Contracting Language Still a Sticking Point

One of the policy issues that might defeat the catchall spending bill, at least temporarily, involves the administration’s contracting-out initiatives. While crafting the catchall bill, congressional appropriators-acting at the White House’s insistence-weakened several provisions they agreed to earlier as part of the Transportation-Treasury bill. A provision to give employees rights to appeal contracting-out decisions was dropped entirely, and a requirement that to win, the contractor bid would have to be at least 10 percent or $10 million less was weakened to require only that agencies consider cost as a factor in contracting-out. Also, a guarantee that an agency could reorganize into the most efficient organization before being put up for bid was changed so that it would apply only to agencies covered by the Transportation-Treasury measure. Those changes upset some members of Congress of both parties who had agreed to the original language. Meanwhile, the administration agreed to a moratorium through September 2003 on considering air traffic control and related jobs for privatization. Opponents of privatizing those jobs say they will work next year to impose a permanent ban.