The House Appropriations Committee has approved a spending bill that would continue restrictions on the contracting out program enacted last year, despite the Bush administration’s recent request to have those restrictions lifted. The measure would effectively override parts of the administration’s 2003 changes to OMB Circular A-76, by generally requiring that where a function involving more than 10 employees is put up for study, the in-house bid must be based on a “most efficient organization” rather than how the operation is currently organized. Further, for studies of that size the work could be contracted out only if the saving would be at least 10 percent or $10 million. Congress for several years had imposed similar restrictions on just the Defense Department—which does the bulk of the government’s contracting out—but last year applied the restrictions government-wide, despite objections from the White House.