For the third straight year, the House has approved an amendment that would block public-private job competitions under the revised rules established by the Office of Management and Budget.

The Bush administration threatened a veto if the provision stays in the final bill. In the past two years, the amendment sponsored by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) has been killed in conference committee with the Senate.

Van Hollen contends the revised OMB Circular A-76 is unfair to federal employees. OMB says federal employees have won nearly 90% of the jobs that were competed under the revised rules.

Van Hollen’s amendment was added to the 2006 Treasury-Transportation appropriations bill, H.R. 3058.

The Department of Homeland Security has awarded BearingPoint Inc. and its protégé, Thomas & Herbert Consulting LLC, the first ever Mentor-Protégé Team Award. The award recognizes two companies’ work together on the DHS Integrated Terrorist Screening project.

BearingPoint supported T&H in its successful 2004 bid for the five-year, $30 million contract. The project is centered on consolidating terrorist information and developing an approach to use that information.

“T&H and BearingPoint have forged a relationship that provides DHS with the focus and agility of a small company coupled with the vast resources and best practices of a large company,” said Rodney Thomas, president and CEO of T&H.

The Bush administration has asked Congress to create a Sunset Commission that would review all federal programs every 10 years and recommend whether they should be continued.

The administration also proposed creating Results Commissions that would examine the performance of government programs and recommend changes. Under the legislation, the president would propose a commission to review specific issues and Congress would authorize it.

In a statement, the Office of Management and Budget said the commissions would “improve agency and program performance and reduce unnecessary costs to taxpayers.”

The proposal is part of the administration’s focus on management and results, OMB said.

In federal contracting as in retail business, location counts: Federal procurement in the Washington, DC, area topped $50 billion in fiscal 2004, an increase of 18% from the year before, according to research by George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller.

Fuller said more than $26 billion of federal procurements went to companies in Northern Virginia, almost $13 billion to DC companies and $11 billion to suburban Maryland.

Since 1980, he said, procurement in the capital region has grown by nearly 1,100%, compared to 100% growth nationwide, according to the Washington Business Journal.

SBA has opened three new Veterans Business Outreach Centers to help veteran entrepreneurs, giving it a total of four. Administrator Hector Barreto said the centers “will provide a myriad of services including entrepreneurial training and guidance, educational workshops, financial guidance and assistance, and mentoring.”

Here is a list of the centers and their websites:

The Research Foundation of the State University of New York in Albany, www.nyssbdc.org/vboc;

University of West Florida in Lynn Haven, www.vboc.org;

University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, www.coserve.org/vboc; and

Vietnam Veterans of California-VBOC in Sacramento, www.vboc-ca.org.