Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 30, 2005)
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Van Hollen:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following:
SEC. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to implement the revision to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 made on May 29, 2003.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of June 29, 2005, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) each will control 5 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 1/2 minutes.
Mr. Chairman, this amendment deals with the process that we now have in place in the Federal Government for contracting out work that is performed by Federal employees around the country, in other words, what process is in place for privatizing certain Federal Government jobs. That process, which is known by the Office of Management and Budget, A-76 process, is a broken process. In fact, both Federal Government employees and private contractors have serious legitimate concerns and complaints about the existing competitive sourcing process. This amendment would, in fact, encourage OMB to go back to the drawing board and develop a competitive sourcing process that addresses everybody's concerns. And it is an amendment that is identical, word for word, to an amendment that has passed the House on this appropriations bill in the last 2 years.
And we have passed this bill for the past 2 years for a very simple reason. We recognize that the existing contracting out process is unfair and that it needs to be fixed. And that has not changed from last year to this year. In fact, already this year the Appropriations Committee and this House have recognized the fact that the existing contracting out process is broken because we have passed a number of bills to change that on an ad hoc basis. For example, the Defense appropriations bill, which has already passed this House, changed the A-76 contracting out rules for Department of Defense Federal employees in a number of ways. It insured, first of all, that Federal employees of the Department of Defense would always have the opportunity to compete to keep their jobs through forming what is known as the most efficient organization. The Defense appropriations bill also required that when a private contractor is trying to take over work it demonstrates that it can provide some minimal level of savings to the taxpayer. After all, that is what competition should be about.
That is something the GAO has recommended, and it is something the Appropriations Committee put in the Defense appropriations bill but it is not part of the normal contracting out process. The Defense appropriation bill also prevents private contractors from gaining an advantage by providing less health benefits to their employees. We as a Federal Government should be setting an example to the public, not trying to encourage people to dump health coverage for their employees. And so the appropriations for defense did that.
There are also things we did with respect to the authorization bill for the Defense Department that changed the contracting out rules. For example, we made sure that during the appeals process, that the appeals rights of Federal employees would be the same as appeal rights for private contractors. That seems to make sense. That is only fair.
In fact, if you look at different appropriations bills that have come out, the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the Interior appropriations bill, the Agriculture appropriations bill, all of those bills had changes to this contracting out process.
So the question arises if the Appropriations Committee itself has changed the contracting out rules in all these other bills, does it not make sense to ask the Office of Management and Budget to go back and get it right, come up with a uniform policy that applies governmentwide, rather than have five different tests in different appropriations bills.
That is what this amendment is all about. It does not get rid of the competitive sourcing rules. It would say to OMB, go back to the rules that were in place before May 2003 until you fashion a new set of rules that make sense for everybody.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.
I would just pose the question to the subcommittee chairman, I thank him for those remarks, but if the current A-76 contracting out process works so well, if that is the ideal that we want to have, why has the Appropriations Committee, on five different bills that it has reported out, changed those rules with respect to several agencies?
With the Interior appropriations bill there was a rider that came out that passed the House that limited the amount of money that may be used for privatization review by the Department of the Interior and for the Forest Service specifically.
On the Homeland Security appropriations bill, you prevented the Department of the Interior from reviewing for privatization work performed by three different categories of employees who serve on the front lines of the war against terrorism.
On the Agriculture appropriations bill, the Appropriations Committee in this House included provisions that prevented the Department of Agriculture from reviewing for privatization any employees involved in rural development or farm loan programs.
So I would just say to my colleagues, if the existing system works so well, why has the Committee on Appropriations in this House this year already voted to change it in so many ways? Let us have a uniform policy that applies equally across Federal agencies.
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, this is not about getting rid of the competitive sourcing program. There always has been competitive sourcing in the government, and there will continue to be. The issue is what rules apply. I would suggest to my colleagues that the defense appropriations bill rider that was attached said when you have these competitions, you should at least demonstrate that the taxpayers would be saved some money. A minimum of at least 10 percent of the funds was a good idea. That was required by this House. That is not required by the current A-76 process. We should make that. That should not just apply to the Defense Department that we get a good deal for the taxpayer. That should apply.
The provision of health benefits, let us do what the House has already done two times, which is adopt this exact language. We did it last year on this bill. We did it the year before. I urge my colleagues to do it again this year.
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