Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act

[ProSense]

Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act

Punishes War Profiteers – Sec. 101 establishes penalties of up to 20 years in prison and at least $1 million in fines for war profiteering. This provision is largely modeled on anti-profiteering legislation by Senator Leahy. Note that the penalties would apply to fraud by contractors in any place where the United States engages in military action – regardless of whether the fraud is against the United States or “the entity having jurisdiction over the place where the military action takes place.” So fraud against the Coalition Provisional Authority would have been covered by this provision.

Cracks Down on Big Corporate Cheaters – Sec. 102 restores a Clinton Administration rule on suspension and debarment, which prohibited awarding federal contracts to companies that exhibited a pattern of overcharging the government or failing to comply with the law, including tax, labor, environmental, antitrust, and consumer protection laws. The Bush Administration repealed this rule in March 2001, one of its first actions upon taking office.

Requires Full Disclosure of Contract Abuses...

Forces Real Contract Competition – Secs. 201 and 202 would prohibit the awarding of umbrella contracts over $100 million on a “sole source” basis, so that such contracts would be jointly awarded to at least two companies, which would then compete with each other, under the umbrella contract, for all purchase orders worth more than $1 million. The provision would preclude a multi-billion dollar, sole source award like Halliburton’s LOGCAP contract, forcing some real price competition. Agencies would have waiver authority in cases where only a sole source contract was feasible, but would have to justify a waiver in writing and notify Congress.

Bans Corporate Cronyism in Contracting – Sec. 211 requires that federal agencies conduct contract oversight, rather than paying contractors with conflicts of interest to oversee one another. (On March 10, 2004, the Pentagon awarded $129 million worth of oversight work to major Iraq contractors – essentially asking them to oversee each other. Some of the companies tasked with overseeing each other had huge conflicts of interest, like Parsons and Fluor, which had a $2.6 billion joint venture in Kazakhstan.) A Dorgan-Wyden amendment to the FY 2005 Defense Authorization bill prohibited the outsourcing of oversight, and was signed into law – but the Pentagon took the position that it had not outsourced oversight, but rather functions relating to oversight. Sec. 211 restates the prohibition on outsourcing of oversight, and clarifies that specific activities relating to oversight, including “services that involve or relate to the evaluation of another contractor’s performance,” could not be outsourced to companies that have a conflict of interest.

Eliminates Conflicts of Interest for Federal Contracting Employees...

Ends Cronyism in Key Government Positions...

Strengthens Whistleblower Protections...

Rick Jacobs
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Dorgan, Kerry and Leahy: Iraq's Not For Sale

We are so used to being in the opposition that our minds bend when we can support those in power. While little noticed by the blogs or the main stream media, real leadership shined through Thursday morning in Washington when Senator Byron Dorgan, Chair of the Democratic Policy Committee, backed by Senators John Kerry and Patrick Leahy, followed through on his commitment to rein in contracting fraud and abuse that has been the hallmark of the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton outsourcing of their private war in Iraq.

At Thursday's press conference, Senator Dorgan announced introduction of the Honest Leadership and Accountability in Contracting Act of 2006.

The bill follows months of hearings led by the DPC when the Republican controlled Senate patently refused even to hear that Halliburton, Blackwater, CACI, Titan and others were raping the taxpayers of this country while making an ill-planned invasion into a full-fledged disaster, assuring that the only real winners in Iraq would be those companies that had sufficiently close ties to the White House to earn them a free ride in a war that leads us daily closer to the brink.

In introducing the bill, Senators Dorgan and Kerry each referred to Brave New Films' "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," as one of the key elements in demonstrating the outrageous abuses that these and other firms committed in Iraq. The key provisions:

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[TayTay]

1. In prior Congresses, under other leadership, this would be called oversight

Unfortunately, during the past six years the Congess has become a place where oversight and accountability are dirty words. The above steps outline what a real and functioning Congress is supposed to be doing to make sure that the government is functioning well. It is almost a shame that it has to be introduced, the functions of oversight it outlines are base line things that should have been done since 2001 when American troops where first sent out to AFghanistan.

[ProSense]

2. Yes, and it's long overdue. (Updated OP) n/t