House: Agencies Should Put Insourcing on the Table The House has voted to require civilian agencies to consider insourcing all new work and many categories of existing work. The amendment’s sponsor, Rep. John Sarbanes, D-MD, said it applies the same policies to civilian agencies that Congress has already required in the Defense Department. The amendment to the 2011 Defense Authorization bill was adopted May 27 by a 253-172 vote. The authorization bill passed the same day. The Senate is due to consider its version of the bill this summer; it includes no similar provision. The House bill prohibits the use of insourcing quotas by the Defense Department. It prohibits civilian agencies from using “any numerical goal, target or quota” for insourcing work unless the goal is based on research and analysis. The Sarbanes amendment requires civilian agencies to develop guidelines “to ensure that consideration is given to using, on a regular basis, Federal employees to perform new functions and functions that are performed by contractors and could be performed by Federal employees.” It says “special consideration” will be given to using federal employees for any new requirements. Work could be insourced if it has been performed by federal employees in the past; is closely associated with inherently governmental functions; is being performed under a contract that was awarded on a non-competitive basis; or if a contractor is performing the work poorly. “[W]hat this seeks to do is bring a rational analysis back to whether something should be outsourced or not outsourced,” Sarbanes said during House debate. “It doesn’t try to tilt the presumption in one direction or another. It just says let’s look at this on a careful basis and determine when it makes sense, when it can generate savings, when it’s a good thing for the federal government to do, and when it may not be such a good thing to do.” However, Republicans questioned whether the insourcing policy is working in the Defense Department. Industry groups have complained that DOD is insourcing jobs to meet budget targets by assuming large cost savings. “We were promised that we would have a cost analysis that the validity of analysis and cost models would be provided, and that really hasn’t been provided,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-CO. “So we have these glowing claims that this is going to save money, but we haven’t seen the analysis backing that up.”