Accountability in Contracting Act

Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today to speak on H.R. 1362, the Accountability in Contracting Act, which was introduced by Government Oversight and Reform chairman Henry Waxman last week. I want to thank the chairman for working with us.

This is not a bill that we are particularly enthusiastic about. We have very divergent views in the way we should go about contract regulation, but we both want the same ends. And I want to commend him for working with us, addressing some of our concerns as it moved through the committee process.

This bill would attempt to reform our acquisition system through a series of restrictions and reports geared towards greater regulation and oversight. More specifically, the legislation would limit the duration of contracts awarded under urgent conditions; require agency reports on minimizing the use of fixed-price and sole-source contracts; require additional reports to Congress on cost questions by auditors; and broaden the reach of current limitations on post-employment opportunities for our acquisition workforce, as well as limit the ability of acquisition workers hired by the government from the private sector to participate in certain acquisition activities.

I want to thank the chairman again for working with me by including two provisions that we requested that are both intended to strengthen the Federal acquisition workforce through better training and management. The first would require the administrator for Federal Procurement Policy to come up with a government-wide definition for ``acquisition workforce.'' This modification would help give Federal agencies a clear picture of the composition of their existing acquisition workforce and provide a baseline for the improvement of the human capital resource dedicated to the management of the acquisition workload. The second would make permanent the Acquisition Workforce Training Fund, which was first enacted under SARA, the Services Acquisition Reform Act, which I authored.

Last week our committee revised the introduced version of the bill by approving an amendment I offered to address the concerns I had with the bill's expansion of post-employment restrictions. While I wholeheartedly support the desire to promote integrity, transparency and accountability in government, I was troubled by certain provisions in the bill which sought to significantly expand current post- employment restrictions and curb the government's capability to take advantage of the valuable technical abilities and skills of former private-sector employees.

At a time when we need to be looking for ways to retain qualified acquisition personnel, too many of whom are approaching retirement age, while at the same time looking for effective ways to

recruit new qualified people, the introduced version tried to instead impose new restrictions on these Federal employees. These restrictions would have had a detrimental impact on the executive branch's ability to recruit and retain the brightest and the best personnel for the acquisition workforce, something we can ill afford.

Our amendment shortened the bill's 2-year post-employment restrictions on contracting officers to 1 year and provided for a waiver of the restrictions on the ability of acquisition workers hired by the government from the private sector to participate in certain acquisition activities. My amendment also shortened the duration of the activity restrictions from 2 years to 1 year. While this language goes part way toward addressing my concerns about the negative effects such restrictions have had on the Federal Government's ability to recruit, hire, and retain the skilled acquisition workforce, I continue to have the same concerns.

The bottom line is that there are too many good people working for this government for us to pass onerous restrictions based on the misdeeds of a handful of employees. We need to promote the natural churn of employees between the public and private sector, instead of trying to stymie it. We can't, on the one hand, bemoan the quality of contract management, while on the other, create more obstacles to getting the people that we need to do the job.

In addition to the changes we made in committee last week, I am pleased to see the text of the bill that is on the floor today includes the good work of the Committee on Armed Services. That committee made significant improvements and clarifications to the underlying bill. The Armed Services Committee toned down some of the rhetoric in the bill. For example, by changing terms like ``limiting the abuse of abuse-prone contracts'' to ``improving the quality of contracts.''

More substantively, the Armed Services Committee raised the threshold of the report on preliminary audits of contractor costs from $1 million to $10 million. Nonetheless, I remain concerned a report like this, even at the higher threshold and the limitation to significant contractor costs, still presents a distorted and incomplete picture of the management of cost-type contracts. Contract auditors are critical cogs in the management system. They write audit reports which are submitted to aid the contracting officer in making his final determination whether particular costs are reasonable and consistent with applicable law and the contract terms and, therefore, permitted or what we call ``allowable under the contract.'' It is the outcome of the oversight process, not just the first phase, that we should be reviewing. If we want an accurate picture of costs actually billed to the government which the contracting officer determined the government will not pay, the unallowables, then we might learn something. But that is not what this bill does. The bill would only burden agencies with another meaningless reporting requirement and, I might add, add fodder up here for Members to take this review and make something of it that is probably not accurate.

Each year our Federal contract professionals use the acquisition system to purchase almost $400 billion worth of goods and services, ranging from paper clips to advanced weapons system, from sophisticated information technology and management services to grass cutting and window washing. Recent reforms, culminating in our Services Acquisition Reform Act of 2003, have modernized the way the government does business with the private sector. No longer is our government laden with inflexible, timely, and costly acquisition systems. Legislative efforts over the past decade have provided many of the tools necessary for our acquisition professionals to get the job done.

Unfortunately, the Federal acquisition system has been under stress in recent years because of the extraordinary pressures of a shrinking workforce, combined with the unprecedented Hurricane Katrina disaster relief and recovery efforts, the enormous job of managing contractors who provide logistical support for our troops in Iraq, and overseeing the daunting task of building an Iraqi infrastructure. To no one's surprise, this strain has resulted in a series of management problems that have been exaggerated by the press and exploited by opponents of the system.

Nevertheless, the system has worked pretty well, and the vast majority of the government's acquisitions have been conducted properly. The problems have largely been the result of management difficulties exacerbated by an overburdened and understaffed workforce, combined with improper actions by a handful of officials.

Frankly, Madam Chairman, I don't think that controls, reports, procedures and restrictions in this bill will go very far in addressing the challenges that face us today. Reverting to the bloated system of the past, weighted down with a process-oriented system doesn't help the government acquire the best valuable goods and services the commercial market has to offer and our government so desperately needs in a timely manner. Reverting to the past, under the rubric of fraud, waste and abuse and cleaning up the system may provide flashy sound bites and play well back home, but it doesn't give us the world-class acquisition system that we need to compete in the 21st century.

We have put the current system to the test in some of the most difficult environments imaginable: Hurricane Katrina reconstruction and Iraqi logistics and contracting and reconstruction. The failures which occurred have been rooted in the inadequacies of management and implementation.

And yet the Rules Committee, in looking at the Armed Services Committee report and ours, took out the provision that had the 1 percent additional funding for some of the management and implementation dollars that could have gone into training.

As legislators, we should resist the temptation to micromanage our acquisition system based on unproven anecdotes of failure and misconduct. More controls and procedures will not remedy poorly defined requirements or provide us with a sufficient number of Federal acquisition personnel with the right skills to select the best contractor and manage the subsequent performance.

Why should we force the taxpayers and private entities to undergo unreasonable burdens so politicians can reap short-term gain at the expense of crippling an already overburdened acquisition system and workforce?

It is for these reasons, Madam Chairman, we find this bill has sufficient shortcomings. These shortcomings are shared by the administration in their statement on administration policy in the ITAA, and I will discuss those as the debate goes further.

Finally, let me just say, this country, over the years, has had the debate over what is the appropriate role of oversight, how much is too much. But we need an acquisition system that works. And sometimes we spend so much in our rules and regulations, making sure somebody doesn't steal anything, that they can't do much of anything else either; and we get a system that is burdened and that does not create the efficiencies that we need to more forward. Once again, one of the greater issues that divide the chairman and myself is our philosophies on contracting. But I want to just commend him for working with us on this bill to try to get to where it is today. I know this is important to him.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for a unanimous consent request.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The administration strongly opposes H.R. 1362, which would impose a new statutory ban on how the government uses acquisition personnel and would restrict the executive branch's ability to determine the appropriate funding for acquisition workforce functions.

That is what they say on their statement on administration policy. We also note that other provisions would impose burdensome statutory requirements that overlap with more efficient administrative efforts to strengthen the use of competition and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse.

The administration also feels that this legislation would limit the Federal Government's ability to tap technical expertise of Federal employees who are former contractor employees.

