John Palatiello is making some people in Washington D.C. nervous. As executive director of the Management Association for Private and Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS), he is aggressively lobbying Congress to get the federal government out of the mapping business and turn it over to the private sector.
      While the debate is not new, since the mid-term elections last November, Congress is listening more intently. Federal agencies are girding for the battle of their life, as the economic forces changing the face of corporate America reach into the public domain with equal ferocity and uncertainty. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) and other agencies that collect and maintain geospatial information now are targeted for budget cuts or even dissolution, as Congress grapples with how to cut federal spending and balance the budget.
      For MAPPS and Palatiello, this is evidence that opinion may be turning their way.
      "We believe the collection and capture of data should be done by the private sector. Government doesn't need to compete with private firms to collect geographic data," Palatiello said.
      "The paradigm of state-sponsored mapping has changed in recent years," he explained. "For most of the nation's history it was felt that government should be the repository of geographic information. That no longer needs to occur."
      Government mapping activities actually are inhibiting the development of private data sets, according to Palatiello. "What public interest is served by government mapping?" he asked. "Mapping can and should be a private-sector activity."
      MAPPS estimates the federal government employs more than 7,000 surveying and mapping professionals, with some 39 agencies spending about $1 billion a year on mapping, charting and geodesy. But, he says only about $84.7 million, or 8.5 percent, of those funds are funneled back to private sector in the form of outsourced service contracts.

The Baby in the Bathwater
Jim Plasker, associate chief of the USGS National Mapping Division (NMD), winces at Palatiello's numbers. "They show a fundamental lack of understanding about what we're doing," Plasker said. "We don't just make maps."
      The National Mapping Division has only about 1,450 total employees, not just those involved in map data production activities. Of its total 1995 budget of $160 million, only about $67 million goes toward map production. Of that, Plasker says, 31 percent, or about $21 million is contracted to the private sector. The rest of budget goes to delivery of data to the public and other agencies, map technology-related research, standards development and coordination of other national spatial data infrastructure issues.
      Plasker recognizes that the fiscal realities of the nineties mean government will have to examine what it does, how it does it and if it should be doing it at all. But he fears that efforts to pair down government could lead to cutting more than the fat, perhaps even dismantling the federal geospatial information program altogether.
      "Who's going to step in and take up the slack," he asks. For example, Plasker cites Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1991, leaving such massive destruction in its wake, whole communities were reduced to rubble.
      "The National Guard ordered 80,000 maps to help them mobilize relief services and try to figure out what had been where before the hurricane," he explained. "In a commercialized system, I don't think they would have had that information so instantly available. It isn't a commercially viable undertaking."

Good Guys and Bad Guys
As in all debates, there is no black and white. Despite the rhetoric, the reality of the situation lies somewhere in the gray areas between the extremes. Even ardent critics agree the federal government has been providing an important public service - literally since the nation was founded.
      A firms position on the issue generally is tied to which approach would most benefit its own position. A large portion of the industry has developed because of the availability of federal geographic data. Rand McNally and the Alexander Drafting Company, for example, developed a wide range of value-added products they sell in the private sector - and sometimes back to the government. Their product lines, however, are based on data sets obtained from the federal government and then enhanced to be more useable by consumers.
      "The government certainly will always play a role in geographic information," said Kass Green, president of Pacific Meridian Inc. of Emeryville, Calif., a GIS data company which specializes in environmental applications. "We need to rethink what government's role should be."
      Green, who earned a masters degree in forest economics, noted that a free market economy eschews government intervention unless absolutely necessary. "The public sector should only enter when there is a failure in the private sector," she said.
      "Currently the government plays a role on both the supply and demand side of the industry, but market conditions have changed. The government really doesn't need to supply geospatial data any longer," she explained.
      On the other hand, Green asserts the government still should maintain a fundamental role in shaping national geospatial information policy and standards. The government is the largest user of geographic data, and that will not change.
      As the largest customer for geographic data, government can help shape standards to address needs in both public and private sectors, Green contended. It could help the U.S. GeoTechnologies industry continue to grow and remain a world leader in technology and data development.
      Historically, mapping was an activity focused on opening the frontiers, according Green. Now, geospatial data collection is needed for managing land and land use, not exploring and developing new territories.
      "There were huge barriers to entry for private enterprise," she explained. "Now we have computers, airplanes, satellites and other technologies that make it easier for the private sector to get involved. Technology has reduced or eliminated those barriers."

