Federal Travel Systems Under Fire Again House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez may try again to kill GSA’s electronic travel booking system, the newspaper Federal Times reported. Velazquez has said small travel agencies will be shut out when e-Travel is deployed in most civilian agencies. She pushed an amendment to cut off funding for the system in 2005, but it did not win final congressional approval. The newspaper said the New York Democrat may bring up the amendment again this year and is also considering legislation affecting the Defense Travel System. The DOD system came under fire last fall when two Republican senators, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, said they would move to cut off funding for the travel-booking portion of the system. Coleman said a survey of DOD travelers found that only 17% of them used the new system to book trips because it was so unwieldy. He said it “is a failure and a waste of taxpayer’s money.” (SAA, 11/24/06) Congress last year ordered an independent study of how best to manage the system. The Defense Travel System is operated by Northrop Grumman. Its contract expires in April, but Congress instructed DOD not to issue a new contract until it sets a timetable for phasing out legacy travel systems. Federal Times reported that DOD’s new Defense Travel Management Office is consolidating contracts for travel agent services, reducing more than 100 contracts to about 40.