Both the House and the Senate have now completed their work on
the FY2000 Defense Authorization Act. As the legislation was being considered on
the floors of the House and Senate, the Department of Defense was active and
somewhat successful in having language inserted in the bill that could have a
devastating impact on our members. We must act immediately to contact members of
Congress about the effects that DoD provisions could have on the military
household goods moving industry.
WHAT IS IN THE DOD AUTHORIZATION
BILL
Section 805, as passed by the Senate is very damaging to the
small businesses of our industry and numerous other impacted industries. Section
805 allows DoD the ability to procure up to $5 million of a variety of services,
including moving services, with just three phone calls. DoD does not have to
take competition into consideration nor does it have to consider small business
concerns including set asides, minority business interests or bundling issues.
Section 805 disregards the general authority outlined in the Office of
Federal Procurement Policy Act. This Act creates established guidelines for test
pilot programs. It also allows for public comments and participation in the
development of a test program. The OFPP act also requires some consideration for
small business and competition.
Section 805 establishes yet another
pilot program - making a total of four pilot programs for the moving industry
with no real tangible results from any of them. The results we do have, which
are from Hunter, show that there is a substantial increase in cost, no real
improvement in claims and a reduction in the participation of small business. We
have no results, no checks and balances and no central clearinghouse monitoring
these pilots. To allow yet another pilot to run 5 years and to allow DoD, with
three phone calls, to procure up to $5 million worth of services, is an
irresponsible use of taxpayers' funds.
Section 805 was inserted into the
DoD legislation without hearings, public discussion or an evaluation of what
this would do to the impacted industries or its many small businesses. It is in
the Senate version of the bill, but not in the House version of the bill. It is
critical that it not be included in any final conference bill.
WHAT
YOU MUST DO
We know that you are in the heart of the busiest time of
the year. However, we have only days in which to convince Congress that Section
805 is incredibly harmful to your small business and thousands of others like
yours. Please help us by doing the following:
Listed on the attached page are the Members of Congress who will be
conferees on the DOD Authorization bill. You must contact them immediately and
demand that Section 805 that is in the Senate version of the bill not be
adopted in the conference committee.
Emphasize that the Section 805 provision will impact small and minority
businesses in over 40 different industries. All of these companies could be
eliminated because DOD can bundle these contracts and not be subject to any
competitive bidding.
State that another pilot project for the moving industry is irresponsible
until Congress and the DoD has a chance to assess the costs and value of the
pilot programs that are currently in progress.