Committee approves modified contracting reform bill

The House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill intended to heighten oversight of government contracts and rectify procurement problems that have long plagued the Defense Department and other federal agencies.

The bill, sponsored by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., had been considered by his panel last week. But senior Republicans on the Armed Services Committee raised concerns that the original bill would have prevented the Defense Department from making quick purchases of needed battlefield equipment and last week wrote House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., urging him to hold a mark up and not waive his jurisdiction over the bill.

In its markup of the Accountability in Contracting Act (H.R. 1362), the Armed Services Committee protected some procurement flexibilities and lifted some of the restrictions proposed by Waxman.

"I believe the mark remedies the most serious deficiencies of the base bill," House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said in a statement Tuesday.

One significant change affected a provision in the original bill that would have limited the length of contracts over $100,000 to one year unless the head of the contracting agency determined the government would be "seriously injured" by such a limit. This provision sought to discourage the practice of awarding long-term sole source contracts.

In Skelton's mark, which the House Armed Services Committee approved, 53-0, the dollar threshold was raised to $1 million. Skelton's mark also changed a provision in Waxman's bill requiring the heads of all executive agencies to develop and implement a plan to minimize sole-source contracts and submit a report to the House and Senate appropriations committees, as well as the House Oversight and Government Reform and the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs panels.

The House Armed Services version would allow the Defense Department to write only one plan -- from the under secretary for acquisition, bypassing the heads of the military services - and submit it to the House and Senate Armed Services committees.

The bill approved Tuesday also struck a provision in Waxman's language that would have required agencies to invest 1 percent of the total cost of contracts into contract personnel, administration, oversight and planning.

That language was an "overreach to say the least" and potentially could do some "significant harm" in the Defense Department, said House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee ranking member Jim Saxton, R-N.J.

Waxman has agreed to most of the differences proposed in the House Armed Services Committee's bill, a knowledgeable House aide said. But the two panels still are negotiating a provision in Waxman's bill that would expand the number of procurement officials who must follow stringent post-employment restrictions.

The goal, clearly, is to stop the revolving door between government and industry. But the House Armed Services Committee is concerned that the new standard established in Waxman's legislation would encompass hundreds of people on each contract.

"There is a practical concern and also ongoing dialogue on how many people you want to capture in order to achieve the provision's intent," the aide said.

The Rules Committee will consider both Waxman's legislation and Skelton's bill, offered as a substitute, this week.

The House plans to vote on the bill on Thursday. Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders included some of the provisions in Waxman's bill in the sprawling fiscal 2007 supplemental spending legislation, which the House Appropriations Committee plans to mark up Thursday. In particular, the supplemental includes provisions that would minimize sole-source contracts and require justification for non-competitive contract awards.