Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels recently announced that the Bush Administration would not support the Truthfulness, Responsibility, and Accountability in Contracting (TRAC) Act. The announcement comes on the heels of an aggressive lobbying campaign by the AIA to defeat this harmful legislation.

The TRAC Act would prohibit any federal agency from making a decision "to privatize, outsource, contract out, or contract for the performance of a function currently performed by such agency or to conduct a study to convert the performance of the function to the performance by a contractor." An agency could apply for permission to contract out, but must first conduct a laborious public/private competition. If a private contract would prevent "extraordinary economic harm" and save the government "at least 10%," it may be awarded to the private sector.

Soon after taking office, President Bush directed OMB to develop a plan to use competition to help reduce the size of government and make it more cost effective and efficient. OMB concluded that the TRAC Act would be counterproductive to the president's plan. Daniels argues that it is unlikely lawmakers would pass the bill after analyzing it and recognizing the potential harm it would cause.

If passed, the TRAC Act would severely reduce government contract work for architects and engineers in private practice and would likely overwhelm architects in government. Federal agencies manage and coordinate the design process and look to the specialized expertise of private-sector architects to perform an enormous amount of the design work.

Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.