Political Quotes

“the reason that article is so important is because it indicates Kellogg Brown & Root essentially wrote the specs for the U.S. Government with respect to an oil field restoration effort. What that article shows is that the process basically allowed an incumbent contractor to identify the criteria for a multibillion dollar contract and virtually ensured that company would be awarded the contract without competition. If the news reports are correct, the potential for sole-source, custom-crafted contracts is basically guaranteed now by the Kellogg-Brown agreement. Senator Clinton and I have asked the Defense Department to provide within 30 days answers to some of the serious questions that involve contracting processes that seem to be used as of today. The Department of Defense recently announced, for example, that they had some concerns about the original agreement. That is fine, but we want to know whether there are other contracts that are being let in this fashion. We want to know whether the Department of Defense intends to continue the practice where it has not been discovered by the news media. The reason we are so concerned is if individual contractors are customarily setting the criteria for the work they plan to pursue, there are conflict-of-interest issues that ought to be resolved by our Government today. When you consider the Kellogg Brown & Root contracts are so-called cost-plus contracts, this arrangement becomes even less acceptable.”