Electronic travel service survives House-Senate negotiations

The General Services Administration's governmentwide electronic travel booking program is likely to survive under language agreed upon Thursday night by congressional negotiators hammering out differences on the fiscal 2006 Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill.

The conferees decided to go with a Senate-backed provision that holds the e-travel system to a quota for small business subcontracts, rather than a House-backed one that would eliminate the system entirely.

The conference report stated that "for purposes of the eTravel system, no less than 23 percent of all subcontracted dollars shall be allocated to small business." The House approved the report Friday afternoon by a vote of 392-31. Once the Senate approves the conference version, the bill (H.R. 3058) will go to President Bush for his signature.

The preliminary House version of the bill, approved in late June, included an amendment blocking all funding for GSA's eTravel Service program. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., ranking member of the Small Business Committee and sponsor of the amendment, said it was a "disgrace" that the conference committee didn't support her language.

"Now our nation's small travel companies will continue to struggle in their ability to do business with the federal government -- and that is simply unacceptable," Velazquez said.

A coalition of small travel agencies supported Velazquez's language. The coalition expressed concern that the eTravel Service program would cut smaller companies out of government travel business. But the three eTravel providers contracted by GSA -- CW Government Travel Inc., EDS and Northrup Grumman Corp. - have maintained that small travel agencies will be able to plug into the new electronic systems.

The preliminary Senate version of the bill, which passed 93-1 a month ago, contained the 23 percent small business contracting mandate.

Kathy Rice, chief executive officer of the Travel Co. of Montana and a member of the coalition of small business travel agencies that lobbied against e-Travel, said the legislation will not help small travel agencies because the 23 percent quota is vague and fails to guarantee prime contracting opportunities.

She said other members of the coalition talked to Senate staffers who said they were going to contact members of the conference committee to seek stronger language. But "unfortunately, things in Washington have been hectic and [that] slipped through," she said.

Rice suggested that GSA require the eTravel Service vendors to use small business travel agencies for prime contracts. Other federal agencies also could decide to require that on their own, she said.

"If they don't, the whole thing will come right back up," Rice added.

But Scott Guerrero, CW Government Travel's chief operating officer and executive vice president, called the 23 percent requirement a "fair resolution" of the House-Senate differences.

"We currently have subcontracts with small businesses … some of them are small technology companies and some of them are small travel agencies," Guerrero said. "This is a good thing."