House Votes to Scrap New Competitive Sourcing Rules In the face of a veto threat, the House voted Sept. 9 to kill the Bush administration’s revised competitive sourcing rules. The vote was 220-198 in favor of an amendment by freshman Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) that would scrap the revised Circular A-76 and require agencies to use the old rules in conducting sourcing competitions. The amendment was attached to the $89 billion Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, H.R. 2989. Before the vote, the Office of Management and Budget said the president’s senior advisers would recommend a veto if restrictions on competitive sourcing were included in the bill. “The Administration seeks to improve the performance of government services based on the common sense principle of competition – a proven way of protecting taxpayers’ dollars while providing better service and performance enhancements,” OMB said. “Now is the wrong time to short-circuit implementation of this principle, especially since numerous agencies are starting to make real progress in this area.” The House rejected another amendment by Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) that would have prohibited streamlined competitions involving units of 65 employees or fewer. The House debate on the Van Hollen amendment saw two congressmen from suburban Washington, whose districts contain large numbers of federal employees and contractors, on opposite sides. Van Hollen said the administration “rewrote the rules to tilt the playing field in favor of private contractors at the expense of government employees.” He singled out the streamlined competitions for small units, which compare the government’s existing costs with the cost of similar work performed by contractors. The rule “doesn’t allow federal employees to submit their best bid,” he said. He also objected that the streamlined competition does not require contractors to underbid federal workers by 10% in order to win, as is required in larger competitions. “It rigs the process against federal employees and it’s a bad deal for taxpayers,” Van Hollen told the House. Opposing the amendment, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA) said, “I think we have to give that revamped process a chance to work before we throw it out.” He pointed out that the old rules were the target of widespread criticism. Davis said he is concerned that the administration has not asked for funds to conduct job competitions or even identified the cost of the competitions. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking minority member of the Government Reform Committee, accused the administration of “playing politics with the civil service system” and using competitive sourcing to reward its business supporters. “When the government turns to poorly supervised private contractors, the potential for waste, fraud and abuse soars,” he declared. But Rep. Ernest Istook (R-OK) said, “The taxpayers save money every time we go through the competitive sourcing process.” The revised Circular A-76, issued in May, was designed to radically speed up the competition process, which had routinely taken two to four years under the old rules. The new circular requires a standard competition to be completed within 12 to 18 months and a streamlined competition to be finished within 90 to 135 days. When federal employees win a competition to keep work in-house, the circular requires a re-competition every five to eight years. Rep. Davis, a supporter of the administration initiative, said he questions that part of the policy: “Who wants to come to work for the federal government and dedicate a career to public service if your job is going to be up for competition every five years?” After the House vote, Gary Engebretson, president of the Contract Services Association, e-mailed his members urging them to contact their senators to head off a similar amendment in the Senate version of the bill. The House action is the latest in a broad attack on the competitive sourcing initiative. The House voted in July to block funding for competitions in parts of the Interior and Agriculture departments; that legislation is awaiting action in a conference committee. The House also rejected a request for funds to conduct competitions in the Department of Veterans Affairs.