Federal Prison Industries 3/16/07 Coalition for Government Procurement Update: Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow have introduced S. 705, a bill that would force Federal Prison Industries (FPI) to compete in order to obtain federal contracts. According to Senator Levin, "it is unfair for FPI to deny businesses in the private sector an opportunity to compete for sales to their own government". Amending the Federal Procurement Policy Act, this bill would make it clear that FPI no longer has a mandatory source status by reaffirming that FPI must compete. S. 705 would require federal contracting officers to use normal competitive procedures when awarding contracts for goods and services offered by FPI. The bill provides an exception that allows contracting officers to negotiate with FPI on a noncompetitive basis if the Attorney General finds that FPI cannot compete on a competitive basis for a particular contract and the contract award is necessary to maintain job opportunities at the prison facility where the work would be performed. ****************************************************************** The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association (BIFMA) International strongly supports the long overdo enactment of reform legislation which has successfully passed the U.S. House of Representatives in the past two sessions of Congress. Please contact your Members of Congress and ask them to support reform legislation. U.S. Senate: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm U.S. House: To contact your congressional district's representative, please go to http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml History: Reform legislation has been endorsed by a wide range of business and industry groups including the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Collectively, these groups belong to the Competition in Contracting Coalition. BIFMA International belongs to the coalition and supports reform of this Depression-Era program. |
