Republicans have introduced legislation to block President Obama’s proposed executive order requiring contractors to disclose their political contributions.

The bill would prohibit federal agencies from collecting or using information about political contributions made by government contractors. It was introduced in the House by two Republican committee chairmen, Darrell Issa of Oversight and Government Reform and Sam Graves of the Small Business Committee.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, and others have introduced a Senate version.

The White House has acknowledged that the president is considering the disclosure order. Industry groups have protested that it would introduce political considerations into federal procurement.

The Defense Department is moving to make sure former defense officials and contractors are abiding by revolving-door rules.

Under a proposed rule, contractors could not bid on a contract unless they certified that they are complying with rules covering former DOD employees. Various existing rules restrict ex-officials from representing a contractor on any project they had worked on while in government.

The Government Accountability Office found in 2008 that some companies were not accurately reporting the number of former DOD employees on their payrolls. While contractors reporting employing about 1,200 such ex-officials, IRS records showed there were nearly twice as many.

The proposed rule was published in the June 6 Federal Register. Comments are due Aug. 5.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is taking another shot at improving data in its Federal Procurement Data System.

The official procurement figures are prone to error, although the cause of the mistaken data is in dispute. In the latest round of guidance, OFPP Administration Dan Gordon sent agencies templates to standardize their reporting. He said each agency should improve its controls over data quality and monitoring of contractors to ensure that they fulfill their reporting requirements.

With American troops sometimes carrying more than 100 pounds of equipment into battle on their backs, the Army has been trying to develop robots to share the load. So far, the robots aren’t up to the job, so some top officials are considering a no-tech solution: pack mules.

An Army researcher, speaking at a conference of the National Defense Industrial Association, said the brass are frustrated with the slow pace of robotic research.

“There is one thing we know for sure: We have got to get the load off the U.S. war fighter,” said Jim Overholt, senior research scientist for robotics at the Army Tank Automotive Research Development, and Research Center. “[They are saying] it just might be more cost effective” to use mules. His comments were reported in the blog National Defense.