Government procurement policies will not change drastically in
light of the planned “war on terrorism,” a senior procurement
official told defense industry executives.
“The Defense Department hasn’t said yet that they need
more acquisition authority, so we are not going to do anything right
now to change our policies. We have a wait-and-see attitude,”
said Angela B. Styles, the president’s appointee as administrator
for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.
The OFPP is part of the Office of Management and Budget.
The OFPP, which has been without an administrator since June 2000,
is undergoing change and reforms, she said. Styles spoke recently
at a luncheon with defense industry representatives. She is responsible
for advising the administration on government-wide procurement initiatives.
The Bush administration’s priorities in procurement policy
involve competitive sourcing, which is based on public-private competitions.
The White House also seeks to improve the level of government performance
and to return the government to the principles of competition, she
said. Styles mentioned that one of her planned initiatives is to
phase out the mandatory source status for the Federal Prison Industries
(FPI), a policy that has been criticized by the business community
for being anti-competitive and detrimental to small, niche-type
suppliers.
Under a law in place since the 1930s, if the federal government
wants to buy any product that FPI produces, it must purchase the
product from FPI. FPI is a quasi-governmental organization that
manufactures items at facilities manned by federal inmates.
Styles wants to allow the private sector to compete for these contracts.
Currently, if a federal agency wants to use a private sector source
for a product that FPI produces, they have to submit a waiver to
the FPI. “Our office will work to phase out the policy,”
she said. The Competition in Contracting Act, which deals with this
issue, is favored by the current administration.
Styles said another OFPP priority is to change the way that rules
are published in the Federal Register. The Federal Register, a government-wide
publication, is used by the agencies to publish rules and regulations,
which are governing tools for the federal agencies. They do not
have to be codified by Congress. “There is a lack of quality
and logical analysis in what we see published in the Federal Register,”
Styles said.
“We don’t often see a rational analysis,” she
said, especially in the preambles to rules, which are supposed to
contain background information, reasoning for the proposed rules,
and a summation of industry comments.
“We can do a lot better to explain to you why we are making
the decisions we are,” she said.
“The OFPP should have a greater leadership role in the rule-making
process. Right now, I am holding back on rules that I don’t
think are specific in their explanations.”
Styles reported that she had testified before the House of Representatives
subcommittee on technology and procurement policy and made the case
for another of her priorities, competitive sourcing. She said that
competition helps to attract “viable, responsive, innovative
and cost-effective public and private competitors to the federal
sector.”
She testified that “when a commercial function performed
by the public sector undergoes competition, that competition results
in significant economic savings to the taxpayer,” she said.
“The use of public-private competition consistently reduces
the cost of public performance by more than 30 percent,” she
said.
Styles explained that the Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR)
Act, which was codified in 1998, seeks to publicize those government
functions that can be outsourced to the private sector. The FAIR
Act requires that a list be published each year for jobs that are
available to non-governmental entities, but also maintains “a
list of activities that are inherently governmental, that cannot
be outsourced,” she said.
The enforcement of the FAIR Act at all federal agencies, Styles
said, underscores her office’s “commitment to competition.”
“It is a tool to encourage good management at the agencies.
I want good cost, good quality, and availability of service. I’m
not really concerned about who’s providing it,” she
said.
“We’re not trying to de-layer the workforce. Nor are
we discouraging agencies that want to bring things back in-house.
This is an opportunity to solve problems we see in procurement.
“Competitive sourcing facilitates our use of performance-based
service contracts, which bring innovation, creativity, new ideas,”
she said.
Styles said that competitive sourcing policies bring integrity
to the process, to assure taxpayers that their money is not being
wasted.
OFPP opposes a contracting bill that gained momentum during the
closing months of the Clinton administration and appears to be gaining
fresh support on Capitol Hill. The Truthfulness, Responsibility
and Accountability in Contracting (TRAC) Act places a six-month
moratorium on all federal contracts which are not deemed “essential,”
and could permanently freeze, or “blacklist” the contractor’s
activities if it is shown that the work could be performed more
cost-effectively by the public sector. According to Styles, the
TRAC act “would put at risk the federal government’s
ability to acquire needed support services in both the short and
the long term,” she said. “There is no aspect of the
TRAC Act that would contribute to competition, efficiency or accountability,”
she said.
Prior to her confirmation in May 2001, Styles was a counselor to
the director of OMB. From January to April 2001, she was in a temporary
appointment at the General Services Administration’s (GSA)
office of government-wide policy and public buildings service. Before
that, she was an attorney for Miller & Chevalier, a law firm
in Washington, D.C. She also did a stint on Capitol Hill, working
as a legislative aide for Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.
Styles’ legal practice concentrated in the area of federal
procurement law and litigation, including cost and accounting issues,
defective pricing, procurement fraud matters, contract disputes
and claims, contract drafting and negotiations, and compliance matters.
During the past several years, her practice increasingly focused
on government contract disputes involving cost accounting standards
compliance, cost allowability and allocation.
Styles litigated contractors’ claims against the U.S. government
before the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, the United
States Court of Federal Claims, and the United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit. Since 1998, she has chaired the American
Bar Association’s Contract Law Committee. She has a bachelor’s
degree from the University of Virginia, and a law degree from the
University of Texas.