A second procurement reform bill proposed in the Senate seeks to empower contracting officers, increase competition, limit sole-source awards and ensure proper oversight and accountability in federal contracting.

Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, ranking member of the Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee introduced The Accountability in Government Contracting Act of 2007 during the Senate’s Saturday Feb. 17 session.

The new measure requires the watchful eye of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) to analyze interagency contracting trends as well as require contracting officers to take a more aggressive approach in determining terms of a contract.

If agreements on terms such as price, time, and scope aren’t made within 180 days of an awarded contract or before 40 percent of the work is completed, the bill requires contracting officers to unilaterally make the decisions.

“We need more competition, less sole-source contracting and tougher management in federal contracts,” Collins said.

This requirement targets the problem of fraud, waste and abuse by preventing the terms of procurement from being defined after the delivery of goods or services, according to a floor speech by Collins.

“Too often, the problem of waste, fraud and abuse stimulates floods of outrage and magic-bullet proposals that lean more toward symbolic gestures than practical reforms.” Collins said.

Another part of the bill addresses the financial aspect and award requirements. Task and delivery orders more than $100,000 would require competition and orders more than $5 million would require more information in statements for work orders in an effort to create more effective competition, increase the overall quality of competitive bids and improve the federal acquisition process.

The requirements pertaining to task and delivery orders more than $100,000 lessen the likelihood of sole-source contracting. Within 10 days of an award, publication of notices on the Federal Business Opportunities Website is required.

The creation of a government/industry exchange program, acquisition internship programs and a scholarship program from the bill’s initiatives would benefit the overall workforce as well as achieve many other reforms such as extending a tiering-control rule that prevents contractors from using subcontracts for more than 65 percent of the cost of the contract and address the de-facto outsourcing of program management responsibility when a large contractor becomes the “lead systems integrator” for a multi-part project by requiring OFPP to craft a government-wide definition of lead systems integrators and studying their use by various agencies.