Frankly, we need the best and the brightest overseeing these contracts. As I take a look at contracts that have failed, a lot of it is due to the fact that we have not had appropriate oversight within the executive branch, and being able to get the best and the brightest is a very, very critical component to this. These restrictions, the administration feels, would lower the quality of procurement, solicitations, and analyses and would significantly harm the executive branch's ability to recruit and retain the experienced procurement officials from the private sector to close skill gaps and strengthen the overall capabilities of the acquisition workforce.

The administration also is concerned with the new requirement in the bill that would impose exhaustive quarterly reporting on every significant contract management deficiency at the contractor and subcontractor levels. This requirement will interfere with agencies' abilities to address and resolve contract performance problems in a timely manner.

The Information Technology Association of America in Arlington, Virginia says: The Association joined with other members of the Acquisition Reform Working Group in pointing out flaws in H.R. 1362, while saying that such significant legislation deserves the same light- of-day and careful consideration as do the major government contracts that the majority seeks to control.

They note that the title of the bill alone mistakenly implies a lack of accountability for government contractors under current law. Their president, Phil Bond, notes that ``to the contrary, there is already abundant chapter and verse to bring best value to government and to protect the interest of taxpayers. What is really needed is better application of existing regulations by a fully staffed professional Federal acquisition corps working with responsible government contractors.''

The letter also points out to committee leaders that many of the contracting issues now being addressed are ``symptoms of the shortages of manpower and training for adequate contract management.'' And they note that ``the government can't retain personnel and fill existing job openings in the acquisition workforce.''

They also joined the working group in taking issue with the sections of the bill regarding disclosure of government contractor overcharges. While agreeing that the proper use and oversight of government contracts is paramount, they dispute any need for quarterly reports to Congress on contract charges that are adjudicated by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the DCAA. They note that these are unnecessary provisions and would force significant

investment and government resources and additional burdens on acquisition personnel. So the ITAA comes out against it.

They also note that another section of the bill that seeks more restrictive cost reimbursement-type contracts is also unnecessary and potentially harmful. They note that such contracts typically are used when uncertainties and risks are high, as in emergency situations, and development programs when it is not feasible to set a fixed price for the work required. The Federal Acquisitions Regulations, the FAR, already establishes detailed criteria for proper selection of contract type, including limitations on the use of cost-type contracts ``for use only when uncertainties involved in contract performance do not permit costs to be estimated with sufficient accuracy to suit any type of fixed price contract.''

Madam Chairwoman, if we want to fix the Federal contracting system, the appropriate way is to hire, train, retrain, and pay well our acquisition personnel so that they have a toolbox of acquisition options to use to get the best deal for the government in every case, get the best value for the government. The taxpayers' dollars are at stake here, and their role ought to be to make sure the taxpayer dollars are spent most efficiently.

Adding burdens and layers and layers of regulatory reports do nothing to help that situation at all, and in many cases it can be very misleading as these burdens come out and we start taking out DCAA reports that have nothing to do with final adjudications of how these work. We already, by the way, have access to that information in Congress. What we don't have access to information is, and one of the things we would have liked to include, is to take final adjudications on costs that were deemed allowable and see what those costs are per contractor. That could have helped us in ferreting out which contractors are using these items. But this legislation does little to remedy those situations, unfortunately.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, may I inquire as to how much time is left on each side?

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me start by saying we all want to limit the use of no-bid contracts. These go back of course to the Revolutionary War, where the troops were marching and they needed food and there is one farmer around. And you can't go out to bid to see who is going to sell you the lowest corn; you take what is there. But they should be limited, because competition is the cornerstone of our contracting system.

Let me go through some of the assertions that are made in support of the bill and give my thoughts.

Assertion one is that spending on sole source and other noncompetitive contracts has more than doubled over the last 5 years. And although spending has increased significantly over the last 5 years, it is due largely to 9/11 and Katrina. The total dollars competed is a percentage of total dollars available for competition. It has remained relatively constant between fiscal years 2001 and 2006, between 61 and 64 percent, according to the FPDS.

This notwithstanding, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Administrator will be seeking to help in the leadership of the CAOs to reinvigorate through administrative means the use of competition and related practice for achieving a competitive environment. The role of competition advocates should be revived, with special emphasis on planning and execution in the management of hard-to-task and delivery orders.

There is an assertion that over the last 5 years the administration has jeopardized taxpayer interests and squandered hundreds of millions of dollars by giving private contractors exclusive control over huge portions of the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Frankly, DOD is giving increased attention to contingency contracting, including training for acquisition and program personnel and standard operating procedures. The Department of Defense and other agencies have recognized the need to increase the number of prepositioned, competitively awarded contracts to address contingencies. Also, the Department of Defense has several audit agencies including the Defense Audit Agency and Defense Contract Management Agency working in theater to monitor the contracts and resources.

Another assertion that comes from the other side is that this administration has justified the award of lucrative sole source contracts by citing urgent and compelling needs but then allowed these contracts to continue years after the emergency has passed.

The Chief Acquisition Officers Council, the CAOC, has established an Emergency Response and Recovery Working Group to improve access to information that can assist the acquisition workforce in planning for and addressing emergencies. The working group created a community of practice Web site, accessible at http://acc.dau.mil/emergencyresponse, so that agencies can share information about their policies and procedures, their best practices, their training resources, and other information of interest. For example, the site provides a link to the Emergency Acquisition Field Guide developed by FEMA so other agencies can learn about and adopt, as appropriate, practices employed by FEMA for performing specific assignments or functions in an emergency acquisition environment.

The emergency response and recovery Web site includes a list of interagency contracts that offer the types of supplies and services that were required by agencies to address disaster recovery for Katrina and 9/11, such as communications equipment, fuel and transportation, pharmaceuticals, portable shelters, generators, tarps, bottled water, and emergency meals. The GSA has established a disaster relief and emergency preparedness homepage that provides a quick reference guide to offerings on its Multiple Award Schedules that can be suitable for addressing readiness, intervention, counteractive solutions, or post- emergency logistics.

Another assertion is that cost reimbursement-type contracts leave the taxpayer vulnerable to wasteful spending by providing contractors with little or no incentive to control costs. Between 2000 and 2005, the use of this type of contract has risen 75 percent.

Frankly, according to the FPDS again, the total government spending on contracts has increased considerably, roughly at the same percentage as the increases in cost-type contracts stated above. From fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2005, total spending increased from $219 billion to $380 billion.

But cost-type contracts play a useful and necessary role in contracting when uncertainties involved in contract performance don't permit costs to be estimated with sufficient accuracy to use any type of fixed-price contract. And the contractors get caught on these many times when they move ahead and they estimate it to be one thing and then the needs of the contract change and they end up having to advance costs. So cost-type contracts in these types of situations are proven useful, but they are only good when they get the appropriate oversight from the procurement officers. And we don't address that underlying issue in a significant way in this legislation.

Agencies such as NASA rely on cost-type contracts for critical R&D work, such as planetary science and exploration missions, systems development operation support in physical engineering, and life sciences. In the early 1980s, there was a push towards fixed-price contracts for R&D to address failed major programs, cost overruns. But ultimately Congress passed legislation requiring a secretarial approval for contracts over $25 million. DOD regulations preclude award of a fixed-price contract for a development program unless the level of program risk permits realistic pricing and the use of a fixed-price type contract allows an equitable and sensible allocation of program risk between the government and the contractor.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield for just one comment?

Let me just note that on the bills on the Presidential records, the library, the whistleblowers, Mr. Waxman and his staff have worked very well with us. And the record should show that the reason we got such big bipartisan majority was their willingness to bend back and our ability to work back and forth. And I want to, again, commend him.

We have other differences on this bill which is close to my heart that I think he understands and we understand; but even here they have worked with us. And I think the record should note that they have gone out of their way and we appreciate that.

I yield myself 1 minute to note again the reason for the rise in sole-source contracts has been emergencies like 9/11 and Katrina, under which the exigencies which government is faced with at that point to meet in a timely manner doesn't allow you to go out in these cases for a wide swath of bids. But I think we share a common desire to bring more competition into government contracting.

