Federal Contracting Reform Legislation Passes House

The House of Representatives on March 15 approved legislation sponsored by House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), H.R. 1362, intended to improve the quality of government contracts, increase contract oversight, and promote integrity in contracting.

AGC advocated several improvements to the original House-passed legislation that were adopted earlier this week:

• Increasing the threshold triggering a requirement for quarterly agency reports to Congress on contracts in which audits have found questioned costs to $10 million, as opposed to $1 million in original bill;
• Removing a provision requiring federal agencies to devote at least an additional one percent of their procurement budgets to contract oversight, planning, and administration, and;
• Modifying restrictions on the use of sole-source contracts in emergency situations by limiting their duration to one year instead of the eight-months as proposed in the original bill and applying the restrictions to contracts greater than $1 million instead of the $100,000 threshold in the original bill.

AGC also worked to defeat the offering of an amendment proposed by Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) that would suspend a federal contractor for five years for alleged immigration violations committed by the contractor or their subcontractor. The amendment would have required each agency to provide an annual report to Congress on which contracts have been cancelled or suspended for illegal alien employment.

The legislation moves on to the Senate for consideration.

For more information, please contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org. [ return to top ]