Rep. Courtney, House Armed Services Committee Puts Brakes on No Bid' Contracts
Rep. Courtney, House Armed Services Committee Puts Brakes on No Bid' Contracts
Congressman Joe Courtney and the full House Armed Services Committee today approved H.R. 1362, the Accountability in Contracting Act for a vote on Thursday.
The Accountability in Contracting Act seeks to increase transparency in government contracting - and Defense Department contracting in particular - to limit the use of contract awards through means other than full and open competition by limiting the length of such contracts, minimizing their use, increasing oversight and strengthening ethics standards for contracting officials.
"This Administration has used the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an excuse to reward the same corporations time and time again for work that is proven to be shoddy and in many cases over budget," stated Courtney. "Eastern Connecticut's taxpayers deserve better from the federal government and I am confident that the Accountability in Contracting Act will improve a broken system of no bid' contracts and restore fair and competitive bidding for government work."
The legislation comes at a time when Halliburton has announced plans to move its corporate headquarters to Dubai. Halliburton has received numerous no bid' contracts throughout the Iraq war from the Pentagon while the conglomerate was simultaneously cited for wasting approximately $2.7 billion of the American taxpayers' dollars. The corporate move to Dubai is seen as a scurrilous effort to escape negative domestic publicity and to avoid paying taxes to the United States.
The major provisions of the House Armed Services approved legislation include:
Limiting the length of no-bid contracts to one year, except in cases of a compelling need to extend this period;
Requiring each executive agency or department that issues contracts to develop a plan to limit their use of no-bid contracts;
Requiring a plan to maximize the use of "fixed-price," rather than cost-reimbursement, contracts;
Requiring the publication of the "justification and approval" document explaining why the agency did not require full and open competition within 14 days.
Requiring federal agencies to submit to congress a quarterly report on completed audits in which overcharges exceeded $10 million.
Making changes to certain ethics rules for acquisition officials by tightening post employment restrictions on government procurement officials, strengthening recusal requirements, and limiting participation of current procurement officials who were employed by a government contractor prior to federal service.
The House of Representatives will debate and vote on the Accountability in Contracting Act on Thursday.
http://courtney.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=60476