I also want to note that at our committee hearing on February 8, the Inspector General, Richard Skinner, testified that the government's greatest exposure to fraud, waste and abuse is undoubtedly in the area of procurement. As already pointed out by members of this committee, he notes, the problem is not a new one. It dates back to the Federal Government's nearsighted policies in the early 1990s to reduce the Federal workforce. While acquisition management capabilities were being downsized, the procurement workload was on the rise.

I hope to continue to work with the gentleman as we focus on this acquisition workforce and give them the tools they need.

I would yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio, a member of the committee, Mr. Turner.

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hunter.

Mr. Chairman, we fully support transparency and accountability in decision-making, but we need to remember we are asking for all of these audit reports that are only advisory in nature. They are not disposition. These are questioned costs, and contracting in a war zone or in an emergency often lacks appropriate documentation. But these are allowable costs.

I think to provide those to Congress not only gives you too much information, a lot of it can be misleading and can be misplayed.

Knowing that the results of an audit will be provided to Congress during the negotiation and the resolution process, which is what they are asking for, could unduly influence the impact the audit advice may have on the contracting officer's administrative determination. This inhibits their authority to appropriately and effectively resolve contracting issues using all of the relevant information available to them. This could also have the unintended effect of increasing the number of contract disputes.

But I know my colleague feels with a passion that we need to move ahead and do something of this order. I look forward to working with him on legislation on the acquisition workforce which we don't touch in this area. This legislation I think falls short of the promise, but I appreciate the willingness he has shown to work with us. We will address further issues later in our motion to recommit.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the offeror of the amendment just a clarification question before I yield.

For a company to have to disclose under this, it would be a foreign- owned company, I understand, that is based or has majority operations in a country described in subsection D. Any idea who that would apply to? I am just trying to figure out.

I am trying to figure out what companies this would apply to.

A foreign-owned company could be, if it is on the American Stock Exchange, that probably would not make it a foreign-owned company in all likelihood?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Let me just ask the author of the amendment, this would obviously apply, this is a list that evolves, as the Secretary of State certifies, is that correct?

I would assume that Iran, North Korea are probably on that list today?

Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, for example, would probably not be on that list today?

I am prepared to accept the amendment. I congratulate the gentleman for offering it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield 30 seconds?

I will commend my friend from Delaware for offering this amendment. I would just say we are happy, and we are here to support it as well, and we think this adds to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am, Mr. Speaker, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

This motion to recommit would bar Federal agencies from awarding contracts to colleges and universities that either prohibit on-campus military recruitment, or otherwise do not provide military recruiters access to campuses and to students that is at least equal in quality and scope to the access that is provided to any other employer.

On March 6, 2006, the Supreme Court reversed a Federal appeals court ruling in Rumsfeld vs. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights. In doing so, eight Justices upheld the constitutionality of the so-called Solomon amendment, upon which this motion is based, forbidding most forms of Federal aid to higher educational institutions that deny military recruiters access to students equal to that provided other employers.

Mr. Speaker, military recruiters must be given access to university and college campuses and students that is at least equal in quality and scope provided to other employers.

This motion establishes that requirement government-wide. We already do this to some agencies in government. A number of Departments are already covered; but since this bill is government-wide in scope, we make this government-wide in scope.

This motion establishes that requirement, thereby addressing an apparent trend among certain colleges and universities to attempt to frustrate military recruiters through official and unofficial mistreatment.

Unfortunately, this growing trend is not isolated to the higher education community, as evidenced by the decision last November by the San Francisco Board of Education to phase out Junior ROTC from the high school system over the next 2 years. At a time of war, when we are depending on a volunteer military, it seems counterproductive to be openly discriminating against our military personnel and to create perceptions that military service is not a noble and professional calling.

The Department of Defense noting that certain colleges and universities continue to restrict access or limit opportunities for military recruiters to participate fully in job fairs, placement office services and interview programs, supports congressional efforts to take action to pass legislation granting military recruiters access equal to that of other employers.

The motion to recommit would help prod those colleges and universities that currently do not provide equal access to military recruiters.

We also, I want to note, have a clause in here that this prohibition does not apply to an institution of higher education or a sub-element if the Secretary of Defense determines that the institution has a longstanding policy of pacifism based on historical religious affiliation.

I urge my colleagues to support this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter).

Mr. Speaker, I would just add, 10 U.S.C. 983 already covers a number of agencies, the Department of Defense and others in terms of contracting and limitations that are put on colleges and universities that don't allow recruiters to come on campuses. This makes it government-wide.

This body has addressed this issue before. But I think it is time to make this government-wide, and I would urge my colleagues to support the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume of the time that has been reserved to us.

The bill before us, H.R. 1362, the Accountability in Contracting Act, would increase transparency and accountability in Federal contracting, limit the use of certain types of abuse-prone contracts and promote integrity in the acquisition workforce.

Under the Bush administration, spending on Federal contracts has exploded in size. The Federal Government spent $175 billion more in Federal contracts in 2005 than it did in 2000, making Federal contracts the fastest growing component of the Federal budget.

The Federal Government now spends nearly 40 percent of discretionary spending on contracts with private companies, a record level. This surge in contract spending has enriched private contractors like Halliburton, but it has come at a steep cost to taxpayers through rising waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.

Spending on sole source and other noncompetitive contracts has more than doubled in the last 5 years. The administration has justified the awarding of these lucrative sole source contracts by citing urgent and compelling needs, but then they allow these contracts to continue years after the emergency has passed.

Cost reimbursement type contracts leave the taxpayers vulnerable to wasteful spending by providing contractors with little or no incentive to control costs. But between 2000 and 2005, the use of this type of contract has risen by 75 percent.

The administration has also hidden contractor overcharges from Congress, international auditors and the public, impeding oversight and diminishing accountability. Too often, the independence of procurement of officials has been compromised by illegal relationships with government contractors.

Darleen Druyun, the former chief acquisition official for the Air Force, negotiated a lucrative deal to lease aircraft from Boeing in exchange for future employment. All of these problems have been compounded by an insufficient acquisition workforce to properly award and adequately oversee Federal contracts.

H.R. 1362 contains important provisions to rein in out-of-control Federal contracting. It would require Federal agencies to develop plans to minimize the use of the sole source contracts, and it would limit the duration of no-bid contracts issued in emergencies.

The bill would also require agencies to encourage the use of fixed- price contracts, which are not as prone to abuse as cost-plus contracts. This provision will allow the growth of contracts to give companies a financial incentive to increase their costs to the taxpayers.

When a sole source contract is awarded, agencies are required to prepare a justification and approval document to explain why full and open competition was not used to award the contract. The bill would require those documents to be made public.

The bill also promotes transparency in the acquisition process by requiring agencies to report to Congress when auditors identify over $10 million in questioned or unsupported costs. A big and growing problem with the Federal acquisition system is that it has a workforce that is too small and undertrained. The bill requires the administration to develop a comprehensive definition of the acquisition workforce and ensures that funds for training will continue to be available.

Finally, the bill includes revolving door provisions that close loopholes in the law, prohibiting contracting officials from negotiating employment for their relatives and establish a cooling off period before procurement officials can award or oversee contracts involving a former employer.

All of this is important legislation. This legislation alone will not do the job. We need, however, to continue our oversight, and Congress has already begun many oversight hearings in our committee and in other committees as well.

Members are starting to ask what went wrong and to insist on accountability. But this legislation is an important reform in the contracting area. I want to thank my ranking member, Tom Davis, and the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee for their hard work and efforts in reaching a bipartisan consensus on the bill before us.

The Accountability in Contracting Act makes sound commonsense reforms which will improve the transparency and accountability of the Federal acquisition system, and I urge Members to support the bill.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairwoman, I am pleased to yield 4\1/2\ minutes to a very important member of our committee, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Madam Chairwoman, I recognize and yield to a very distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) for 3 minutes.

