Washington, D.C. - Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) today hailed the passage of the Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development 2006 Appropriations Conference Report. The legislation includes a provision that scores a major victory for federal employees by helping to level the playing field in their fight against unfair contracting out procedures. In May 2003, the Bush Administration issued new guidelines for these public/private competitions (OMB Circular A-76). For three consecutive years, Rep. Van Hollen has offered floor amendments to overturn the Bush Administration’s efforts to aggressively contract out millions of jobs through the so-called “A-76” process. Even in the face of veto threats from the White House, the Van Hollen legislation passed the House with bipartisan majorities in 2005, 2004, and 2003.
Under the provisions which the House passed today, federal employees are permitted to submit their own best bids, and contractors are required to demonstrate a savings of at least 10% or $10 million. These provisions are the same already used by the Department of Defense and will now be government-wide.
These long-overdue reforms were forced out of the FY04 and FY05 conference reports because of OMB objections, even though this same language has applied to the Department of Defense since FY04. This year, however, these reforms were included under bipartisan language in the Senate bill offered by Subcommittee Chair and Ranking Member Christopher Bond (R-MO) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).
“This is a huge victory for federal employees and is the culmination of a battle Senator Mikulski and I have waged for the last three years. The language included in this legislation is the first step in ensuring that we have an even playing field when the federal government decides to hold a competition to contract out federal jobs and services to private contractors. It has been a longstanding policy of the federal government to allow for public-private competition for those services that could appropriately be performed in the private sector. However, the Bush Administration’s continued opposition to changes that would make the contracting out process more fair for federal employees and ensure more cost-effective governance shows a lack of concern for federal employees and American taxpayers.”