each group about their efforts in an article a few weeks ago.

I spoke with several individuals involved in these efforts at the FedUC. They was palpable disappointment about the lack of:
** Time to prepare due to the short legislative cycle for this particular bill
** Coordinated effort on the part of the organizations that were putting forth the initiatives
** Access to certain congressional leaders

Ivan DeLoatch, Staff Director of the FGDC and Managing Partner of the Geospatial Line of Business (LoB) Steering Committee understandably felt discouraged that there was nothing specific in the bill regarding geospatial projects. On the other hand he was heartened that many of the projects listed in the Stimulus Bill will necessarily require the use of geospatial technology and that his new boss, the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, sees geospatial technology as a way to keep track of the locations of the infrastructure investments. DeLoatch pointed to a January 17th report issued by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (See “America’s Mayors Report to the Nation on Projects to Strengthen Metro Economies and Create Jobs Now” [PDF]), published to identify areas where the stimulus package could help city governments, that was very specific in identifying GIS technology investments and projects related to transportation, water resources, database development and work order management among others.)

Learon Dalby, State GIS Coordinator for the State of Arkansas and president of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) simply said, “it was a missed opportunity.” He, too, however seemed somewhat buoyed by the fact that this was just one bill and that there were many to follow into which specific geospatial technology funding could be introduced.

Pat Cummins of ESRI, a regular attendee at National Geospatial Advisory Council (NGAC) meetings, explained that while NGAC was a supporting organization in these efforts that it is not a lobbying organization and could merely promote but not necessarily or fully influence the decision-making process as borne out by the recommendations presented at the most recent meeting (February 4-5.)

Former Wyoming governor Jim Geringer of ESRI expressed similar sentiments but also thought that the barriers to getting to U. S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office were just too high to raise the proper awareness.

So, where does this leave us? We had better get our collective act together or there will be similar missed opportunities. While the stimulus law appropriates certain funds for the USGS and by implication could mean additional funding for geospatial technology for The National Map and/or mapping broadband development especially in rural regions, there is no part of the law that recognizes the value of geospatial technology throughout the collective infrastructure initiatives. Who will step forward to represent the many collective interests and speak with one voice for the geospatial community?