Madam Chair, I would like to now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes), a member of our committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

Madam Chair, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

(Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader of the House of Representatives (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to a new member of our committee, but who has been a valuable member and raised a great deal of concern about these issues, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy).

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time is left on each side.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

I want to acknowledge the fact that Chairman Tom Davis did more as the chairman of our committee in doing oversight than any other Chair in the House. We did do a lot, but the other committees did not. They didn't want to do oversight. It was as if the Republican leadership of the House decided that if they did too much oversight, they might find embarrassment to this administration.

Well, it looks like this administration would now like to keep us from getting embarrassing information about them because they don't like this bill. Oh, we have to give too many reports to Congress; there has to be too much transparency; it is burdensome to have to be open about these contracts. But the fact of the matter is we are spending an incredible amount of money on these outside contracts. And from what we have seen, our taxpayers are not being protected from waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. Just look at what went on in Iraq. Halliburton had contracts for logistical purposes, to restore oil. We were told we needed them to get a contract without any competition because they are the only ones, this is what we were told in the very beginning when we asked why did we get this contract in Iraq with no other competition.

We were told, Well, they are the only ones who know how to put out the oil well fires when we go to war. And so they got a contract without competition on a cost-plus basis even though they had a history of overcharging the taxpayers. And then later we found out that they didn't do anything about putting out oil well fires in the first Gulf war; it was Bechtel, not Halliburton. We were told it was civil servants who had done it in giving this award to the contractor. But then we found out it was the political people who did it.

Halliburton was given special treatment. Other contractors were given special treatment by not having healthy competition. Competition benefits the consumer. When the government is the payor, the consumer, we are deprived of what market forces can bring. So these contractors got no-bid contracts.

I made a proposal on the House floor when we had one of these appropriations bills to say that if any contractor overcharges us $100 million or more, they ought to be barred from future contracts. The chairman at that time of the Armed Services Committee stood up and said, We can't have an amendment like this; we haven't even held hearings on anybody who has charged us over $100 million.

Well, why hadn't they held hearings? Why didn't the Armed Services Committee hold hearings?

The fact of the matter is in recent years, we have had an enormous outpouring of money spent in Iraq, in homeland security, in dealing with Hurricane Katrina, and we have seen the same mistakes over and over again: No-competition contracts; cost-plus contracts.

We have seen what the result has been: Wasted taxpayer dollars. That is why this legislation has been put together. It is a bill to require that if there is an emergency to give a contract, give it. But then have bidding within a year.

Gasoline prices charged by Halliburton were considered highway robbery. Parsons built just a handful, 20 of the 142 health clinics they were paid to build. Human sewage leaked out of the roof of a police academy.

In Hurricane Katrina, they subcontracted and subcontracted and subcontracted, and finally they paid a guy with a truck to come and take away debris. Every markup of every one of those subcontractors was passed on to the taxpayers.

We have had a contract to build a border for our homeland security that cost us billions of dollars that didn't work. We had a contract to help the Coast Guard get state-of-the-art ships, and they didn't meet standards. We need reform in this area.

If that is called micromanaging when we want transparency, this is the type of reform we need. We need something we didn't have before: A lot more oversight. We have got to keep people honest.

I am shocked when I hear conservatives say they care about taxpayers' dollars, and then don't want competition. I am shocked when they say taxpayers' money is being used wisely, and then we find it is being thrown away.

I urge support for this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, legislation is an organic process. We have negotiated with the minority. We have strong bipartisan support for this legislation. The bill was referred to the Armed Services Committee. They gave us good recommendations which have been adopted unanimously by that committee and incorporated into this bill.

The gentleman from Ohio complained there was another change made. There are always changes going on to make

the bill better. It will get even better as we move it through the process. Let's pass the bill and work together. Let's stand up for the American taxpayers of this country.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, well, I do. I am surprised you are taking the position you are taking in trying to make it personal but----

I think the gentleman is misinformed about what is in the legislation because we do permit under exigent circumstances a no-bid contract to be awarded. We understand there are times that there are emergencies, but we ask that after a year that the contract be put out to bid, that there be competition at least after a year. I see nothing wrong with that. It makes a lot of common sense to me, and you are arguing that we are not responding to the emergency situation when we do.

What this provision provides is if somebody is personally and substantially involved in that contract, they should not be then going out and working for the contractor. I just think that is improper. There ought to at least be a cooling-off period. We do not think they can never go work.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you very much for yielding to me.

I just want to point out that I think my good friend from my same State, former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, now the ranking member, protesteth too much.

He complained that they have to award a contract right away and that this bill would prevent it. Well, we

have already pointed out that that is not the case at all. A contract can be awarded on an emergency basis; but after a year, there ought to be competition. He thought that sounded good once we explained it to him on the floor.

Then he said, well, there is another provision that he dislikes and that is the fact that somebody who awards a contract cannot go to work for the contractor. Well, that provision was narrowed, and it was narrowed to say it had to be a senior person, and it also had to be someone who was personally and substantially involved in awarding the contract.

Now, a lot of these contracts are determined by political appointees. For example, we learned that the Halliburton no-bid contract to restore oil in Iraq was signed by the contracting civil servant, but the decision was made by a political appointee. The gentleman's name is Michael Mobbs. He decided that Halliburton ought to get that contract and that there should not be competition. He even went before a committee of principals, including Scooter Libby representing the Vice President, and suggested to them this is the way the contract ought to be awarded, and the contract was awarded. He argued that it needed to be awarded at that time to that contractor, they would do the job.

Should he be allowed to go within a year and go sign up as an employee for Halliburton? I do not think he should be permitted. All we say is there ought to be a cooling-off period. We do not say he never could go work for Halliburton, but I think it is unseemly to have him go right from that position to go work for Halliburton.

Now, I must say from those who tell us everything is going great in Iraq, they are also telling us today on the House floor everything has gone well with contractors in Iraq. I must submit that things have not gone well, unless you do not mind hundreds of billions of dollars in questioned costs, in overcharging by a contractor to bring in gasoline from Kuwait, having a contractor charge for $45 for Cokes or $50 for laundry, obscene kind of expenditures. Things have not gone well. That is why we need more oversight, and that is why we need this important reform legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that my colleague, Representative Cardoza has concerns about the use of the confidential business information exemption within the Freedom of Information Act to withhold information about Federal contracts from the public. I understand Mr. Cardoza's concern and want to work with him to ensure that the public has access to this type of information under FOIA. Yesterday, the House approved legislation that will strengthen FOIA and ensure that agencies apply a presumption of disclosure when considering requests. I believe that yesterday's bill, along with the bill we are considering today, are steps in the right direction. But, neither bill directly addresses my colleague's concerns related to overuse of FOIA's exemption four.

I have an ongoing interest in strengthening the Freedom of Information Act and certainly want to work together with Mr. Cardoza to accomplish his important goal of ensuring public access to information about federal contractor performance.

I have agreed to work with Mr. Cardoza to request that GAO conduct an examination of agency use of exemption four. A report from GAO could clarify what is currently being withheld from the public under this exemption, and how much of that information is actually a trade secret or is truly confidential. This report will inform us as we move forward.

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, as I understand the gentleman from Utah's amendment, it would require a Federal agency that expects to award a sole source contract to a foreign company based in a country known to sponsor terrorist activity to notify Congress 30 days prior to the award of that contract. This seems to me to be a good idea.

Congress should know if no-bid contracts are going to countries that sponsor terrorism. So I support the amendment. I think it makes a lot of sense. What Congress does after they get this information will remain to be seen.

There may be some justification for it, but I would certainly want to know, as this Member of Congress, speaking on my own behalf, and I think others would feel the same way if such a sole source contract was going to be awarded.

As I understand the way we wrote this bill, it would have to be a person at a senior level who is substantially involved in the awarding of the contract. I don't think being on a range is an awarding of the contract.

