House, Senate Trying to Place Curbs on Competitive Sourcing

The Bush administration has promised to lobby against provisions that would curb the competitive sourcing initiative, and has threatened a veto of the transportation-treasury bill. OMB claims that competitive sourcing should save taxpayers billions of dollars over the next five years because it forces agencies to operate more efficiently. About 90 percent of the competitions are won by federal employees, OMB said.

The American Federation of Government Employees and other unions have been aggressive in lobbying for the restrictions and vow to keep it up. This week, John Gage , the AFGE president, praised the Mikulski-Bond provision as "an excellent beginning."

The Professional Services Council, the Contract Services Association and other industry groups are frustrated. "I don't know an issue that is so surrounded by mythology," said Stan Soloway , president of the services council.

Industry leaders hope that the administration can strip out the provisions this year when House and Senate negotiators meet to strike their legislative compromises.

Talk Shows

Michael Dovilla , executive director of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council at the Office of Personnel Management, and Claudia Cross , chief human capital officer at the Energy Department, will be the guests on "FEDtalk" at 11 a.m. today on federalnewsradio.com and WFED (1050 AM).

Kathleen Turco , chief financial officer at the General Services Administration, will be the guest on "The IBM Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. Saturday on WJFK radio (106.7 FM).

"Workplace Violence" will be the topic for discussion on the Imagene B. Stewart call-in program at 8 a.m. Sunday on WOL radio (1450 AM).

Diary associate Eric Yoder contributed to this column.