The House subcommittee that oversees federal management issues put off debating a controversial bill that would promote privatization on Tuesday. But the panel did push forward with bills affecting federal procurement and financial managers.
At a business meeting of the Government Management, Information and Technology Subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, chairman Stephen Horn, R-Calif., delayed a planned markup of H.R. 716, the Freedom from Government Competition Act. Only seven of the subcommittee's 12 members were present at the meeting. Several members were out of town, Horn said.
The Freedom from Government Competition Act would force the federal government to privatize operations that could be performed in the private sector. Several versions of the bill have been considered, including one that would require federal employees to compete with private contractors for work deemed "not inherently governmental."
For now, though, the bill is in a holding pattern.
But the subcommittee approved two bills with governmentwide reach by voice vote.
The first measure, the Federal Procurement System Performance Measurement and Acquisition Workforce Training Act, would require the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to establish performance measures for the federal procurement system. The bill would also require agencies to develop continuing education programs for acquisition specialists.
The other bill, the Government Waste, Fraud, and Error Reduction Act, would institute an array of financial management requirements. It would:
- Require agencies to encourage employees to use travel management centers and electronic reservation and payment systems for official travel.
- Bar people who have delinquent debts with the federal government from obtaining federal loans, permits or licenses.
- Allow agencies to sell debts to private collection firms.
- Give agencies more authority to share data on citizens for the purposes of verifying eligibility for federal benefits and loans.
Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, offered an amendment to the waste reduction bill that would allow the Social Security Administration to disburse checks to beneficiaries if the Treasury Department does not fix the year 2000 problem in its computer systems. SSA is well on its way to completing its year 2000 fixes, but Horn and Sessions criticized the Treasury Department's Financial Management Service, which handles Social Security checks, for making slow progress on the year 2000 problem.
The Sessions amendment was deferred, pending feedback from the Clinton administration on the proposal.
NEXT STORY: Army Corps sets plan to save Everglades