Political Quotes

“I have some mixed feelings about bringing this bill to the floor at this time. As you all know, the House considered a bill virtually identical to H.R. 1670 on June 14, as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. That amendment passed on a bipartisan basis with vote of 420 to 1. The fundamental difference between the House-passed procurement amendment and H.R. 1670 is that H.R. 1670 does not include my amendment which passed the House to preserve the current full and open competition standard. The failure to include my amendment as a part of this bill is to ignore the will of the House, and to ignore the stated concerns of the small business community. Small business organizations, which supported my amendment in June, continue to believe that H.R. 1670 will significantly limit the ability of small businesses to fairly compete for Government contracts. An open rule will allow the best opportunity for the House to once again correct this major defect with H.R. 1670. I intend to offer the same amendment to H.R. 1670, which I offered to the DOD authorization bill and which passed the House. That amendment will protect small businesses by retaining the current procurement standard of full and open competition.”