Date: 2003-09-09
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I do not know where to start with my friend from Florida on this. I guess we can compare endorsements of his position on this and mine. He has listed a group of unions. some of them Federal employee unions. some who have nothing to do with Federal employment who are interested. obviously. in protecting their membership. We understand that. and that is a noble purpose. Our purpose here is not to protect contractors. it is not to protect employees. It is to protect the taxpayers. And that is what competitive sourcing is all about. and trying to do it in an appropriate way that does not destroy the Federal workforce. In some cases. as I have said before. I am not comfortable with every aspect of what the administration has done. But we are working hard and we have language in this underlying legislation that addresses some of those concerns. The Aerospace Industries Association. the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. American Electronics Association. U.S. Chamber of Congress. American Institute of Architects. Associated General Contractors of America. Business Executives for National Security. Contract Services Association of America. Design Professionals Coalition. Electronic Industries Alliance. and I can go on and on with National Defense Industrial Council and the National Federation of Independent Businesses support and oppose the gentlemans amendment. So we have groups on both sides that add value to this. and our job is to try to synthesize this. Last year. I was part of a group in the House that struck down the administrations quotas. their goals that they were going to go out and competitively source a certain percentage. I thought that was wrong. I thought that was an overreach. I thought they were biting off more than they could realistically chew and manage. And I think in some cases where they are today that issue can be addressed. but I do not think the gentlemans amendment addresses those concerns. This would hamstring the Office of Management and Budgets new competitive sourcing process that was arrived at after weighing 700 comments. after going through the union recommendations of a council that included labor leaders and other government personnel. Competitive sourcing. also known as publicprivate competition. is simply a process of determining if the governments commercial functions. like computer services. food services or maintenance. should be performed by Federal agencies or by private sector companies. Our job is to try to get the best services for the taxpayer. the best value. the lowestcost value. the overall best value. One of the problems with the gentlemans amendment is it strikes at the heart of bestvalue determinations. The Hastings amendment limits the agencys use of best value in determining whether a commercial function should be performed inhouse or by the private sector. This does not make sense in my judgment. because under our acquisition system. the government buys its more sophisticated goods and services using this bestvalue method. It permits the government to consider quality as well as cost. and that helps Federal employees. because the quality element has to be clearly set forth in the solicitation. And cost. of course. has to be a factor. but value is not new. It has been used for decades by -the government. and it makes no sense to limit itsuse here. Our Federal employees ought to be able to use their experience and their expertise in highquality performance to their advantage in publicprivate competition. and the gentlemans amendment takes that away. That is a concern. I think it is well meaning. but I think it takes away the advantage that incumbents who were performing this have in terms of quality. Commercial entities and private citizens would not buy services without considering the quality. so why should the government? And the gentlemans amendment strikes that. Now is not the time to tinker with these revisions in this setting. in my opinion. Again. the revisions are the product of more than 2 years of efforts. Seven hundred comments were considered in the development of the new procedures. They incorporated the core recommendations of the Commercial Activities Panel. This panel. again. headed by the Comptroller General in a yearlong effort. reviewed the competitive sourcing process. which was clearly flawed. and which all sides. from Federal employees to contractors to taxpayers. everyone felt it was flawed and needed revamping. They issued recommendations. this panel did. for comprehensive changes to the process. These efforts resulted in the revisions to Circular A76. which the gentleman now wishes to strike. It was issued on We have held hearings on this. I have some concerns. as the gentleman does. about this as well. but I would rather not throw literally the baby out with the bath water. good things like competitive sourcing that come with this. We recently held a hearing to examine the recent revisions to the competitive sourcing A76 process. and the Comptroller General testified that significant savings result no matter who wins the competition. The Office of Management and Budget has just submitted a report to Congress on the methods used by the administration to measure agency progress in implementing the competitive sourcing initiative. OMB has pledged to keep Congress fully apprised of that progress and to conduct the initiative in an open and transparent manner. Let us give them a chance. And. again. we have put some underlying language in this bill that puts some strict reporting requirements on the costs to the government of competitive sourcing so we can come back and properly evaluate this. This is something we did not have before. The Hastings amendment derails the administrations efforts to increase the efficiency of government operations. You can say you are for efficiency. you can say you are against wasteful spending. but if you cannot compare how the government is providing a service to how someone else may be able to provide that same service. I do not know how you get at the waste. fraud and abuse. Because waste. fraud and abuse does not come in neatly tied packages in line items and budgets. It is marbled throughout the bureaucracy in the way we do business. Competitive sourcing. particularly the new A76 Circular. gives our government employees an opportunity to compete on an even basis under the Federal Acquisition Regulation. something they cannot do now. Right now they have to come up with projections and respond to competitive sourcing on the part of the private sector: the private sector winner is then compared against the government price. This allows them to compete even up. to be more innovative. and to. in many cases. improve the way employees deliver that service. In my experience. I have found that some of the best savings and efficiencies we get do not come from the managers in the Federal Government or the higherups. They come from that employee out the window who is doing the job every day that may come up with that key idea or innovation in the way we can do this. E 1745 The new A76 circular takes that into account and basically gives additional empowerment to that employee at the window to be able to come forward with their ideas and incorporate those into the government bid. Under the old circular. that was not really the case. I understand the gentlemans frustration. I think all of us feel a frustration. as I have said before. Our concern is constant competitive sourcing can hurt the recruitment and retention abilities to develop a strong Federal workforce. and yet it is a useful tool that needs to bp employed. I think perhaps it has -been overemployed. There are probably costs that we are not aware of at this point. but we have tried to get at this with underlying language. but I think the gentlemans amendment goes too far. We want to harness the benefits of competition to produce superior performance for the taxpayer. regardless of who performs the service because at. the end of the day. our job is to make sure that taxpayers are getting the best value for their dollar The gentlemans amendment undermines our ability to do that. so I urge we vote against the Hastings amendment.