Technology as Market Force
The emergence of geospatial information processing technology has enabled the private sector to enter the map data industry. It also has changed the mapping profession into a high-tech geospatial data management industry.
      In as little time as the last decade, the distinctions have blurred between traditional disciplines of surveying, cartography and drafting. Moreover they have converged with other disciplines - computer science, database management, space technologies. The primary tools of the mapping trade are now computers, satellites and sophisticated data management systems.
     "The technology is changing so fast it will overrun the govern-ment's ability to control it," declared John Veatch, managing director of Vargis, which develops and sells GIS data sets.
      "The government has done a lot of mapping," Veatch said. "Now technology and dollars are driving the applications. People are stepping forward from the private sector to take the lead."
      Veatch argues that government should not lead when it comes to technology development. First, he said, "you can rank any organization - public or private - by age, and draw a line between those who understand and don't understand computer technology. The decision-makers within the government are on the wrong side of the line."
      Second, he said, no one can predict what directions technology will take, which innovations will be practical and which will fail in the marketplace. "The free innovation of the market needs to drive technology development, not bureaucratic requirements."
      "We find ourselves in the last half of the last decade of the century, and we're still trying to do things like we did fifty years ago," Veatch said. "We're going to have to change or we'll be in trouble."

Reinventing Government
Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review, initiated in 1993, is one government effort to address Veatch's concern - and geospatial data plays a key role in the process of reinventing or reengineering government, according to Nancy Tosta, staff director of the National Geographic Data Committee (NGDC) and chief of the USGS Branch of Geographic Data Coordination.
      "With geographic data as the base, we can break through the paradigm of separate agencies," Tosta explained. "We can begin to think about government activities, problems, solutions geographically instead of institutionally."
      The process of reexamining geospatial data within the government began, in the 1980s, when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revised Circular A16 for the first time in more than 40 years. Circular A16 was the original document that charged the USGS with producing its quadrangle map products of the U.S.
      "In the '80s, the OMB revised the document, declaring that spatial data was a nationally-valuable resource and the federal government should provide leadership in its development," Tosta explained.
      She said it directed different agencies to manage and maintain, for all of government, various types of spatial data in which they specialized. Furthermore, it mandated more coordination between agencies to eliminate duplication and maximize use of the data collected.
      The spotlight shown even brighter on geospatial data in 1993, when Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit decided to personally chair the NGDC. "That decision raised the level of authority within the committee," Tosta explained. "Every participating agency then elevated their participation to senior level people."
      While few of the high-level members had any first hand connection with spatial data, "they had the authority to go back and make their recommendations stick," Tosta said.
      With senior level clout and strong support from the White House, the FGDC has made major strides in reexamining and changing the nature and processes of geospatial data management within the federal government.
      The FDGC has focused on recommendations to streamline federal mapping, determine what activities and processes may be best outsourced, eliminate duplication of efforts and improve communications between federal agencies - and with state and local agencies.
      Now the NSDI is evolving into a massive repository of government-sponsored geospatial data which is available free of charge and can be accessed over the Internet and World Wide Web.\

Framing the Debate
For all its recent achievements, critics are unimpressed by the FGDC. "It doesn't matter that you do something better, if you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," declared MAPPS' Palatiello.
      The debate over the government involvement in mapping can be reduced to three key questions:

1. Who should collect and maintain the data?
At the very least, Palatiello would like to see the government turn over all its geospatial data collection activities to private companies. "Why should the government compete to produce a product they can easily get from private companies?" he asked.
      "That's already happening," Plasker responded. "In the last five years we have doubled the use of private contractors, and we'll double it again in the next two."
      He said that by 1997, 50 percent of the data production work performed by the NMD will be performed by private contractor. Already it contracts about 60 percent of its digital orthophotography production and all of its aerial photography.
      Today, classical production jobs account for less than half of the DMA's data production-related staff. "People don't realize you still need staff to develop and manage contracts and assure the quality of the products delivered," Plasker said.
      Still, few in the private sector are convinced that the government is doing all it could or should to relinquish its data collection and production efforts to the private sector.
      "There's no good reason that government is involved in developing map data, except that they've always done it," declared George Gross, president of Spencer B. Gross Inc., Portland, Ore. There are people in all regions of the country that are able and willing to do this."

