国会记录：2003年4月10日（参议院）第S5175-S5248报表提交决议案通过维登先生（为他自己，柯林斯女士和克林顿夫人）：S. 876法案要求对非竞争性合同的公开披露伊拉克，以及用于其他目的的基础设施的重建;对政府事务委员会。维登先生。主席先生，参议员科林斯，克林顿，伯德，利伯曼和我想伊拉克重建中的伊拉克人民的最佳方式possible--并为美国纳税人谁买单来完成。为了确保这种情况发生，我们要介绍的两党立法的今天，以确保美国的合同到重建伊拉克的颁奖问责。通常在这样的情况下，开放和竞争性招标来获得纳税人最好的交易。同样需要在这里成立。合同重建伊拉克应该在阳光下授予 - 不是后面的烟幕。如果联邦政府选择不使用自由市场竞争，从最有资格的承包商得到最合理的价格，那么，至少，他们应该告诉美国人民为什么。 The bill we're introducing today is called the Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Contracting Act. It's intended to shine light into the secretive practices the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, and other Federal agencies are using to hand out in Iraqi work. There are dollars-and-cents reasons for doing this. The potential cost of rebuilding Iraq has been estimated at around $100 billion. That's a lot of taxpayer money. And the U.S. General Accounting Office, GAO, reports that sole-source and limited-source contracts aren't usually the best buy. Investigator found that Army officials often just took whatever level of services the contractor gave, without ever asking if it could be done more efficiently or at a lower cost. Despite that, sole-source and limited-source contracts look like the rule, not the exception, for rebuilding Iraq. And these are costing some big cash. Contracts awarded for oil fire fighting and other projects are so-called ``cost-plus'' contracts. They pay a company's expenses, plus a guaranteed profit of one to eight percent. There are no limits on total costs, so the more a firm charges in expenses, the more profit it makes. If the Federal Government's going to spend my constituents' money that way, without asking for competitive bids, I think my constituents deserve to know why. Let me give you two concrete examples of the kind of secrecy I'm talking about. A lot of the known details come from press reports. In February and March, USAID invited a handful of companies to bid on $1.7 billion in Iraqi projects--rebuilding highways, bridges, schools. Competition for one $600 million contract was limited to seven large U.S. engineering firms. USAID apparently put out some bid invitations before the war even started. On March 24, the Army Corps of Engineers announced a sole-source, unlimited contract to two American companies to control Iraqi oil fires. The no-bid contract is still classified. Information that should be available to the public was finalized on March 8 but is still under wraps. What we know is that other firms that had experience putting out oil well fires in Kuwait in 1991 were left out of the process altogether. And we also know that as early as last fall, the parent company of these contractors got an exclusive contract to study how to supply oil services during an invasion of Iraq. Anybody looking to find an explanation for this closed-door contracting is likely to come up short. So far the agencies haven't said much. Last month, USAID announced that it would limit competition to companies with demonstrated technical ability, proven accounting mechanisms, ability to field a qualified technical team on short notice, and authority to handle classified national security material. The USAID Director told The New York Times that to work in Iraq you have to have a security clearance, and only these few American companies have that clearance. I sit on the Intelligence Committee, and don't know of any good reason why a contractor bidding to rebuild a school, hospital, sewer system or any other part of Iraq's infrastructure would need a security clearance. In any case, four of USAID's eight reconstruction projects will allow subcontracting to companies that don't have to meet the security requirements. So that argument doesn't hold up. Our bill has a simple premise to ensure accountability in the awarding process. It says that any Federal entity bypassing competitive bidding for Iraqi reconstruction projects has to disclose some key information. Most importantly, that means revealing the documents used to justify a sole-source or limited contract. Agencies are already required by law to prepare this rationale for sole source bidding. Our bill just makes the information accessible. We've written provisions to protect classified information, while still giving Congress full oversight over the billions in taxpayer money that Americans are being asked to commit in Iraq. There are too many questions and the stakes are too high for Congress not to demand public disclosure of this information. I am pleased that Senators Collins, Clinton, Byrd and Lieberman are joining me in introducing this legislation to bring greater accountability and openness to the contracting for Iraq reconstruction. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of our bill be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: S. 876 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the ``Sunshine in Iraq Reconstruction Contracting Act of 2003''. SEC. 2. PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF NONCOMPETITIVE CONTRACTING FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN IRAQ. (a) Disclosure Required.-- (1) Publication and public availability.--The head of an executive agency of the United States that enters into a contract for the repair, maintenance, rehabilitation, or construction of infrastructure in Iraq without full and open competition shall publish in the Federal Register or Commerce Business Daily and otherwise make available to the public, not later than 30 days after the date on which the contract is entered into, the following information: (A) The amount of the contract. (B) A brief description of the scope of the contract. (C) A discussion of how the executive agency identified, and solicited offers from, potential contractors to perform the contract, together with a list of the potential contractors that were issued solicitations for the offers. (D) The justification and approval documents on which was based the determination [[Page S5204]] to use procedures other than procedures that provide for full and open competition. (2) Inapplicability to contracts after fiscal year 2013.-- Paragraph (1) does not apply to a contract entered into after September 30, 2013. (b) Classified Information.-- (1) Authority to withhold.--The head of an executive agency may-- (A) withhold from publication and disclosure under subsection (a) any document that is classified for restricted access in accordance with an Executive order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy; and (B) redact any part so classified that is in a document not so classified before publication and disclosure of the document under subsection (a). (2) Availability to congress.--In any case in which the head of an executive agency withholds information under paragraph (1), the head of such executive agency shall make available an unredacted version of the document containing that information to the chairman and ranking member of each of the following committees of Congress: (A) The Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives. (B) The Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House of Representatives. (C) Each committee that the head of the executive agency determines has legislative jurisdiction for the operations of such department or agency to which the information relates. (c) Fiscal Year 2003 Contracts.--This section shall apply to contracts entered into on or after October 1, 2002, except that, in the case of a contract entered into before the date of the enactment of this Act, subsection (a) shall be applied as if the contract had been entered into on the date of the enactment of this Act. (d) Relationship to Other Disclosure Laws.--Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting obligations to disclose United States Government information under any other provision of law. (e) Definitions.--In this section, the terms ``executive agency'' and ``full and open competition'' have the meanings given such terms in section 4 of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy Act (41 U.S.C. 403). ______