Senator moves to bar new job competitions at Interior, Forest Service

During a Wednesday debate over the Interior appropriations bill, the Senate minority whip proposed language that would prevent the Interior Department and Forest Service from putting more federal jobs up for competition.

The amendment, offered by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., would block Interior and the Forest Service (which is part of the Agriculture Department but which receives funds from the Interior bill), from initiating new competitive sourcing studies in fiscal 2004. These agencies could complete studies already underway.

As it has done for several other budget bills recently, the White House threatened to veto the Interior appropriations package if the final version contains language limiting President Bush's competitive sourcing initiative. The initiative is one component of Bush's five-part management agenda.

Amendments halting job competitions would "short-circuit" progress already made on competitive sourcing, the Office of Management and Budget said in a policy statement. "Prohibiting public-private competitions is akin to mandating a monopoly regardless of the impact on services to citizens and the added costs to taxpayers."

The administration used the same wording in early September to oppose an amendment to the House Treasury-Transportation bill that would scrap revisions to OMB Circular A-76, which sets the rules for public-private competitions. House lawmakers nevertheless passed the amendment by a margin of 22 votes.

"We cannot let [job competitions] go forward," Reid told fellow senators. "It's a slap in the face to dedicated public servants and it's a slap in the face to the American public. Renting [Park Service work] out to the lowest bidder is not the way to go."

The National Parks Conservation Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, applauded the amendment. The Park Service is part of the Interior Department.

"The Park Service, comprised of some of the most dedicated and underpaid public servants in our nation, is the guardian of our most precious natural and cultural treasures," said Thomas Kiernan, the group's president, in Sept. 17 letter urging senators to support the Reid amendment. "Our collective American heritage should not be placed at risk by a politically driven, inside-the-Beltway, top-down strategy that places the guardianship of our parks in the hands of the lowest bidder."

Senators did not debate Reid's amendment after he introduced it Wednesday evening. The Senate does not plan to vote on the budget bill, or amendments to it, until next week.

In July, the House passed a version of the Interior appropriations bill containing the same provision Reid proposed. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, opposed the language but agreed to hold his complaints until the bill reaches House-Senate negotiations.

Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council, an Arlington, Va.-based contractors association, said Reid's amendment contributes to a "guerilla war" on competitive sourcing and replicates an "overreach in the House that . . . a lot of folks [there] now view as an overreach."