'People Put Trust In The Federal Government...': Pete Sessions Calls For Bid Protest Reforms

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During a House Oversight Committee hearing in July, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) spoke about federal contract bid protest reforms.

Transcript

00:00I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening statement and this is

00:06important today that we have gathered together and we have three important

00:10witnesses who will help guide this committee on what I believe is should be

00:15a regular process as part of the success to ensure that the American people put

00:21trust in the federal government to spend their taxpayer dollars wisely and as we

00:27need to continue our oversight to ensure not only that but also that we listen

00:33to professionals who deal with these issues to provide us status in fiscal

00:39year 2024 the federal government spent about 755 billion dollars on goods and

00:47services through the contracting process and while there is significant focus on

00:53what federal agencies bought we need to focus also on that process and how they

00:59do so part of the contracting process includes the mechanisms known as a bid

01:05protest that serves to ensure government procurements are competitive and fair I

01:10believe this is an important goal so it is incumbent upon the subcommittee this

01:15subcommittee government operations and the federal workforce to review the bid

01:20process as part of our regular oversight and indeed we have looked at this

01:27process we've learned that there are feedback concerns and feedback that need

01:32must be reviewed to determine whether changes to our system are in order critics

01:39of the current process say that the bid protests have become ingrained in the

01:43solicitation and the award process with companies factoring in a protest as soon as the contract

01:52is announced other critics say that contracting officers are more concerned with

01:57creating the best paper record to defend their decisions rather than achieving the best results

02:04for the federal government and the United States taxpayer supporters of the process who want reforms say

02:12that delays are due to bureaucratic red tape at the procuring agency either the agency is too slow

02:19in developing requirements or too slow to implement corrective actions while there are potentially a

02:26number of problems in need of solution it appears to me that the process may be overutilized this makes it

02:34difficult for agencies to get the goods or services that they need reducing their ability to timely

02:41deliver on their mission I am aware of a variety of these issues that need to be considered

02:48so is it too easy to protest can we maintain fairness while requiring more stringent stringent

02:55criteria be met before a complaint can be filed are there too many bites at the apple for those who protest

03:03timeframes are involved in that if a party does not like the results they get are they bogging down

03:11the system by relitigating what they really wanted in the first place are there additional steps that

03:19can be taken before solicitation and issues which would prevent protests once an award is made should we adopt a

03:28loser pays approach and how would this work it seems to me that this and other solutions could reduce

03:37and limit serial protesters who lodge a protest because they have nothing to lose that is why we are here

03:45today we're here today to ask three people who are deeply involved in this process and have a vast background

03:54who are able to help guide not only this subcommittee but I believe members of congress to where we

04:00understand more about the process that we ask questions about as we examine this bid protest as in the case with

04:09many other issues ranking member Mfume and I want to investigate we need to ensure that we have the right

04:16information to make good decisions that with your guidance will help us and I am concerned we do not have

04:26those available to us until today we have a lot of things that that are stories we have a lot of things

04:33where people say things perhaps there's even a viewpoint about with an unsolicited amount of creative information

04:42or information from those who are involved in the process who have opinions but these insights are all

04:49important and if we begin that story today with people who are in the know who can guide us it's helpful

04:57the trump administration is committed to reforms and here in this subcommittee we're going to listen to that

05:04venue we believe the vehicle to do that is by an open hearing one that is not just matched with republicans

05:12and democrats but good government people and that is what we believe we have on the side of republicans

05:19and our friends that are democrats who are here today who serve on this government operations subcommittee

05:26we want to make sure that we are approaching problems issues and ideas thoughtfully so today we'll

05:33hear from distinguished subject matter experts who are in the field who understand the problem who know

05:39that ultimately we want to make sure that we are reviewing this to be thoughtful about what we are

05:45doing so with that said i would now yield to the ranking member or uh his designee which in this case

05:52would be mrs norton mrs norton

06:02you

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