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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (121617)	1/10/2001 11:00:28 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Bush shows signs of elevating IT in administration By Caron Carlson, eWEEK January 9, 2001 1:54 PM ET As they prepare to take over the White House Jan. 20, President-elect George W. Bush and his team are showing a heightened awareness of the importance of information technology in the uncertain economy, and they are toying with several ways to give IT a higher profile in the new administration. The possibilities include the creation of a federal CIO or "technology czar," modeled after similar positions at the state level, according to sources close to the administration. An executive branch CIO could play a role in coordinating state, local and federal interests in developing nationwide answers, a member of Bush's transition advisory team said. Similarly, an IT policy guru could potentially integrate the unwieldy process of telecommunications merger authorization. One of the industry's top complaints during the Clinton administration is that companies face lengthy -- and, some argue, duplicative -- merger approval routines at the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission. Reducing the red tape around mergers has long been a policy objective in Republican circles. Names bandied about for the not-yet-developed job of federal CIO include former U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham (R-Michigan) and Pat Wood, chairman of the Texas Public Utilities Commission. Although conservative presidents are often elected on the expectation that they will reduce, rather than expand, government, Bush may find that IT warrants the creation of a position of its own, sources said. The IT agenda In a demonstration of his willingness to listen to the concerns of the IT industry, Bush met last week with the chiefs of some of the country's largest technology firms, including Dell Computer Corp., Intel Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc. and Oracle Corp. According to members of Bush's transition team, the group discussed the President-elect's economic agenda and the industry's needs, including a trained high-tech workforce. The regulatory climate also came up in the meeting. Industry officials reportedly expressed growing concern about ramped-up efforts in Congress to establish new restrictions on online business. Responding to grassroots pressure regarding Internet privacy, Congress is widely expected to pass legislation this year on the gathering of personal information online. For many in the industry -– which as a matter of course opposes new regulatory burdens -– a unified national framework is preferable to the more unwieldy possibility of myriad state and local regulations on privacy, insiders have said. zdnet.com