Haley Stevens: “We will be happy to accept this amendment. It has been modified, as has been indicated. I want to state to the Senate…”

“We will be happy to accept this amendment. It has been modified, as has been indicated. I want to state to the Senate, however, although the Senators are correct, this adds to existing law. Existing law at the current time requires competitive bidding on contracts. The contracts that are outstanding now that have been entered into by the United States and its entities in Iraq have been let on the basis of competitive bids. There have been lots of questions raised about that, but some of the contracts were outstanding before the contractors were sent to Iraq, and they were general services contracts, and those were extended to Iraq. But we are now putting, as the two Senators mentioned, additional emphasis on that, and I am pleased to accept the amendment on behalf of the Senate.”