Senate Votes to Change Procurement Rules for Transportation Security Admin. The Senate has voted to require the Transportation Security Administration to abide by the Federal Acquisition Regulation. TSA operates under its own procurement rules, inherited from its former parent agency, the Federal Aviation Administration. On July 26 the Senate unanimously accepted the amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill sponsored by Small Business Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-MA, and the committee’s ranking Republican, Olympia Snowe of Maine. Kerry said, “Why should an agency fraught with wasteful spending and contract mismanagement continue to receive a free ride while every other major federal agency must abide by the law? The taxpayers deserve better. Our small businesses deserve better.” The $40.6 billion Homeland Security spending bill now goes to a conference with the House, but President Bush has threatened to veto it because it would spend more money than he requested. The Senate adopted a similar amendment last year, but Kerry’s statement said Republicans stripped if from the final version of the bill. Kerry and Snowe said they will introduce a separate bill to bring TSA under the FAR in case the amendment does not survive this year’s conference committee. Rep. Christopher Carney, D-PA, said he will propose a companion bill in the House. In a statement, he said allowing TSA to follow different rules “creates an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, decreases competition and shuts out small businesses from too many contracting opportunities.” At a July 31 hearing before Carney’s Homeland Security Subcommittee on Management, Investigations and Oversight, officials of TSA and the parent Homeland Security Department argued that the agency’s exemption from the usual procurement rules is justified and should be continued. But Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president of the Professional Services Council, said, “Since TSA uses a unique acquisition process, doing business with the TSA requires a thorough understanding of a different procurement system from the rest of the federal government, which acts as a market limiting factor for those firms who do not have the resources to master and navigate through multiple systems.”