Mr. Chairman, I am not in opposition to the amendment, but I wish to claim the time that would go to the Member in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Castle amendment. There are currently no Federal ethics laws that apply to contractor employees. This is particularly problematic because contractors are providing more and more services that used to be performed by Federal service personnel.

In many agencies today, one can tell the difference between a Federal employee and a contractor only by the color of his or her badge. One area where this can cause real problems is in the contracting workforce. A company providing contract oversight services to the government may be overseeing a company and working as a subcontractor to that same company in the private sector. Clearly such a situation would cause conflicts of interest.

The amendment offered by Mr. Castle would require the Office of Government Ethics to report to Congress with recommendations on requiring contract employees to be covered by Federal financial and conflict of interest laws.

I support this amendment and urge all of my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have time still available if any Member wishes me to yield to him or her.

I would be happy to yield.

Mr. Chairman, I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to recommit.

Members could have different views about the underlying question, and that is whether universities should be able to exclude military recruiters. It is not a new issue to be considered on this floor. We have voted on this many, many times. Some universities have taken the position that they don't want military recruiters on their campus because the military is not an equal opportunity employer based on the ``don't ask, don't

tell'' policy. I happen to think that universities that take this position are right.

But that is not the reason I oppose this motion to recommit. I oppose it because I have heard the arguments made by my colleagues many, many, times that we shouldn't exclude somebody from competing from a contract on extraneous bases.

Why should we exclude a university from being able to compete in a government contract when they might be the ones who can save the lives of our troops? After all, the bioshield program has given money, Federal dollars to universities to try to develop ways to get us vaccines that will stop the impact of anthrax or smallpox. Are we going to say that a university that develops such a vaccine will not be able to compete for a contract to sell that vaccine because they don't want recruiters on their campus because they object to the don't ask, don't tell policy? That doesn't make any sense. People ought to be able to compete for contracts based on what they can do if they are selected to perform that contract. Are we going to exclude people for extraneous reasons? I don't think that makes sense.

So I think if you look at it carefully, when you recognize that the work being done at universities can be so important in so many different ways, that we should just arbitrarily exclude them. I think we have all said over and over again in the debate on this bill, we don't like sole-source contracts. We want competition. We want market forces. Well, sometimes you need a sole-source contract in an emergency. Well, then we say at least a year later, let's have competition.

But if we adopt this amendment, from the very beginning we will not allow competition if it involves competition from a university unless they have a longstanding position of being pacifists, and then we will let them compete. But if they have a different position, but they also have the ability to compete and to provide a service that can save our country from terrorism, save our military from disease, save the American people the consequences for which we need them to perform in that contract, we are going to exclude them.

I urge opposition. I know Members will feel a lot of pressure on this because it can be used in a 30-second ad, that Congressman So-and-So voted to allow universities to exclude military recruiters. Well, I don't think that is really what this amendment is doing. It is excluding universities from competing for contracts, even if they can, in awarding that contract, provide vital services and that maybe no one else can provide. So I urge opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report H.R. 1362 back to the House with an amendment.

I thank the gentleman.

I am going to speak a little bit during our section on this bill, but I just wanted to invite the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, to come back down to the floor and to talk a little bit about the statement that he just made to the effect that there hasn't been any oversight over the last several years.

I am reminded of our teams that left the Armed Services Committee, went out to the companies that were up-armoring Humvees, started to move that schedule to the left, that means getting those Humvees quicker to the troops; and when they were told that there was a steel shortage, moving to the steel mills, finding out what the problem was. When they were told it might be a problem with too many shifts or not enough shifts with union employees, meeting with union employees, getting those shifts put on line, getting that steel produced, getting it to the Humvee factories and moving it out to the field.

I am also reminded of the times when we moved ahead quickly with what the gentleman has criticized as sole-source contracts when our troops in the field didn't have any dismounted jammers. That means the ability to stop an electronic signal that fires off a roadside bomb that hurts our troops. This committee moved quickly to give the Secretary of Defense the ability to waive all acquisition and competition regulations so you could do one thing, get equipment that protects our troops to the battlefield quicker. And we did that in terms of the first dismounted jammer that we produced, something that a marine or a GI could carry on a patrol that would keep a bad guy from detonating a roadside bomb that could kill him or his squad. Using this new system instead of the old system, we were able to, R&D, build in the United States and move into the warfighting theater 10,000 jammers for our troops within 70 days.

Now, the system that the gentleman is wedded to and loves so much, the slow system, the system in which you have interminable appeals, in which you have competitions that take months and months, sometimes years, is now working on the next generation of portable jammer. It has been a year, and we don't have that jammer fielded yet for troops in a portable fashion.

So I would just say to the gentleman who has been criticizing the contractor corps, 389 American contractors have been killed in this war so far, in this war against terror. They are great people, probably some of them from the gentleman's district. And the idea that he is trying to offer to this body, which I think is smart enough to reject that idea, that somehow there was no oversight in the theater, and by making these fairly minor changes, and these are fairly minor changes, we marked them up, they are nips and tucks in the oversight system. Somehow the judgment of the thousands of people who oversee our contracts around the world will now go from bad to good. That is obviously in great error. In fact, the same people are in place administering contracts; the same people are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan to

support our warfighters. And by and large, they are doing an excellent job.

And we are going to get into later, into the added restrictions that the majority has placed on people who are participating in contract decisions, participating in a broad category called ``administering'' and the vagueness that attaches to that that might make a person civilly liable if they walk into the wrong meeting at the wrong time and they are ultimately prosecuted or fined civilly for making that mistake.

You know, we have great members of our staffs in the Armed Services Committee and indeed in all the committees in the House of Representatives. We shouldn't put a more onerous burden on the people that work in the rest of government than we would put on our own staff.

And I would say to my colleagues, one thing you have got to have when you have penalties, whether they are civil or criminal, that attach to action, you better define the action and you better define it clearly enough that staff members know exactly what they are doing and know exactly where the line is so they don't cross that line.

And let me just finish by saying that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who I consider to be a friend, has done a real disservice to the great men and women who serve in a contracting capacity for this country by implying that somehow they haven't been doing their job and somehow the committees of this Congress have not been doing their job in this war against terror.

I thank my friend from Virginia for yielding me a couple of minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I have given a fair amount of consideration to this bill, H.R. 1362. I have a couple of observations to share with you.

First, I am very proud of the work that the Armed Services Committee has done with respect to this bill to craft what I consider to be a better bill. I want to thank the chairman, my good friend from Missouri, Mr. Ike Skelton, for making sure that we participated in this markup and holding the markup of H.R. 1362.

I had serious concerns about the original bill as reported out of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, including a number of provisions that, through amending title 10, U.S. Code, and other procurement regulations, would have had the effect of preventing the Department of Defense from serving warfighter needs in the most expeditious manner possible. That is an issue that I spoke to just a minute ago in my exchange with Mr. Waxman.

As my colleagues from the Armed Services Committee know, this committee has given a great deal of attention to matters pertaining to acquisition reform. This has been especially true during wartime as our committee has worked hard to ensure that the brave men and women serving our country receive what they need when they need it as they deploy to Iraq, Afghanistan, and other theaters of operation.

At the same time, we have been vigorous advocates for competition and cost control measures. I firmly believe that the Armed Services Committee is best suited to properly balance the need for improving accountability in defense contracting while at the same time ensuring that the Department of Defense can carry out its duties to the warfighter. I am pleased that the chairman agreed to hold an Armed Services Committee markup of this bill. In continuing its rich tradition of deliberation and robust oversight of matters within its jurisdiction, the committee produced a higher quality piece of legislation.

I supported Chairman Skelton's mark because I believe the mark remedied the most serious deficiencies of the base bill and was truly a bipartisan measure. The Armed Services Committee mark encouraged competition and cost controls while protecting procurement flexibilities important to the national interest.

Secondly, it provided Congress with additional tools for oversight and reinforced standards of integrity widely held by the dedicated men and women of the defense acquisition workforce.

