House Chairman: Insourcing Rules Should Be Public A House subcommittee chairman is calling for a moratorium on insourcing until agencies make public their procedures for deciding when to bring work in-house, while a coalition of business and taxpayer groups called on Congress to remove obstacles to outsourcing. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, said the Office of Federal Procurement Policy should require all agencies to publish their guidelines and ask for public comment on them. He heads the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Contracting and the Workforce. At a June 23 hearing, Mulvaney said, “When the government chooses to consider insourcing, the burden should fall on government agencies to prove that the full, long-term cost (including pay, benefits, and support) of hiring and training new federal employees is less than a temporary government contract. Recent reports reveal that it is not.” Houston attorney Byant S. Banes said agencies often refuse to let a contractor see the cost comparisons they use to justify insourcing that contractor’s work. “The government says it’s source-selection information and therefore secret,” he told the subcommittee. Because of a May ruling by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, contractors have no standing to sue to contest insourcing decisions. Banes urged Congress to restore the right to sue. Separately, the Business Coalition for Fair Contracting endorsed House-passed appropriations bills that would allow public-private job competitions in the departments of Homeland Security and Agriculture. The coalition represents 31 business and taxpayer groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Associated General Contractors. In a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, the coalition urged the committee to remove barriers to outsourcing in other appropriations bills. The group also endorsed a “sense of Congress” amendment to the House-passed defense authorization bill that calls for a moratorium on insourcing of commercial activities. The coalition said outsourcing will cut costs and create private-sector jobs. The Obama administration’s insourcing initiative has run into some tough sledding. Although the Defense Department had projected that insourcing would reduce costs by up to 40%, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged last August that insourcing had not produced the anticipated savings. This year the Army secretary ordered that no jobs be insourced without his personal approval.