By Charles S. Clark

The Obama administration's Office of Federal Procurement Policy should "quit relying on interim rules to implement regulation," reads a blast from six major business groups.

In a letter sent on Thursday to chief procurement administrator Daniel Gordon, the group of large industry contractors said a recent rule requiring agencies to move quickly to green purchasing violates the "spirit" of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act as well deviating from the administration's commitment to open government.

"Since there is no explanation or apparent reason provided for issuing this interim rule in contradiction to all of the dialogue to date on this initiative, and given the significant cost and administrative impact this rule will have on both the government and the supplier community, there is ample reason to allow comment before making the rule effective," the group wrote. "We respectfully request that the interim rule be withdrawn and republished as a proposed rule."

The letter was signed by TechAmerica, the Professional Services Council, the National Defense Industry Association, the Aerospace Industry Association, the American Council of Engineering Companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Sam Graves, R-Mo., really want a high-ranking Obama administration official to testify about the draft executive order circulating around the administration that would require federal contractors to disclose to government procurement officials political contributions dating back two years prior to bidding on a new project.

In fact, the lawmakers are threatening to bust out their subpoena power if Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob Lew or Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients refuse to appear before a joint session Thursday of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs, and the small business panel, headed by Graves, Politico reports.

So far, that's exactly what the OMB folks have done. In a letter to the legislators, Lew wrote, "Unfortunately, because this hearing concerns a draft presidential executive order that is still moving through the standard review and feedback process, we will be unable to testify."

Issa and Graves fired back with a letter of their own, saying that if the OMB folks persisted, the legislators would be "required to consider the use of compulsory process."

The draft order, which an administration official has said is necessary because "taxpayers deserve to feel confident that federal contracting decisions are based on merit alone and are not influenced by political favoritism," has drawn criticism both from Republicans on Capitol Hill and industry groups. They argue that the order would actually inject politics into the acquisition process.

Update, 4:55 p.m.: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Tuesday he does not support the administration's proposal, Hotline On Call reports.

In connection with a special report, Reuters has scrubbed WikiLeaks, looking for State Department cables related to diplomatic efforts to help facilitate sales of American weapons systems abroad. The Atlantic Wire highlights a couple of the deals today, including one attention-grabber involving a 2005 effort by the government of Thailand to purchase fighter jets.
The Thais considered Russia's Sukhoi model, Sweden's Saab and Lockheed Martin's F-16. But there was a catch: They didn't want to pay cash, but were willing to give up 80,000 tons of frozen chicken. After some hemming and hawing, according to the leaked cables, Lockheed actually agreed to consider the deal. But it was too late. After a military coup, the Thais ended up going with the Swedish jets.

I wonder if the Thais could have facilitated the Lockheed deal earlier if they would've agreed to throw in some peanut sauce.

The Atlantic Wire has a summary today of what news organizations are taking away from their dives into WikiLeaked State Department documents relating to Egyptian Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. There are some choice tidbits, ranging from his passion for flamenco dancing to the fact that he paid Mariah Carey $1 million to perform at a New Year's Eve concert in the Caribbean.

But my favorite piece of information is this: While Gadhafi appears more than a little erratic, he's apparently very concerned about public administration. "He examines every government contract above $200 million and personally scouts for officials to promote within the Libyan bureaucracy," according to the Atlantic Wire.

By Robert Brodsky

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget during George W. Bush's administration, has been named the new ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight. The ad-hoc panel's former ranking members included former Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah and most recently, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

"Continued oversight on the government contracting process will help curtail waste, fraud and abuse and save the taxpayers money by promoting efficiency and transparency," said Portman, who was elected last year on a pledge to reduce federal spending.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Portman's experience at OMB will serve him well.

"As former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, he knows how government contracting works and can provide real solutions that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal operations," Collins said.

Far from opposing mergers and acquisitions among defense contractors, the Pentagon is "actually quite welcome to that," Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Ashton Carter told Bloomberg Television. The department expects shakeups among contractors in reaction to the impending downturn in defense spending.

But there's an exception to the general acceptance that mergers are inevitable: Defense officials don't want to to see the country's biggest contractors get any bigger. The Pentagon is "down to about five or six very large prime contractors who bid on many, many of our jobs and, in the interest of competition, we are not interested in seeing further consolidation and reduction in that number," Carter said. So Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics won't be joining forces any time soon. Which probably won't bother them too much, since each of those companies took in more than $14 billion in defense contracts all by themselves in fiscal 2009.

The General Services Administration has announced it is extending the hours at its National Customer Service to 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday. The idea, the agency says, is to allow troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and other agency customers in Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia to get answers to their questions about GSA's services when it's convenient for them.

"Feedback from GSA's overseas customers let us know that we needed to add additional service hours in order to help them meet their goals quickly and easily," said Steven Kempf, commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service.

The customer service number is 800-488-3111. The center still will be closed on weekends and federal holidays.

Now that Jack Abramoff is out of federal prison and emerging from home confinement, he'll have to start thinking about career options. Here's one possibility that won't be on the list: federal contractor. The Wall Street Journal reports that attorneys at the Interior Department have barred the disgraced former lobbyist from any business dealings with federal agencies through 2013.

Interior's legal eagles weren't persuaded that Abramoff's "attitude toward business honesty and integrity is presently altered" after his time in prison.

Abramoff's lawyer, Jon van Horne, said the ruling wasn't fair, but that Abramoff has no intention of seeking government work anyway. "Jack has never been a government contractor, never wanted to be a government contractor, and has no intention of ever becoming a government contractor," he said. "This is just punishment--a stick in the eye."

Documents obtained by the Associated Press detail offenses committed by more than 200 contractor employees in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere from 2004 to 2008. The violations include "excessive drinking, drug use, sexual misconduct and mishandling weapons," AP's Richard Lardner reports. Many of the contractors were working under an umbrella contract for security services awarded to three firms.

The problem, Lardner notes, is that some of the incidents of misconduct played out in public, causing embarassment to the United States and creating diplomatic problems. And even the incidents that did not turn into public scandals were problematic. In 2005, five DynCorp International security guards assigned to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's protective detail arrived in their compound drunk at 2:00 a.m., with a prostitute. This year, Karzai sought to ban security contractors from the country.

In the October issue of Government Executive, Robert Brodsky detailed efforts to establish a global code of conduct for security contractors.

Here's the difference between a Republican presidential administration and a Democrat-run executive branch: The Bush administration, in the long-running process of setting up a special federal procurement program for women-owned businesses, took a look at the federal contracting landscape and found a grand total of four industries in which women's firms were underrepresented. The Obama administration took its own look and found 83.