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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AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MS. VELáZQUEZ
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
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Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, small businesses still struggle to participate in the Federal marketplace. For the past 4 years, the Federal Government has not met its small business contracting goal, costing entrepreneurs billions of dollars in lost opportunities.
By failing to take advantage of their exceptional quality and reasonable prices, the Federal Government is losing out on the best value for taxpayers' dollars.
One of the primary reasons the Federal Government has failed is because of contract bundling. These megacontracts have been responsible for a 56 percent drop in available contracts to small businesses in 9 years. After all this time, we have yet to see one dime in savings of taxpayers' dollars.
The latest chapter in small business lost opportunity comes from the General Services Administration. GSA is moving forward with an ill-conceived megacontract called e-travel. With this contract, GSA is poised to eliminate a whole sector of the small business community, travel agents, from working with the government. This is an industry small businesses dominate, as 99 percent of its firms have 30 employees or less.
This move is despite the President's small business agenda and his repeated statements that contracts should be broken into smaller pieces. Completely ignoring this, GSA is cutting small businesses out, all in the name of streamlining, which they cannot even prove.
It is not a new issue. In fact, recognizing the potential harmful impact that this contract will have for small businesses and local economies, the conference report for the fiscal year 2004 omnibus appropriation took the extraordinary step of telling GSA it needs to preserve these contracts for small businesses.
Despite this mandate, GSA did just the opposite, and made the e-travel project mandatory barely 1 month after the conference report. This means that no local or Federal office can use their neighborhood travel agency, even if they already have for years.
The results of GSA's actions are massive losses which industry estimates project costing small travel agencies at least $100 million in contracting opportunities, and possibly more. With only 78,000 jobs being created last month, can we afford to lose out on more opportunity in areas of the country that so desperately need jobs?
GSA is ignoring the President's small business agenda designed to increase contracting opportunities. They are ignoring the will of Congress. They care nothing about saving taxpayers' dollars. The amendment I am offering today will make sure they listen and stop pushing small businesses out of the Federal marketplace.
Let us not forget the important role small travel agencies have played. On September 11, when thousands of people were stranded in airports, they took as long as was necessary to figure out ways to get people home. When people stopped traveling out of fear, they got them going again. The thanks they got from the airline industry was a loss of booking fees and direct competition. The airline industry decided it could do their job.
Now the Federal Government is telling them that their services are no longer needed. This is not only shortsighted, but it fails to recognize the value that these companies add.
My amendment will balance contracting opportunities in the travel industry, much like the previous system. It would allow large providers to perform on the national contracts, but it would not prevent a Federal agency from using a local travel agent if that is what they prefer to do.
Let me make one thing clear. If this amendment is not adopted, not one single small business travel agent will be able to do business with Federal agencies, and this is outrageous. These megacontracts have clearly gone too far; and it is time that we say enough is enough.
This amendment has received the support of the Society of Government Travel Professionals, as well as the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce. I am urging my colleagues today to protect small business contracting by supporting this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.
Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Chairman, I just would like to respond for the record to a statement made by the chairman that the e-travel will save taxpayers' money. Let me just say that an industry review of the booking fees listed on the Federal Supply Schedule, it appears that GSA's figures on travel booking fees may have been estimated too high by as much as $20 per transaction, and these are the big industries, the big travel agencies, not the small businesses.
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