But, unfortunately, we are not here today to vote for the Armed Services Committee mark. We are not even here to vote for the Committee on Oversight Government Reform mark, which leads me to my second set of observations.

We are here today to vote for a piece of legislation that was not voted out of any committee. Those who would say this bill received unanimous support in two committees would not be telling it as it is. The full truth is that the Speaker wanted to put a rush on this bill so she could say Congress did something about contract reform. It was introduced late one night, and in 24 hours it was being voted out of committee. In two more business days a markup was scheduled in the Committee on Armed Services. Late that night, additional text was added that changed the bill yet again, and I think in a potentially dangerous way.

But no member of Oversight and Government Reform or Armed Services got to vote on those changes. Instead, the language simply appeared out of nowhere and the rule for H.R. 1362 let the new bill move to the floor.

What would the new language do? It is hard to say because the text is subject to broad interpretation, which is precisely what concerns me. One thing can safely be said. It is ironic that the original bill would have required agencies to hire thousands of additional personnel, but at the same time this new language would presume those personnel are dishonest and would attempt to restrict their decisionmaking ability or their ability to seek further employment.

I am all for accountability and performance in Federal contracting. I am likewise for accountability and performance in the legislative branch. Frankly, I am disappointed in the final product of this bill, and I am referring to the parts that were put in after we marked up our portion of the bill.

Mr. Chairman, let me go right back to Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Waxman and their assertion that somehow we are leaving a period of no oversight, and they have brought now oversight to the warfighting process and accountability for the contracts that are let pursuant to this war against terror. That is absolutely not the truth.

As anybody knows when you are fighting a war, you need to move quickly. I use once again the example of the jammers that we got out the door under a new waiver strategy where you waive all acquisition regulations. You go in and build something that the troops need immediately on the battlefield. You don't give a 6-month appeal to the folks that lose the competition. You don't give small business set- asides because there is one thing you don't have, you don't have time.

When we have troops that are experiencing bombs on the battlefield that are detonated remotely, you have to move quickly to get the jammers that will jam that electronic device. When you have new explosives that are penetrating your Humvees, you have to get steel on the sides of those Humvees quickly.

When you are moving a military force down the road and you have to get fuel to that force, whether it is in movement or in base, you have to move quickly. You cannot have 6-month appeal periods. You cannot have buyers'

forums that take months to set up. You have to move quickly.

Now, when you have time, you want to absolutely have competition, and I can just tell my colleagues that that is always in my interest to have competition, get the best buy for the buck, and we have had a number of forums incidentally. We introduced the Challenge Program where any company that could come in and say, I could make a better tire for the Humvee than the incumbent, or I can make a better windshield or a better engine, that guy or lady has got the right to go in and challenge the incumbent company that has the present contract and show how they can do it cheaper or make something that has better warfighting capability. We introduced that legislation. That is called the Challenge Legislation.

But let us not mix that up with this idea that somehow you can have competition on every single aspect of the battlefield, and when you need a new jammer to stop roadside bombs, you go out and you start a month-long search, and then you have a 6-month competition, and then after the award you have a 6-month appeal, and by that time you are ready for the next war. You are not even relevant to the situation that is hurting your young men and women on the battlefield right now.

So there is some good substance in this bill, and I like it, but there is a lot of rhetoric. There is a lot of worthless, political rhetoric that preceded this bill, and I hope that the American people will not be snagged by that one. There are times that you have to move quickly.

I am reminded of one contractor that came back. One of the contractors who was not one of the 389 who has been killed in this war, and he showed me a picture of a crater, of a mortar crater. He said, That is where I was standing 5 minutes before that mortar landed. He said, I do not care how much you award this contract for, I am not going back to that dangerous AO.

Let me tell you, there are a lot of people who do go back time and time again. They are good Americans. They are honest Americans, and they are the same folks carrying out the contracting and administering the support of our Armed Forces who were there 6 months ago. The idea that somehow they have been crooked up to now, that now they are going to be straightened out by Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Waxman is absolutely outrageous.

So having said those gentle words, I look forward to the continued discussion. Mr. Waxman has taken the floor. I would be happy to yield to Mr. Waxman if he has got a rejoinder.

Let me just take my time back. I am not making it personal. Mr. Waxman made a statement, I am talking. Mr. Waxman, I will let you respond to this. We are not making it personal.

What I am telling you is that there are exigencies in the battlefield, and you got this from your own leadership, gentlemen like Mr. Murtha who said you cannot have these long delays in awarding contracts and have this vigorous oversight period; you cannot have that hold up a battlefield situation. You do have to award sole-source contracts, and you have to award them to people who can move very quickly and get things done. That is my point.

The idea that we are supposed to stop that or that we have not exercised any oversight is simply not accurate. There is no personal animosity toward you as a fine Member of this body, but those statements are not accurate, and I yield to the gentleman.

If the gentleman will allow me to say this, I think that that is a good provision. In fact, we supported that provision in the Armed Services markup.

Let me tell you a provision I do not support, and maybe you can help us with this. You refer in the revolving door that says that a person cannot take a job with a company in which he has administered----

Would the gentleman allow me to have a minute of his time so I can just offer this one point?

I thank the gentleman. Mr. Waxman, the two provisions that were put in after the markup, the one that talks about a person who participates in a meeting as a senior staff, that means if a person walks in a room and if they are involved in a discussion, they could be subjected to massive civil penalties at a later time if there is a contract awarded.

I would simply say that I think in areas where you have civil penalties you have to have great clarity, and I have not seen a definition of ``senior staff'' or ``senior participants'' in DOD, and I think that that is a real problem. I think it is a problem of vagueness and one that could keep people from entering the civil service in this role and in this capacity.

Mr. Chairman, let me just rejoin to that. We have looked up ``personally'' and ``substantially.'' That could involve standing there in a room and giving advice. So that can be just a person giving advice which could expose them to a $50,000 civil penalty, from what I have seen.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say about the major points of this bill, which we marked up, that we are in agreement with it. Contrary to Mr. Waxman, we did look at them before we came to the floor.

We agree with the no more than 1 year for sole source, that is good; the plan to minimize use of sole source, that is good; maximize fixed- price procurement, that is good; quarterly report to Congress, good; codify the right to review unredacted copies of reports, that is good.

What I think you need to be very careful about, because if you are going to penalize people, if you are going to give them $50,000 civil penalties, you need to have it clearly laid out for those people who may be professional members of our staffs, who may be good people who come in from the outside and go to work in DOD and wanting to serve this country, let's make sure that walking into a room and participating in a conversation about a contract doesn't then expose them to civil penalties later on.

So I am looking at title III, and I am looking at the word on line 17, it talks about participated personally and substantially at a senior personnel level.

Does that mean, and this relates, of course, to elimination of loopholes that allow former Federal officials to accept compensation from contractors or related entities? I think that is good.

But I think we need to make it very clear as to whether a staff member, like one of your staff members, Mr. Waxman, going to work for DOD, who walks in a room and is asked a question about a defense system and answers that question, participates in the conversation, whether he has then violated the law.

Now, if you turn, and I want you to take a look at that, that is line 18. Now, turn the next page, page 14, and go down to the bottom, and it talks about the administration of a contract, which could also be a violation of a law.

So if one of your former staff members or one of mine who goes to work for DOD should participate in the administration, let me just ask you, ask the gentleman from California, if it's a defense system, and your former staff member is assigned to go out to a range to see if that piece of equipment has arrived at the range and if it's being tested, is that involving itself in administration of the contract? Is that person, that former staff member of yours, now involved in administration such as to expose him to civil penalties? That is my question. I think we need to have that clarified.

Mr. Speaker, I like this motion to recommit. You know, all of us have shown our support for the troops. Almost every Member in this body has shown support by traveling to the warfighting theaters. This is a chance to show support in another way, to show that we believe that the military is an outstanding profession, one which many of our young people who are in institutions of higher education may want to engage in. And this elevates, I think, the military profession by showing that we accord it respect by putting this requirement in this motion to recommit.

