S.Amdt. 781

SA 781. Mr. COBURN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 13, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2010, revising the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal year 2009, and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2011 through 2014; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __. SENSE OF THE SENATE ON COMPETITIVE BIDDING.

(a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:

(1) Last year, then-candidate Barack Obama stated that “for too long, Washington politicians have wasted billions on no-bid contracts” and promised to “end abusive no-bid contracts.” As part of his “Blueprint for Change,” candidate Obama pledged to “ensure that Federal contracts over $25,000 are competitively bid”.

(2) According to the most recent figures compiled by the Federal Government, Federal agencies annually award over $1,000,000,000,000 in financial assistance alone, with $496,000,000,000 in grants awarded in fiscal year 2008 and $518,000,000,000 in contracts and $29,000,000,000 in direct loans awarded in fiscal year 2007.

(3) A non-competitive grant or contract is Federal funding that is provided directly to an entity, bypassing the standard process for awarding Federal funding in which competing bids are solicited in order to select the most cost-efficient and qualified entity to perform a service.

(4) The volume of non-competitive contracts awarded using Federal funds has risen from $49,000,000,000 in 2000 to $134,000,000,000 in 2008, an increase of 176 percent.

(5) The Senate voted 97 to zero in support of competitive bidding for contracts and grants in a Senate-passed amendment to H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

(6) The competitive process helps ensure that the Federal Government receives the highest-quality products for the least amount of money.

(7) This resolution includes a deficit-neutral reserve fund for Defense acquisition and contracting reform and a deficit-neutral reserve fund for a comprehensive investigation into the current financial crisis.

(b) Sense of the Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate that all Senators support President Obama's pledge to end abusive no-bid contracts by requiring all Federal contracts to be competitively bid.