Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., has introduced legislation to reverse the tide of outsourcing more government work to the private sector in recent years, even going so far as to impose a temporary suspension on the use of the OMB A-76 privatization process until other provisions in the bill have been met.
The bill includes provisions to do the following:
Ensure that work that meets the statutory and regulatory definitions of inherently governmental is actually performed by federal employees and in-source work found to meet those definitions if it has been turned over to the private sector;
Encourage agencies to give federal employees opportunities to perform certain types of outsourced work or work that was outsourced without competition; and,
Ensure that a wider range of costs related to the A-76 process are considered in reaching official bid estimates.
Mikulski was a key lawmaker behind a provision in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill that placed a ban on new A-76 competitions.
