Four Republican senators are trying to cut down on Washington waste by advising the federal government, “Just Google it.”
GOP Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Tom Cotton (Ark.) and David Perdue (Ga.) introduced legislation called the Just Google It Act earlier this week aimed at eliminating the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) within the Department of Commerce, according to The Hill.
The agency, which according to its website “serves as the largest central resource for government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information,” is expected to have an operating cost of $170 million in the current fiscal year.
However, the lawmakers backing the bill insist that the NTIS is an unnecessary expense in the Information Age.
“Instead of wasting millions of dollars to buy and sell printed documents, the federal government should join the 21st Century and just Google it,” explained Kirk Monday. “Eliminating a wasteful, duplicative government agency that has been obsolete since the Internet was invented is the right thing to do for the taxpayers.”
“There’s no justification for continuing to fund an agency whose mission is no longer necessary,” affirmed Ayotte.
Cotton labeled the government agency a “prime example of government waste,” while Perdue described the elimination of the NTIS as a crucial step toward rendering the federal government “more efficient, effective, and accountable.”
The legislation, S.1636, would eliminate the NTIS over the course of one year. Any necessary functions performed by the agency would be redistributed to another office in Commerce.
When introducing the bill, the senators emphasized a 2014 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report showing most documents archived by NTIS over last two decades could be found elsewhere.
