Senator Collins Discusses Iraq Rebuilding Contracts Amendment

Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, my colleague from Oregon, Senator Wyden, and I have offered this amendment that will pull back the curtain on government contracts to rebuild post-war Iraq, one of the most ambitious reconstruction projects since World War II.

The government already has awarded numerous contracts towards this purpose. These contracts provide for an enormous scope of goods and services ranging from capital construction to the administration of key air and sea port facilities to the rebuilding of Iraq's education and health systems. One contract even provides for such fundamentals as teaching local leaders about the basics of the democratic process.

In all, billions of Federal taxpayer dollars are being spent. It is Congress's job to ensure that they are spent wisely and fairly.
Our amendment would ensure that the basic facts regarding these and other contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq are publicly available. For those contracts that have been awarded outside of the usual process of full and open competition, our amendment would require that, within 30 days of entering the contract, the contract's price, the scope of the work to be performed, the contractors asked to bid, and the criteria by which they were chosen must be made known, through publication in the Federal Register.

In addition, the agency head also would need to make publicly available the justification for awarding the contract on a basis less than the full and open competition standard.

These provisions have become necessary because of the way in which Federal agencies contracting for goods and services in Iraq have been awarding these contracts.

Not a single Iraq reconstruction contract has been awarded on the basis of "full and open competition" embodied in the 1984 Competition in Contracting Act, whereby interested parties are notified and given a chance to bid. The rationale for this standard was not only to provide basic fairness for all potential bidders, but also to reassure the public that their tax dollars were being spent wisely and in the public interest.

Instead, these contracts have either been awarded on the basis of limited competition, where the bidders are handpicked, or, in some cases, without any competition at all.

The agencies involved generally have singled out a small number of bidders based on the agency's preconceived notions about the bidders' ability to perform the contract. Such a process, we are told, was necessitated by the short time frame in which the contracts had to be planned and awarded.

Such a process, however, necessarily raises questions regarding fundamental fairness and impartiality and whether tax money is being spent in a responsible manner. Because we don't have all of the facts regarding these contracts, speculation has arisen over their content, their price tags, and the basis of their awards.

For example, I was distressed to learn that a sole source contract entered into by the United States Army Corps of Engineers called for much more work to be performed than was initially indicated. This is because the Corps only released the information that it deemed relevant. Under our amendment, the public will be able to judge for itself whether the government was justified in awarding a contract bundle on less than full competition. The public deserves no less.

At the same time, we have included in our amendment provisions to ensure that classified material remains safe and is provided only to congressional committees with oversight authority.

It is my hope that the publication of the key information in these contracts will serve some of the same goals as the Competition in Contracting Act, such as reassuring the public that reconstruction in Iraq is being done in a fair manner and in furtherance of the public interest.

Alternatively, keeping these justifications secret defeats the legal safeguards that protect full and open competition. Further, it breeds what may be unjustified fear that the contracting process is being run for the benefit of a select few rather than the Iraqi people.

Ensuring that this information is available to the public will help maintain confidence that our work in rebuilding Iraq is being undertaken in a manner best calculated to advance the well-being of the Iraqi people, and will help dispel criticisms that the process by which these contracts are being awarded is unfair or unjustified.

I want to thank the distinguished chair and ranking member of the ASC for working with Senator Wyden and me on this amendment, which I understand will be made part of the manager's package.