OGR Full Committee Business Meeting 3/10/2011

Oversight and Government Reform Full Committee Business Meeting Thursday

On Thursday, March 10, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. in room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a Business Meeting to take up the following legislation:

•H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act

•H.R. 899, a bill to amend Title 41 of the United States Code to extend the sunset date for certain protests of task and delivery order contracts

•H.R. 793, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12781 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Inverness, California, as the “Specialist Jake Robert Velloza Post Office”

H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act

H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act, was introduced by Speaker John Boehner on January 26, 2011, and currently has 42 bipartisan cosponsors, including Chairman Issa, D.C Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-SC. The legislation reauthorizes and makes improvements to the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Senator Lieberman has introduced companion legislation (S. 206). The DC Subcommittee held a hearing on H.R. 471 and the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) on March 1, 2011. For additional information on the legislation, please see Speaker Boehner’s summary of the legislation: http://www.speaker.gov/UploadedFiles/SOAR_Act_Summary.pdf.

H.R. 899, To amend title 41, United States Code, to extend the sunset date for certain protests of task and deliver order contracts.

Representative James Lankford (R-OK), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology and Procurement Reform introduced H.R. 899, a bill to extend the sunset date for certain protests of task and deliver order contracts. The bill brings the civilian procurement system in line with the defense procurement system by extending the civilian Government Accountability Office bid protest sunset date until September 30, 2016.

Agencies often award a large multiple-award, or umbrella, contract to several vendors and subsequently release “task orders” for competition. The contractors bid on a task order and the agency makes an award. Depending on the underlying contract, an individual task order can be very formal, rigorous, and worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Allowing protests below the contract level promotes competition and transparency and avoids costly litigation. This bill is necessary to align the two procurement systems–defense and civilian–and alleviate uncertainty in the contracting community.

The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., ranking minority member of the Subcommittee.

H.R. 793, a bill to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12781 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Inverness, California, as the “Specialist Jake Robert Velloza Post Office”

H.R. 793 was introduced Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., on February 17, 2011.

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