[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 26 (Monday, March 11, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S1726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                FAIR ACT

  Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I rise to discuss an event that happened 
last week in which I was very disappointed. It was a hearing we had on 
the FAIR Act or private contracting of Government activities where it 
is appropriate under what is called the FAIR Act, which was passed in 
1998.
  This was to have been a committee hearing about how you can best do 
what has been a policy for a very long time; that is, to take those 
activities within the Federal Government which are not integral to the 
Government and give the private sector a chance to bid and do those 
kinds of things.
  Even though it has not been implemented as it could be and should be, 
it has been the policy for a very long time--20, 25 years--to do that, 
to take those things that are not specifically and inordinately Federal 
activities that could be done and could be done more efficiently by the 
private sector. So in 1998, we passed a bill called the FAIR Act which 
required that there be an analysis of all the Government activities in 
most of the agencies, determine which of those would be eligible for 
outside contracting, and then move forward on that.
  I had hoped to testify before the committee. It turned out that I was 
not available, and also, they thought they had a balance. As I read 
about it--and I have a couple things I want to put in the Congressional 
Record--it turned out not to be a balanced hearing at all. It turned 
out to be kind of a pro-union rally in which they accidentally had to 
have it at a time when practically all the Government unions were 
meeting here. So they had about 250 members there, which is fine except 
they didn't have a balanced approach to the program.
  I was advised that the hearing was going to be evenly balanced, and 
it couldn't have been more unbalanced, according to what was written 
about it. It was regarding the Government contracting. This is a very 
important issue to me for several reasons. One is, it is the most 
efficient way to get some of the jobs done that are available to be 
done in the Federal Government. The other is, I am one who thinks it is 
a good idea to reduce and hold down as low as possible the numbers in 
the Federal Government and allow the private sector to do all those 
jobs that can be done by the private sector. And that was the idea of 
the FAIR bill which was signed into law in 1998.
  Again, it was designed to identify positions within the Federal 
agencies that are not inherently governmental. For about 50 years we 
have had a policy that said basically: It will not start or carry out 
any commercial activities to provide a service or product for its own 
use if such product or service can be procured from private enterprise 
through ordinary business channels.
  That has been the notion that, in my view, has not been implemented 
nearly as it might be. Nevertheless, it is the concept, and it is a 
great concept. Unfortunately, this hearing indicated that several of 
the members who were there certainly don't want to find any ways--to 
generally quote them--that we would diminish the size of Government, 
that we would put at risk any Federal jobs. The fact is, this seldom 
puts at risk Federal jobs.
  What it does is, as new jobs come up, new programs and projects come 
up that are not inherently governmental. Then they can be put out to 
the private sector and, indeed, be competitive.

  Conceptually, I certainly agree with this. I am surprised to find a 
number of members who were at the hearing who apparently do not agree 
with that and don't agree that the private sector ought to be able to 
compete at all with the Federal Government. They were very precise 
about that.
  I do not agree with that. We were able to pass a bill with a number 
of hearings last year, Chairman Thompson and his committee. He was 
there, by the way, and said some pretty reasonable things about it. 
This was widely heard last year and passed very strongly.
  It requires the Federal agencies to list commercial jobs. Inventories 
showed in 1999, kind of the initial inventory, that nearly 1 million 
Federal employees are engaged in commercial activities. These are 
services that can be found in the yellow pages from small businesses 
and firms throughout the country. Under the Clinton administration, the 
FAIR Act inventory served as no more than a list. Nothing was ever done 
about it. So last year, the Bush administration announced it was 
requiring all Federal agencies to convert 5 percent of the jobs listed 
in the FAIR Act as public and private competition or contract to the 
private sector.
  In the course of the hearing, of course, the witnesses they had said 
the percentages were not necessarily the only percentages that could be 
considered. But the fact is, it did begin for the first time a planned 
effort to point out those kinds of jobs that could be in the private 
sector. I know this is fiercely denied and opposed by those who want 
more Government, who want to actually spend more and have larger 
Government. That is not really what this is all about.
  The fact is, we do need to find a way to have an inventory, to find a 
way to have an opportunity for the private sector to look into those 
jobs--not all the jobs, of course, only those that are inherently not 
involved as governmental functions.
  I hope we can go back to the core of what that bill is about. And 
that is the objective way, not putting at risk public employees but 
finding, as these jobs are created, that there is a place to be able to 
do that in the private sector.
  I am hopeful we can continue to explore that, as, in fact, it is a 
law. Therefore, I would like very much to be able to pursue that. I 
want my friends on the committee to know I, for one, fiercely oppose 
the idea to gut the FAIR Act, and I want to make that point and 
continue to pursue it as time goes by.

                          ____________________