The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Bidding Schmidding

An issue near and dear to POGO's heart for several years, government contracting, has been covered by several news sources (AP, GovExec, NYT, WP, WSJ) that have reported on the new report by the Center for Public Integrity on the overall lack of full and competitive bidding for contracts at the Pentagon. The study shows that although Halliburton is the critic's poster child of the flawed contracting system at the Pentagon, no-bid contracting "is, unfortunately, not an aberration," but is systemic, according to Charles Lewis , director of the Center for Public Integrity (NYT 9/30/04).

From 1998 to 2003, over 40 percent of Pentagon contracting has been done on a no-bid basis. And most of the nation's 10 largest contractors, the sole exception being Science Applications International Corp., get the bulk of their Pentagon business without competition. For example, 74 percent of the military's largest contractor, Lockheed Martin's, business has been done on a noncompetitive basis. This finding, along with another - that these corporations spend millions on lobbying - dovetails with those of the recently released POGO report, The Politics of Contracting. Also, it must be noted that small businesses, which compete for most of their work, but don't lobby agressively or at all, face a stacked deck in the world of government contracting.

This problem also needs to be viewed in light of the fact that today half of the military budget is now outsourced to contractors. Yet while ever-larger pieces of the Pentagon pie are farmed out to corporations, the ability of the Pentagon to provide oversight has been gutted - the number of government officials who provide oversight has declined - and poor record-keeping exarcebates the status quo of inadequacy. And the cherry on this dubious ice cream sundae is that oversight, which should be an "inherently governmental" function, is being contracted out as well.

Whistleblower reforms...in our lifetime

There’s a flurry of Congressional activity in favor of real, substantive whistleblower reforms. These reforms are vital. Whistleblower protections have lost their teeth over the years and are in critical need of an overhaul.

Today the House Committee on Government Reform’s Chair, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) introduced a version of HR 3281 which amends the problematic Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA). The new language, if passed, would remove the tremendous burden of proof on whistleblowers to come up with “irrefragable” evidence that any wrongdoing actually occurred. It would also mean that federal employees would not be left in the lurch without protection if they blew the whistle as a part of their job duties or for going through the chain of command with their concerns. If this legislation passes it would also require the Comptroller General to review all security clearance revocations occurring after 1996 – a welcome requirement since losing one’s security clearance in most federal national security agencies effectively means losing one’s job.

The word from the Hill is that the Democrats are going to accept Davis’s language with no amendments. This is unfortunate because they may be passing up even more inclusive whistleblower protections such as those in Rep. Platt’s (R-PA) version of HR 3281 or in Rep. Markey’s (D-MA) bill, which has the best language of all, but is currently still being drafted. But for now, we’ll take what we can get. In the Senate, just last week the Committee on Governmental Affairs approved S.2628, the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act – which is expected to fill in the gaps of the existing WPA. It is awaiting a floor vote in the Senate. POGO is also encouraging the passage of amendments to the 9/11 Commission legislation that would strengthen whistleblower protections.

POGO is currently in the process of writing a report on the flaws in the current law. The pending legislation in the House and Senate is too important to overlook; please visit POGO’s action center and encourage your senators and representatives to act now on behalf of federal whistleblowers.

Energy ups their DBT, NRC still making excuses

The Department of Energy (DOE) has recently taken steps to markedly improve its "design basis threat" or DBT for its facilities. The DBT sets the standard which defensive security forces are supposed to be prepared to face. Insiders tell POGO that the new DOE DBT follows POGO's recommendations to prepare for attacks of around 12-14 attackers with 9/11-style coordination and sophistication. This is a significant increase in the initial post-9/11 plan of last year.

POGO and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have been critical of the DOE and the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees security at DOE nuclear weapons sites, for having a DBT that underestimates possible terrorist threats. However, now that DOE is upping its DBT, more attention is being paid to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is responsible for oversight at the 65 nuclear power plant sites across the country, and the nuclear industry.

According to a Greenwire (9/27/04) article, Larry Halloran, counsel to the House National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations Subcommittee, said that there's a growing disparity between DOE and NRC security estimates. He said the subcommittee "continues to press NRC to make sure its DBT reflects the threat and not just the cost."

But NRC and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), a nuclear industry-funded group, continue to stubbornly refuse calls for an increase in the DBT even while critics, including POGO, have repeatedly criticized the industry for lax security. Marvin Fertel, NEI senior vice president, wrote an op-ed, yesterday (9/27) published in The Energy Daily, calling (also entitled) "Criticism of Nuclear Plant Security Unwarranted".(Download Fertel's op-ed)

His piece attempts to address two of the main criticisms of the nuclear industry. Besides the issue of a DBT that doesn't foresee a sophisticated, dozen-plus attacker terrorist force, another criticism is that the the industry chose Wackenhut, which provides the defense at nearly half of the nation's nuclear power plant sites, to test the defense. As POGO has said before, "This is more than a case of the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse. It is not an apparent conflict of interest, but a blatant conflict of interest."

Fertel's rebuttal to this charge is the NRC oversees the "force-on-force" security exercises. However NRC is in many ways captured by the industry, and thus not serving and protecting the public with diligence. A recent example is a letter from NEI to NRC where the industry is telling NRC what to say to critics, inside Congress and out.(Download NEI Talking Points) The NRC-NEI relationship is not one of aggressive oversight by a government agency over an industry where accidents and security breaches can be catastrophic, but of the reverse - a cowed federal agency using the industry's talking points.

Another question not being asked, and indicative of the relationship, is why NEI was allowed to choose the "force-on-force" adversary team, Wackenhut, in the first place? Why didn't NRC choose?

Welcome to our blog!

Hi, I'd like to welcome everyone to POGO's first foray into the blogosphere.  Here we'll share our daily knowledge from insider of some of the newest developments both inside and outside the Beltway with breaking stories and spot analysis.  And hopefully we can create a useful dialogue with you using the unique features that blogs offer.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to point out another new aspect of POGO's website.  Our brand new action center lets you take action on issues that POGO has highlighted with our investigations.  Currently you can help support legislation needed to strengthen the Whistleblower Protection Act.

We hope that the POGO blog becomes a staple of your daily news intake.

Sincerely,

Danielle Brian, Executive Director