2. Who should manage and distribute the data?
Some are concerned the federal government has too tight a control on spatial data and could evolve into a bureaucratic gatekeeper of geographic information, like Canada's Geomatics or nationalized mapping agencies in other countries which hold a monopoly on geographic data and compete against their own private sector counterparts.
      Palatiello suggests the development of information utilities, which would function in the private sector, similar to power and telecommunications utilities. However, with the substantially lower costs of developing the infrastructure for information delivery, he said they can function independently with strong competition and little or no regulatory oversight.
      "We're starting to see the development of information utilities now," Palatiello declared. But he stressed that their biggest competition comes from the government itself.
      "As long as the government continues to develop its own data, private enterprise will be reluctant to develop new geographic data products for which it has an uncertain market," he said.

3. Who should own geospatial data sets?
Perhaps Palatiello's biggest concern is the fact that the NSDI precludes any copyrighted information. In this structure, geographic information is considered to lie in the public domain.
      The government won't accept data if its copyrighted. They insist that it be made public domain," Palatiello said. This, he contends, diminishes the motivation to develop information products in the private sector. "The government should buy information for a specific use and honor the copyright, just like other users."
      "This is an age-old debate that applies to a lot of types of information, not just geographic data," Plasker said. "We've got a long-standing tradition in the U.S. that if taxpayers fund it, they must have free access to it - unless there is some overriding concern, like military security. This philosophy makes us unique in the world."
      Plasker noted that in most countries, including Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand, the government copyrights its geographic data and manages it as a value-added resource. "The cost of geographic data is much higher and it limits the use of the information."
     Not all private firms agree on the issue of free, publicly-owned data. Jack Dangermond, president of Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), Redlands, Calif., is vocal in his conviction that "we should struggle earnestly to reinforce the concept of citizen-owned government through free access to publicly-funded GIS data."
      On the other side, George Gross, president of Spencer B. Gross Inc., Portland, Ore., argues, "If people expect this to be available essentially for free, who's going to do it?"

Natural Resource or Wasteful Subsidy
Pacific Meridian's Green prefers to frame the question differently: "How much do we want the government to subsidize information?"
      Green pointed to satellite imaging which began as a government-sponsored research project and now is growing into a thriving private industry. She suggests that EOSAT and the way it owns, manages and distributes Landsat data may provide a compelling model for other types of government-sponsored geospatial data sets.
      "Is it really in the public interest to provide heavily-subsidized spatial information?" Green asked. "The market is changing so fast we need to stop and rethink that question. Ultimately it's a question Congress will have to answer."
      As do most observers, Green lauds the USGS and other groups for their mapping efforts. "I don't have a problem with them being there, I think they need to reevaluate their role."
      But the process of governing in a modern democracy is an untidy affair. Issues are complex and many sides have different opinions, which they are free to voice. By necessity, solutions are reached through compromises which are rarely complete or lasting. Each effort to solve a problem changes its nature.
      So, the issue of private vs. public geospatial data management will continue to evolve, but it may never be resolved to anyone's permanent satisfaction.
      Is it a national resource that should be supported by government or is it private property from which profit should be gained? The question, no doubt, will be the focus of political debate for many years.
      In the near term, expect the U.S. geospatial data industry to thrive as it has for the last decade, in an uneasy partnership between public and private sectors.

About the Author:
J.D. Wilson is a freelance writer in Denver, Colo., specializing in the GeoTechnologies. He can be reached at 303-751-7636.

Back