A bill to prevent defense contract "bundling" could
help small firms get more business.
In the first day of the new Congress, a January day that gave
the season's first premonition of snow, Rep. Albert R. Wynn
(D-MD) introduced an "anti-bundling" bill that had
nothing to do with preventing the use of winter jackets.
Bundling is inside-the-beltway shorthand for the practice by
which the federal government lumps lots of small contracts together
so they can be given to one large company. Small businesses have
become increasingly concerned that federal agencies are bundling as
a way of saving administrative costs. "We don't think
there ought to be only mega-contracts that [only] mega-companies
can service," emphasizes Jody Olmer, director of domestic
policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She recently wrote to
Daniel Golden, administrator of NASA, to express concern about one
of his bundling initiatives, the Consolidated Contracting
Initiative.
Content Continues Below
In October 1995, the House Small Business Committee held
hearings on two contract consolidations, one having to do with the
General Services Administration's use of air freight
transporters, the other with the Defense Department's moving of
household goods between military bases.
Concerns about bundling have heightened markedly lately as
federal agencies began implementing the Federal Acquisition Reform
Act (FARA), which President Clinton signed in February 1996.
Commenting on that bill in May, the Small Business Administration
said, "The new focus on government efficiency gives greater
latitude to contracting officers to limit competition and, in some
circumstances, to use simplified procedures that do not require
full and open competition."
Small-business advocates such as Olmer say they recognize the
realities of government procurement in tight times and are not
saying there is never a need for consolidation. "You don't
have to keep the status quo necessarily," Olmer says,
"but there has to be some balance."
In the last Congress, on the heels of her committee's
hearings and the passage of FARA, Rep. Jan Meyers, then chair of
the House Small Business Committee, introduced remedial legislation
called the Small Business Opportunity Preservation Act (H.R. 4313).
It was introduced on September 28, 1996, too late in the session
for the bill to move forward.
With Meyers' retirement, it appears Rep. Wynn is picking up
that cudgel. He has reintroduced Meyers' bill. But he is not on
the Small Business Committee, where his bill has been referred, nor
is he a Republican. Given that the GOP controls Congress, it will
probably be necessary for a senior Republican on the committee to
take the leading role Meyers had assumed on this issue.
The Wynn bill, which is strongly supported by small-business
groups, requires federal contracts that are bundled to be
"supported by findings and an assessment" whose
requirements are listed. These include toting up the benefits of
bundling, specific adverse impacts on small businesses, and
specific actions to ensure the participation of small business in
the bundled contract.
The committee staffer who handled the issue for Meyers says if
the Wynn bill is to move forward, small business will have to come
to Congress with some tangible evidence of a particularly egregious
instance of federal government bundling. "That is what it
would take to make this a high-profile issue again," he
says.
At least some federal agencies appear to be making an effort not
to give Congress an excuse to jump into this issue. Last October,
John White, deputy secretary of the Defense Department, issued a
memorandum on consolidation of contracts. "When we plan for
the consolidation of several contracts or requirements into a
single larger contract," he wrote, "we must consider the
impact on small, small disadvantaged, and women-owned small
businesses." White outlined a number of policy considerations
that must be taken into account before small contracts are lumped
together. For example, he said contracts could be consolidated only
if doing so "reduced life-cycle costs, improved services, or
both."
Susan Haley, deputy director of the Defense Department's
Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, says it is
too early to tell whether the White memo had an impact in local Air
Force, Army and Navy procurement offices. The Defense Department
does not keep statistics on bundling. "The memo has been
extremely well received by small-business groups," she says.
"But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating."
Page 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 