Lawmaker asks Bush to reconsider repeal of contractor ethics rule

House Education and the Workforce Committee ranking member George Miller, D-Calif., sent a letter to President Bush Friday asking him to reconsider his repeal of a Clinton-era regulation that would have required government contractors to consider an outside firm's federal track record before hiring them.

"Federal procurement policy should not reward contractors who flagrantly and persistently disregard the law," Miller wrote. "Government should not do business with crooks, and certainly not with those whose decisions result in serious injury to workers or desecration of the environment," he said.

Miller is requesting that Bush provide him with a list of people the administration met with and documents it relied upon while considering repeal of the rule last month.

Bush repealed the rule Dec. 27 after suspending it in March. President Clinton put the contractor rule in place last year after an Associated Press analysis found hundreds of contractors remained eligible for federal jobs despite violating federal rules or being a party to government fraud lawsuits.

Business groups had opposed the regulation, saying it went too far in blacklisting companies with minor violations or who had not been convicted of a crime.