[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 75 (Friday, May 27, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E987-E988]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2012

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. GERALD E. CONNOLLY

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 24, 2011

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 1540) to 
     authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2012 for military 
     activities of the Department of Defense and for military 
     construction, to prescribe military personnel strengths for 
     fiscal year 2012, and for other purposes:

  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Chair, Chairman McKeon and Chairman 
Smith, thank you for working together on thoughtful procurement reform 
in the context of this NDAA. As I have said many times before, 
procurement should not be about theology. Decisions to insource or 
outsource should never be made on the a priori assumption that less or 
more government participation will save money. Therefore, I was 
supportive of including language in the NDAA which would restore the A-
76 process. While we must be vigilant to ensure this process accurately 
accounts for costs, there is no question that analysis must precede 
insourcing or outsourcing decisions, and A-76 at least attempts to 
create an analytical process. The fact that such a process was abused 
during the Bush administration

[[Page E988]]

should not obscure the need for analysis in the future. In a similar 
vein, I opposed draft proposals which would have established across the 
board prohibitions on conducting work in-house if the tasks were not 
inherently governmental. While Federal employees certainly should 
conduct inherently governmental work, it may also make sense in some 
cases for them to do work that the Office of Federal Procurement Policy 
has deemed ``closely associated with inherently governmental,'' or 
other functions. For example, when I was Chairman of Fairfax County, 
our vehicle maintenance were county employees who did outstanding work. 
There was nothing inherently governmental about oil changes, but 
Fairfax got the best deal with county employees. We should not preclude 
analogous arrangements from the Federal Government any more than we 
should preclude outsourcing vehicle maintenance. In addition to the 
Committee's thoughtful approach to insourcing and outsourcing, I 
greatly appreciate your support for other steps to improve the 
acquisition environment through improved Federal efficiency. These 
reforms include adoption of the Federal Acquisition Institute Amendment 
that Mr. Platts and I introduced as well as Mr. Langevin's amendment to 
rationalize the responsibilities of the Chief Technology Officer and 
other executive branch officials with technology policy portfolios. 
This National Defense Authorization Act represents significant progress 
for our procurement and technology communities, including both Federal 
employees and Federal contractors. Thank you for you and your staffs 
outstanding work on these important issues for our economy and the 
Federal Government.

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