|
Newletters From July, 2003
FEMA AWARDS $27 MILLION TO 450 FIRE DEPARTMENTS
Originally Posted: July 25, 2003 10:16 PM
Last Updated: July 25, 2003 10:16 PM
Fire Act grants continue to be awarded this year. The lateset round, the seventh in a series, provides 450 fire departments with $27 million.
For more infomation, click on the title of this NEEDA news summary.
|
|
SENATE BILL CALLS ON FEDERAL CONTRACTORS TO TAKE BUSINESS AWAY FROM EMERGENCY EQUIPMENT DEALERS
Originally Posted: July 25, 2003 1:26 PM
Last Updated: July 25, 2003 1:26 PM
In the name of Homeland Security, the US Senate has passed legislation which will allow state and local governments to buy directly from Federal contractors who are designated by the Department of Defense or the General Services Administration. If this is enacted, local emergency equipment dealers will lose business to large national companies which have long standing contracts with the Federal government.
This amendment is a form of Federal Centralized Cooperative Purchasing in which Federal bureaucrats select who can do business with state and local govenrments through published "supply schedules." Local dealers are generally not eligible to participate in such schedules because dealers serve their local area and not all 50 states.
The House version of this bill does not contain the Senate-passed provision.
NEEDA has reprinted the provision in its entirety. Under the subsequent definition section of the proposed law, almost any product or service can be purchased because almost any product or service might be used in the war on terrorism.
When a local or state government uses a Federal contractor, they need not bid or make public their purchase. Thus no dealer would have an opportunity to bid or compete for the business. State and local governments buying through the Federal channel rather than through local dealers would be free of the normal competitive conditions that most state legislators require. This amendment if passed by the House-Senate Conference Committee on HR 1588 will promptly damage many dealers in the United States.
To read the entire proposed law, click for the full text here in the NEEDA Newsletter.
|
|
|
