David Thomas: “I want to explain the amendment, if I may, and then ask that we have a vote on it. It has to do with the Federal…”

“I want to explain the amendment, if I may, and then ask that we have a vote on it. It has to do with the Federal Government's policy of more than 40 years that the Government should not compete with the private sector in areas in which the private sector can legitimately function. In fact, the Government should rely on the private sector to supply commercially available goods and services. However, this policy is too often ignored. For example, the Defense Science Board calculates that out of 850,000 full-time positions needed to provide commercial services for the military, 640,000 are held by Federal employees rather than private sector personnel. I want to go back and talk about commercial services, however, because the modification that I sent to the desk exempts emergencies and exempts factors that are not routinely commercial completely from the bill. There is a new administration policy that prompts this particular amendment. OMB has come out with a policy that grandfathers existing Interservice Support Agreements from cost-comparison requirements.”