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SERVICE ARCHIVE SUBMISSIONS/CONTACT ABOUT DV
by
Ralph Nader
July
19, 2003
Contracting
out what the Federal government does and what government needs is a large part
of our economy. The former includes letting corporations perform more military
and intelligence functions; while the latter has included buying supplies like
fuel, paper, food, medicines and vehicles. Taken together, they amount to
spending trillions of dollars over the past decade - your tax dollars.
The
Bush administration seeks to go further by proposing to contract out the work
of nearly 450,000 civil servants in various agencies and departments. Sometimes
even the businesses on the receiving end of this "privatization" are
a bit shocked.
A
few years ago, a weapons company official asked incredulously about the
Department of Defense's acquisition reform program giving the munitions
industry the power to develop its own testing methods in order to determine
whether Pentagon-purchased weapons are in compliance with specifications.
All
these procurements and "outsourcing" involve written contracts
sometimes hundreds of pages long. It is not easy, to put it mildly, for
citizens to get copies of these contracts.
Two
of our staffers during the month of May 1999 tried to obtain copies of 81
agreements with companies that the Washington Post reported had received federal
government contracts. They called both the businesses and the government
agencies that signed the contracts. In no cases were they able to obtain copies
of contracts from the companies. None of the federal agencies voluntarily
provided copies, prompting our associates that they file a request under the
Freedom of Information Act, which could take many months to process.
In
January 2000 we sent a letter to President Clinton asking his Administration to
place government contracts above a certain minimum dollar amount on the web.
These
agreements would include, for example, leases for mineral rights from the
public lands, research grants, government-industry cooperative agreements,
joint ventures for the development of energy efficient cars, consulting
contracts, agreements to dispose of nuclear wastes, concession contracts for
national parks, licenses to government-owned patents, licenses to use the
public spectrum for broadcasting and telecommunications services, agreements
with firms that do security clearances for federal agencies, bank bailouts,
loan guarantee agreements and many more.
To
our surprise, Bill Clinton personally wrote back saying it was an intriguing
proposal and that he was sending it over to the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) for review. We never heard from OMB.
With
the advent of George W. Bush, we contacted the new head of OMB, Mitch Daniels.
We presented the reasons for putting these documents online:
1.)
it will enhance competitive bidding and give taxpayers both savings and higher
quality performances;
2.)
it will let the media focus more incisively on this vast area of government
disbursements to inform the wider public;
3.)
it will encourage constructive comments and alarms from the citizenry; and
4.)
it will stimulate legal and economic research by scholars interested in broader
policy and structural topics related to government procurement, transfers,
subsidies and giveaways. For instance, how to use federal buying dollars to
advance other national goals such as energy efficiency, recycling, safety,
health and innovation.
Many
of these agreements are closed door operations between government officials and
the often close-knit vendor community. Government lawyers negotiating these
contracts do not often drive strong bargains for taxpayers, especially if they
are pressured from the politicians above them or they intend to work in these
industries after they leave public service.
OMB's
Mr. Daniels and his associates thought putting these contracts, grants, leases
subsidies and so forth on the government's web sites was a good idea. Any
sensitive information could be redacted. Many federal agencies already have
internal systems for managing contracts in electronic formats.
OMB
asked the General Services Administration (GSA) to place a notice and request
for comments in the Federal Register (June 6, 2003) on a proposed pilot project
"to begin making Federal contracts available to the general public on the
worldwide web...to further the Administration's global vision of a
citizen-centric E-Government."
This
could be the beginning of the biggest window-opening on what government and
corporations do in Washington in modern U.S. history. Unless, the vendor lobby
squashes GSA and OMB. So in small or large ways, Uncle Sam needs to hear from
you, the people. You can send written comments to General Services
Administration, 1800 F Street, NW, Room 4035, Washington, DC, 20405 or
electronically file by emailing your comments to Notice.2003-NO1@gsa.gov.
Ralph Nader is America’s
leading consumer advocate. He is the founder of numerous public interest groups
including Public Citizen, and has twice
run for President as a Green Party candidate. His
latest book is Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for
President (St. Martin’s Press, 2002)