House Votes Against Defense Dept. Insourcing The House is urging the Defense Department to limit insourcing to those jobs that are inherently governmental. The non-binding amendment is one of several provisions in the 2012 Defense Authorization bill, H.R. 1540, that are aimed at slowing DOD’s insourcing initiative. The House passed the bill May 26 on a 322-96 vote. It now goes to the Senate. The amendment sponsored by Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-NY, expresses the “sense of Congress” that “the federal government should not be in the business of competing with its citizens and private enterprise.” Hayworth said she objected to insourcing jobs that are commercial in nature, such as food services, mapping, and audio-visual services. She said in-house performance of such functions often costs more than contracting for them. The authorization bill would also end the Obama administration’s moratorium on public-private job competitions in the Defense Department, but only after the department submits a comprehensive review of the competitions and the Government Accountability Office completes an assessment of the DOD report. Defense officials have generally supported the use of public-private competitions, even though federal employees have historically won more than 80% of them. Officials say the competitions give both employees and contractors incentives to improve efficiency and save money. These provisions may face a rocky road in the Senate, where Democrats—especially Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski—have led the charge to reverse the outsourcing policies championed by the Bush administration. Under the Obama administration, DOD embarked on an ambitious insourcing program in 2009 aimed at replacing 30,000 contractors with federal employees. But a year later Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the initiative had not produced the anticipated savings, and shifted emphasis to reducing spending on contract services.