GSA kicked off its 2010 expo today in sunny — and muggy — Orlando. Today was devoted solely to training sessions as the vendors set up to display their wares and stragglers continue to arrive. This year’s event is well attended, with an estimated 6,000 feds and 3,000 exhibitors, similar to last year’s numbers. Tomorrow the main event, the floor show, opens up and the expo really gets going in earnest. GSA Administrator Martha Johnson officially opened the festivities a little after 4 p.m., saying that this year’s expo and those in future years will focus on sustainability. There are…
Browsing: Procurement
The General Services Administration is replacing more than 5,600 of its least fuel-efficient cars and trucks with hybrids, the agency announced today. The move effectively doubles the federal government’s inventory of hybrid vehicles, which pair an electric motor with a traditional gasoline-powered engine. The new hybrids will be leased to agencies that are replacing vehicles this year. The Energy Department already said it will take 753 of the 5,603 new vehicles, bringing the total number of hybrid vehicles in the department to 888. The purchases announced today are in addition to the 3,100 hybrid vehicles agencies received last year as…
The General Services Administration is out to show that even a relatively new building can become more energy efficient. GSA is seeking a contractor to make a number of energy-savings improvements to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, which opened in 1997. GSA plans to install high-performance heating and air conditioning systems, tune up building system controls such as motors and sensors, and install more energy-efficient lighting. The GSA-owned facility already adheres to green building practices such as using sustainable landscaping, recycling, giving procurement preference to green products and encouraging employees to commute to work using public transportation or…
Last week, Jim Williams announced his plans to retire as head of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service on April 3. Today GSA Administrator Martha Johnson named his temporary replacement. Steve Kempf, the current deputy commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, will step into the leadership role in an acting capacity once Williams retires, Federal Times has learned. Kempf is an 18-year veteran of the Federal Acquisition Service, joining GSA in 1992. Before becoming deputy commissioner, Kempf was assistant commissioner for acquisition management and deputy assistant commissioner for integrated technology services.
We’ve explored this question before on the blog: At a December Senate hearing, Elaine Duke, the department’s undersecretary for management, admitted DHS doesn’t really know how many contractors it has. The question came up again this week: In a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said the department had roughly 200,000 contractors — more than the 188,000 civilian employees who work for the department. That number prompted an outraged reaction from senators on the committee; as I mentioned in my story yesterday, they questioned whether contractors or federal employees are “actually making…
The company formerly known as Blackwater — now known as Xe (pronounced Zee) — allegedly billed the government for the X-rated services of a prostitute by marking the charge a “Morale Welfare Recreation” expense, according to this Washington Post report published today. Here is the paragraph if interest, as penned by the Post’s Carol D. Leonnig: The [plaintiffs] assert that Blackwater officials kept a Filipino prostitute on the company payroll for a State Department contract in Afghanistan, and billed the government for her time working for Blackwater male employees in Kabul. The alleged prostitute’s salary was categorized as part of…
Earlier, I mentioned that the Government Printing Office continued to churn out key publications that enable the business of government, such as the Federal Register, despite the snow closures in the D.C. area. Thanks to the dedicated GPO workers who braved poor roads and spotty public transportation service, Defense procurement officials — and the civilian agencies they buy from — have clear and final guidance on how to carry out interagency contracting deals. Today’s Federal Register includes the final version of an interim rule published in July. The rule, which was mandated by the 2008 Defense authorization bill, allows DoD…
Federal employees worried that their jobs will be outsourced to the private sector can rest easy for another year. The 2011 budget proposal continues a governmentwide moratorium on public-private competitions for federal work. But contractors may face further insourcing under the proposal. While blocking agencies from competing federal work, the budget’s “general provisions” section requires agencies to take a head count of all contractor employees performing services for the government. The so-called “service contract inventory” must also include the name of the vendor, the type of service provided and the cost of that service. Businesses may also see fewer federal…
Did President Obama just call out Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., for holding up the confirmation of Martha Johnson to lead GSA? You decide. Here is what Obama said in tonight’s State of the Union address regarding the hold up of several of his nominees: The confirmation of well-qualified public servants should not be held hostage to the pet projects or grudges of a few individual Senators. And here are two links to our past posts about the hold Bond has on Johnson’s full Senate confirmation. Both note the hold is directly related to Bond’s desire to move a federal complex…
Updated 6:15 p.m.: A GSA spokeswoman just provided me a statement regarding the delayed vehicle contract: There is no set schedule for when vehicle contracts must be awarded. The previous contract expired in Sept. 2009. For the first time in GSA’s history under the Recovery Act, we have been able to infuse an additional $300 million dollars into vehicle purchases for more fuel efficient vehicles. Due to the additional focus of manufacturers on these additional Recovery Act purchases and the fact that this was a new competitive procurement that resulted in additional awards and product offerings, the contract award was…