TOPICS
TOPICS
Senators prepare for battle over Alaska native contracting
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Contracting Oversight Subcommittee Chairwoman Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is picking a fight with Alaska over contracting breaks state native corporations enjoy, setting up a test for a state delegation eager to show it can keep benefits long protected by the power of former GOP Sen. Ted Stevens.
McCaskill sent letters this month to 20 Alaska Native Corporations, seeking information about their compensation, subsidiaries, shareholder benefits, federal contract revenues and other business practices and scheduled a July 16 subcommittee hearing.
Under a legal regime built up by Stevens-backed legislation since 1971, the Alaska Native Corporations, along with native Hawaiian organizations and Indian tribes, are eligible for federal contracts under the Small Business Administration's 8(a) development program.
Unlike most other small businesses in the program, the ANCs can win no-bid contracts and subcontracts from government agencies and face no limit on total contract value. With those and other benefits, the ANCs have become major federal contractors and cash cows for Alaska, earning $5 billion in federal contracts in fiscal 2008, according to Government Executive magazine.
The ANCs' benefits have been targeted for years by trade groups representing other small business contractors, good-government groups and lawmakers, including former House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Waxman held a hearing on the ANCs in 2006 and later put provisions into defense authorization bills that would have forced agencies to limit sole-source awards to ANCs. But Stevens and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, got the provision removed.
McCaskill said she is "skeptical of the ability to give anybody a noncompetitive bid with no limit. That just kind of offends me at its base." But she said legal changes might not be "doable now. These guys, they're huge corporations; they have huge lobbying efforts under way. I am already feeling the hot breath of the lobbying effort on my neck."
Alaska Sens. Mark Begich, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, want to show they can deliver for their constituents on the ANC issue and other state matters. "I'm raring to go on it," said Begich, arguing the corporations cut poverty among Alaska natives.
Begich and Murkowski sent McCaskill a letter asking her to give the ANCs more time to respond and each argued new program rules SBA is developing should be allowed to take effect. Begich said he is eager to "talk to people like Senator McCaskill, who does not have the history on this."
The ANC matter is just one front where Alaska is on the defensive. Murkowski recently announced she has won a commitment from the Obama administration to work with her on its proposed cut of $20 million in the Denali Commission, which supports construction of health facilities in Alaska.
Murkowski said past efforts to restore funds have been successful. But this is the first year Stevens will not be on the Appropriations Committee to aid in that effort.
COMMENTS
- I notice some of you are saying that the Government is "getting ripped off" yet isn't the real problem you are complaining about is the fact that the large ANC companies are getting work because they are competing against smaller mom/pop shop type 8a's? Nobody is stealing the money from the government- they are just being selected over your small business. Either way the work the gov't pays for gets done so lets not say they are stealing from the gov't. "Non competitive contracts= corp welfare" if you are saying that statement then you have issues with the entire 8a/sdvo/hub program (where sole source is used) and not just the ANC program. Keep it in context...... Frank Watson Posted July 7, 2009 10:48 AM
- I am a retired Contracting Officer that worked at the Naval Air Systems Command and did a fair amount of contracting under the 8(a) Program at one time. I agree with those who say the exceptions allowed to the Alaskan companies under the 8(a) Program are wrong. These ANCs are multi million dollar corporations with no work being done in Alaska. They are not providing jobs or eliminating poverty among Alaskan native tribes. The vast majority of these huge contracts, like the one announcing the $86M contract, have no relationship to Alaskans. See that announcement - NONE of the work is in or near Alaska. And you can bet that hardly one Alaskan, save a few corporate people in the G&A pool, are working under this contract. That is the whole point here. It's a program that is being grossly abused. There is nothing "small" about these huge ANCs. They just spin off more subsidiaries or "mentor" friends or family as fronts to bid on more contracts. If Alaskan native contractors were subject to the same rules and regs as other normal 8(a) companies then their participation would be much more acceptable. Tony DeVico Posted June 9, 2009 3:05 AM
- Here is an anouncement from Alutiiq that they just won a SB set aside in open competetion. How can a SB compete with a billion dollar company. This is insane Alutiiq 3SG, LLC*, Anchorage, Alaska, is being awarded an $86,675,584 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for logistics product data lifecycle management services and products in support of the Naval Air Systems command’s Logistics Product Data Division. Work will be performed in Cherry Point, N.C., (41 percent); North Island, Calif., (32 percent); Jacksonville, Fla., (10 percent); Patuxent River, Md., (8 percent); China Lake, Calif., (6 percent); and Lakehurst, N.J., (3 percent), and is expected to be completed in Jun. 2014. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured under an electronic request for proposals as a 100 percent small business set-aside; two offers were received. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity (N00421-09-D-0011). Enough Posted June 4, 2009 12:31 PM