So I thank the gentleman for offering it. I think it is excellent. I would commend it to all the Members of this body. And I want to thank the chairman for his offering of the base bill, and for the ranking member, Mr. Davis, for their hard work.

Mr. Speaker, by the direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 702 and ask for its immediate consideration.

For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Ms. SUTTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

H. Res. 702 provides for consideration of H.R. 2740, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007, under a structured rule.

The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary. The rule makes in order and provides appropriate waivers for three amendments.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this rule and the underlying bill which helps to address one of the most disturbing and pressing issues to come before the Congress this year, the lack of oversight and accountability of contractors abroad and here at home. And it is vital that we are passing the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act today to address at least one of these critical issues.

Currently, there are estimated to be at least 180,000 contractors working in Iraq under contracts awarded by the Department of Defense, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and other Federal agencies. Yet under current law, only contractors working for the Department of Defense can be held responsible for crimes they commit while working in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the world.

At present, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, MEJA, leaves felonies committed by contractors working for other Federal Departments unpunished. This is unfair and unacceptable, and this Congress must act to ensure that justice is not a selective American principle.

Our current law has given private mercenary armies like Blackwater USA free rein to do as they please without fearing the repercussions. And as we have seen, that unbridled freedom from any accountability has resulted in sometimes egregious criminal behavior. But under the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act, Federal contractors working for every Department and agency will be held responsible for criminal acts. It will also direct the FBI to establish units to investigate crimes committed by contract personnel operating abroad.

Mr. Speaker, it simply makes no sense to hold contractors to a different standard than American citizens living at home or even the brave soldiers who risk their lives every day in Iraq. It is a travesty of justice that we allow private armies to evade punishment for serious crimes, especially considering we have prosecuted our soldiers for the very similar actions.

In a recent incident that has received significant scrutiny, Blackwater guards were involved in a September 16 shootout in Baghdad that left 11 Iraqis dead and a number wounded. This event spurred such a tremendous public outcry that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had to apologize to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

And we have learned from reports compiled by Blackwater themselves that since 2005, its employees have been involved in at least 195 incidents in Iraq that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater guards. Blackwater's contract with the State Department stipulates that Blackwater may only engage in defensive use of force. However, in the vast majority, over 80 percent, of these shooting incidents, Blackwater's own reports revealed that its guards fired the first shots. In one incident that has recently come to our attention, Blackwater guards shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed a seemingly innocent bystander.

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, and despite numerous instances where the military has found probable cause that a crime has been committed and has referred the case to the Justice Department, there has been only one successful prosecution of a civilian contractor for wrongdoing.

Without fear of reprisal, these reckless contractors have operated with no regard for the private property of innocent Iraqi citizens. In a November 2005 incident, a Blackwater motorcade collided with 18 different vehicles. Written statements from team members were determined to be invalid, and a Blackwater contractor on the mission stated his tactical commander ``openly admitted giving clear direction to the primary driver to conduct these acts of random negligence for no apparent reason.''

Mr. Speaker, we have seen the number of contractors increase exponentially as the Bush administration has placed an unnecessary strain on our Armed Forces through the war in Iraq. In 2001, Blackwater had less than $1 million in Federal contracts. By 2006, that figure had grown to over half a billion dollars, an increase of more than 80,000 percent. Today, there are approximately 180,000 Federal contractors in Iraq alone, a number greater than the American military presence. Because of the President's policy of escalation in Iraq, we have become more reliant on these contractors to protect American interests there. For every Blackwater mercenary the United States Government hires to protect embassy officials, Blackwater charges $1,222 per day, which is over six times more than the cost of an equivalent American soldier.

Mr. Speaker, the lack of oversight of Federal contractors committing crimes overseas is an example of how the system of Federal contracting is broken. Earlier this year, this Congress got off to a strong start by passing H.R. 1362, the Accountability in Contracting Act which helped restore integrity to the contracting process. I am also proud to be the sponsor of H.R. 2198, the Contractor Accountability Act, which will require the head of every agency and department to ensure that every Federal contract recipient is fulfilling their obligations after they are awarded that contract. It requires that every Federal agency and department awarding contracts submit a report on the status of those contracts to Congress. This is the type of oversight and accountability that is necessary to ensure that the problems that are happening in Iraq with Federal contractors and here at home can finally be put to an end.

Today, with the passage of the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act, we are addressing a critical loophole in our contracting crisis by ensuring that those contractors who commit crimes are held accountable for their actions. What we seek to do today is simple but important. The MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act will hold Federal contractors operating overseas to the same standards we hold ourselves and to which we hold our brave troops. And let's be clear. This bill does not prevent contractors from using force if the situation calls for it. Our bill simply allows contractors to be punished for committing acts of murder and other felonies. Nobody should be immune from the law. This legislation will ensure that no one, even if he is a private contractor in Iraq, is.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield time to the distinguished gentlewoman from California, I would just like to say that in the process of this bill coming forward, not a single Republican offered an amendment in the committee. Though the committee reported the bill by voice vote, not a single person voted ``no.'' Only one Republican offered an amendment for the floor, and it had nothing to do with the scope of the bill and was nongermane.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

I thank the gentleman for his question.

I think that the important thing here to look at is there was an opportunity for the Republican side to offer amendments, and only one was offered yesterday in committee. There was an opportunity, obviously, for those to be presented.

Certainly.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, the reality of this is there was an opportunity to offer amendments as explained. Somebody did offer an amendment. Unfortunately, that amendment was nongermane.

At this point I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui), a distinguished member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 4 minutes to the author of the bill, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, again, I just want to reiterate, without beating this to death, that not a single Republican amendment was offered in committee. There was opportunity to provide amendments yesterday in the Rules Committee. This is an important bill that we need to stay focused on the substance of as well.

Mr. Speaker, at this time it is an honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. Speaker, I am the last speaker at this time on my side, so I will reserve my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina on this strong bipartisan bill. The MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act is critical, commonsense legislation to hold contractors responsible for criminal behavior, just like we hold our troops responsible for crimes when they are committed, and just like we hold American citizens responsible for following the law.

Those who argue against this measure seem willing to tolerate lawlessness in countries where our military is seeking to restore justice. The truth is, every time we see an incident with an Iraqi civilian being killed and American contractors escaping accountability, our men and women in uniform suffer. They see support from the insurgents rise and they lose the trust of the Iraqi people.

Our troops are not responsible for the strain that the President has placed on our Armed Forces which has led to the need for mercenaries to carry out missions that our troops capably handle, and it is tragic that the troops are targeted for the negligence of private contractors. We owe it to our troops and the Iraqi people to ensure that contractors are held to the same standards of justice as everybody else. Only then will we see a true deterrent to vigilante behavior and reckless actions by private citizens working overseas for our Federal agencies and Departments.

It is simple, Mr. Speaker. The MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act extends policies that are in place for the

Department of Defense to contractors for other agencies.

And let's be clear: Nobody is accusing every single contractor of committing the criminal acts we have talked about today. But when a contractor does commit a crime, they must be punished and we must have consequences to serve as a deterrent. It should not be controversial to punish people for committing murder and other felonies. This is a giant loophole in our law that is hurting our reputation abroad, hurting our troops in the field and is making a mockery of the American sense of justice.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and on the rule.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Washington is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 702 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Washington

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 3. That immediately upon the adoption of this

resolution the House shall, without intervention of any point

of order, consider the resolution (H. Res. 479) to amend the

Rules of the House of Representatives to provide for

enforcement of clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the House

of Representatives. The resolution shall be considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the resolution to final adoption without intervening motion

or demand for division of the question except: (1) one hour

of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and

ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules; and (2)

one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by saying this rule provides for the consideration of H.R. 2740, the MEJA Expansion and

Enforcement Act. This bill is an attempt to ensure that all Federal civilian contractors can be prosecuted for crimes they commit abroad. The issue before us today is not, Mr. Speaker, a policy decision to determine whether or not contractors should be in Iraq, but, rather, the issue is whether the principle of current law should be applied to civilian contractors.

Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Forbes, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security in the Judiciary Committee testified before the Rules Committee that while the intent of this legislation is right, this bill is very, very poorly drafted. During markup of the bill by the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Forbes and other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee raised concerns with Members on the other side of the aisle. Republicans agreed that they would work to move this legislation forward because of assurances made by the majority members of the committee that their concerns would be worked out. Mr. Forbes testified before the Rules Committee that his main concerns with the bill were a lack of clear definitions, vague language and Federal mandates on the FBI without additional resources.

Mr. Speaker, a manager's amendment was submitted to the Rules Committee and it wasn't until after the Rules Committee amendment deadline had passed Monday evening that Mr. Forbes found that none of the concerns raised by Republicans were addressed in the manager's amendment. At this point, of course, it was too late for Mr. Forbes and other Members to submit amendments. Had they tried to submit amendments to the Rules Committee past the deadline, they likely would have been turned away at the Rules Committee door, just as many Members, including myself, have been this Congress.

Yesterday, the ranking member, Mr. Dreier, attempted to provide an open rule for consideration of this bill. An open rule would have allowed any Member of the House of Representatives an opportunity to come forward and amend the bill, and especially those members of the Judiciary Committee that felt that they were left out of this process. However, the Democrat-controlled Rules Committee rejected this idea on a party line vote of 8-4.

Mr. Dreier then attempted to allow Mr. Forbes to offer an amendment on the floor today to make changes to the bill in order to restore the commitment that was once made by the Democrat majority. But I am disappointed that this attempt was also rejected on a party line vote of 8-4.

Mr. Speaker, the underlying bill was reported by the Judiciary Committee over 2 months ago and yet the Democrat majority failed to make good on their commitment to address the reasonable and entirely justifiable concerns raised by Republicans.

Mr. Speaker, contractor accountability is an issue that should be discussed and addressed in a bipartisan manner. But there are legitimate concerns with the way this bill was drafted. Unfortunately, this rule denies Members, including all Republicans, an opportunity to improve the underlying bill. Because the Rules Committee has once again chosen to stifle bipartisanship and deliberation by bringing forth this restrictive rule, I must urge my colleagues to oppose this rule, House Resolution 702.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding. She was in the committee yesterday when Mr. Forbes testified. I would hope that the gentlewoman would agree with me that when Mr. Forbes testified under questioning from me asking if he felt that he had assurances that these issues would be worked out from the time that the committee passed the bill out of committee in August until now, and he said that he felt that that commitment was a strong commitment, and therefore, he didn't offer any amendments.

Now, would the gentlewoman agree with me that that was what Mr. Forbes said?

Will the gentlewoman further yield on that point?

I appreciate the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say under questioning when I asked Mr. Forbes, because he stated that the deadline had passed when the manager's amendment which did not address their concerns was introduced, he then, of course, would be prohibited from offering amendments. I asked him if there were an opportunity in the next 24 hours, i.e., from yesterday until today, could they prepare amendments to address these concerns, he said, ``Yes.''

I hope that the gentlewoman will agree with me that that is what he said yesterday in front of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to make the point once again, the reason that there were no Republican amendments that were submitted to the Rules Committee is because there was a clear, clear understanding when the bill was passed out of the Judiciary Committee that the issues and concerns that were raised by the Republicans would be addressed in a bipartisan way, and the vehicle by which they would be addressed was a manager's amendment, which is a normal process when you bring bills to the floor. That commitment was apparently not fulfilled.

By the time that the manager's amendment was drafted, with the idea that supposedly in a bipartisan way these issues would be addressed, it was too late for any Republican to offer an amendment because it was past the deadline that was put in place by this new majority on the Rules Committee. Therefore, there was no chance for Republicans to submit any amendments. Therefore, there were no amendments that were submitted.

So I just wanted to set the record straight, Mr. Speaker, that the reason that there were no Republican amendments submitted to the Rules Committee is because a promise and a commitment was broken between August 2 and October 2, yesterday, when we met on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Speaker will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding for this exchange, because I think it is important. This issue is very, very important because we are talking about ultimately a portion of the security of our country, and I think we need to address that in a bipartisan way.

I am simply pointing out, in testimony yesterday in front of the Rules Committee, Mr. Forbes was given the assurance when the bill left the Judiciary Committee, and I don't think that the gentleman is on the Judiciary Committee, but he felt that he had a commitment that those concerns be addressed.

Now, having concerns addressed and being totally satisfied are two different things. If they weren't satisfied, then you could offer an amendment to make the adjustments and you could debate those issues. The point I am making is that Mr. Forbes felt that the commitment that was given to him to make those adjustments and those concerns were not fully addressed; therefore, he didn't submit any amendments to the bill. I am not suggesting that all of his concerns should be in the manager's amendment; I am simply suggesting that he was denied the opportunity, in his mind, to have these concerns addressed.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, I just want to, Mr. Speaker, tell my colleagues that there was no Forbes amendment in front of the Rules Committee, so I can't even pass judgment whether it addressed the concerns that he had. He did not submit an amendment to the Rules Committee. He did not submit an amendment to the Rules Committee because he was given the assurances that the concerns that were raised when the bill came out of committee would be addressed.

While the gentleman is probably talking about a potential amendment, nobody on the Rules Committee saw the amendment, because the amendment was not submitted to the Rules Committee because he felt his concerns were not addressed.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to clarify that. When he talks about the Forbes amendment, there is, or was no Forbes amendment in front of the Rules Committee yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the previous speaker, my friend from Oregon, that the sponsor of this bill, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price), is a very, very thoughtful individual. I have worked with him on some issues, and I would agree with that. I think Members would also agree with me when I say that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes) is also a very thoughtful individual and somebody that you can work with on a bipartisan basis.

When somebody like Mr. Forbes comes to the Rules Committee and tells us that he was given a commitment about concerns that he felt needed to be addressed in this legislation and was given the assurances that they would be addressed, not necessarily solved but at least be addressed, I think you would have to say that he was acting in very good faith. I think this sends a very, very strong message for Members that want to work in a bipartisan way and then get treated as Mr. Forbes said he was treated. I think that is not good for the institution.

So I just want to, Mr. Speaker, reiterate once again what happened. The reason that there were no amendments substantive to the issue of the concerns that were submitted by Republicans to the Rules Committee is because the ranking member on the subcommittee dealing with this issue felt that the commitments that were given to him were not carried out. There were no, apparently, discussions of what was going into the manager's amendment.

Again, I am not suggesting Mr. Forbes would have been totally happy, but he could have offered an amendment to address those concerns. He was denied that opportunity simply, simply because he felt the commitment that was given to him when the bill came out of the Judiciary Committee was not carried through.

So it is for that reason, that reason that we probably won't have as robust a debate on this issue, and in all likelihood we won't have the kind of legislation that needs to go forward in a bipartisan manner on something where everybody agrees that the intent of this legislation is what everybody agrees on a bipartisan basis needs to happen. I regret that. It is for that reason that I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, for the past several weeks my colleagues on the Rules Committee and I have called for a vote on the previous question and will be doing so again today. Why? Because we are concerned that the House rules are flawed when it comes to the enforceability of earmarks.

Republican Leader Boehner has a proposal that will improve the House rules and allow the House to debate openly and honestly the validity and accuracy of earmarks contained in all bills. I am asking that my colleagues vote ``no'' on the previous question so that I can amend the rule to allow the House to immediately consider House Resolution 479 introduced by Republican Leader Boehner.

By defeating the previous question, the House will still be able to consider the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act today, but will also be able to address earmark enforceability in order to restore the credibility of the House. I am hopeful today will be the day my colleagues will defeat the previous question and, in doing so, will send a strong message to American taxpayers that this House is serious when it comes to earmark transparency.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have the text of the amendment and extraneous material inserted in the Record prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the restrictive rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.