Opponents of privatization have blocked a bill that would force federal agencies to outsource thousands of federal jobs. But a Senate committee has approved a watered-down measure requiring agencies to publicly list jobs that could be targeted for contracting out.
On Wednesday, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee approved by voice vote a bill called the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act. Under the act, agencies each year would be required to create lists of programs that could be performed in the private sector. The lists would be made public, and an announcement of the lists would be published in the Federal Register. In addition, the act instructs agency heads to review the lists annually to determine if the programs should be outsourced.
The act is a significantly scaled-down version of the Freedom from Government Competition Act, which was introduced in February 1997. Under that bill, any program deemed "not inherently governmental" would have been privatized. That would include almost any activity that a private sector company performs, such as payroll and housekeeping functions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and about 80 other associations and companies formed the Coalition For Taxpayer Value to push the bill in Congress.
However, the bill met opposition from both the Clinton administration and federal employee unions. Later versions of the bill, known as the Competition in Commercial Activities Act in the House and the Fair Competition Act in the Senate, would not have required wholesale privatization, instead mandating public-private competitions for non-inherently governmental programs. Nevertheless, the administration and the unions continued to opposed the measures.
The watered-down version of the bill passed by the Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday is seen as a compromise that all sides can live with. Employee unions are happy that the bill does not mandate contracting out, while the business coalition considers the act a step toward more outsourcing of government business.
"We are taking a neutral position at this point," said Brian DeWyngaert, executive assistant to American Federation of Government Employees President Bobby Harnage. "We see it as a codification of a requirement agencies already have to create a list of their commercial activities."
Under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, which governs public-private competitions, agencies are asked to create lists of activities that could be performed by the private sector. But there is currently no requirement to publish the lists. In addition to the publishing requirement, the Governmental Affairs Committee's bill also sets up a protest process, through which private sector companies could request that a program be added to agencies' lists. Conversely, unions would be able to protest the inclusion of programs on the lists.
"This legislation is not as comprehensive as the previous legislation," said Robert Raasch, co-chairman of the Coalition for Taxpayer Value and a labor specialist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's not as much as we wanted, but it pushes us in the right direction."
Raasch noted that OMB Circular A-76 does not have the force of law, so agencies can currently choose not to create lists of commercial activities.
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