FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 29, 2009
April 29, 2009
Michael Victorian
(202) 639-6405
(202) 639-6405
AFGE Applauds Sen. Mikulski's Clean Up Act
(WASHINGTON) – Today, the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE, applauds Senator Barbara Mikulski’s (D-MD) introduction of The CLEAN UP Act, a bill that would help to clean up the mess that the previous administration left behind in federal procurement.
The acronym CLEAN UP stands for Correction of Long-standing Errors in Agencies Unsustainable Procurement. The legislation builds on the provisions signed into law as part of the recent FY09 Omnibus Appropriations Act, which indefinitely suspended the now notorious OMB Circular A-76 privatization process and required all agencies to establish and implement the same insourcing policies for new work and outsourced work that became law for the Department of Defense through the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill.
“The CLEAN UP Act would go a long way towards making the federal procurement process more accountable to taxpayers and all of the American people who depend on the government for important services,” declared John Gage, AFGE national president.
“Senator Mikulski’s bill would ensure that agencies follow through on the statutory requirement to start insourcing new functions instead of giving them to the usual sole-source contractors,” continued Gage. “The CLEAN UP Act would require agencies to return to in-house performance functions that are inherently governmental, closely related to inherently governmental, and mission essential, but which had been wrongly contracted out during the previous administration’s wholesale privatization crusade. The legislation would require agencies to determine where they are experiencing shortages of federal employees and to develop strategies to correct these deficiencies. The CLEAN UP Act would also require agencies to establish inventories of service contracts so they can determine which ones should be eliminated or insourced.”
“The bill calls on the Obama administration to correct problems in the Office of Management and Budget’s privatization process that have been identified by the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense Inspector General, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), and others, before again using the A-76 circular,” concluded Gage.
The acronym CLEAN UP stands for Correction of Long-standing Errors in Agencies Unsustainable Procurement. The legislation builds on the provisions signed into law as part of the recent FY09 Omnibus Appropriations Act, which indefinitely suspended the now notorious OMB Circular A-76 privatization process and required all agencies to establish and implement the same insourcing policies for new work and outsourced work that became law for the Department of Defense through the FY08 Defense Authorization Bill.
“The CLEAN UP Act would go a long way towards making the federal procurement process more accountable to taxpayers and all of the American people who depend on the government for important services,” declared John Gage, AFGE national president.
“Senator Mikulski’s bill would ensure that agencies follow through on the statutory requirement to start insourcing new functions instead of giving them to the usual sole-source contractors,” continued Gage. “The CLEAN UP Act would require agencies to return to in-house performance functions that are inherently governmental, closely related to inherently governmental, and mission essential, but which had been wrongly contracted out during the previous administration’s wholesale privatization crusade. The legislation would require agencies to determine where they are experiencing shortages of federal employees and to develop strategies to correct these deficiencies. The CLEAN UP Act would also require agencies to establish inventories of service contracts so they can determine which ones should be eliminated or insourced.”
“The bill calls on the Obama administration to correct problems in the Office of Management and Budget’s privatization process that have been identified by the Government Accountability Office, the Department of Defense Inspector General, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), and others, before again using the A-76 circular,” concluded Gage.
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