Essential Action

TIPS ON SUBMITTING COMMENTS ON THE
ANTI-SCOFFLAW REGULATION

It is very valuable to submit comments that simply establish support for the principle that the federal government should not contract with companies that seriously or repeatedly transgress the law.

If you would like to say more, that's even better. Some points you might want to consider making:

• Companies that seriously or repeatedly violate the law are not dependable contractors, and cannot be trusted to fulfill the terms of their contracts.

• Chronic lawbreakers are more likely to do shoddy work; and they are more likely to engage in undesirable behavior in their work for the government (improper treatment of workers, pollution, etc.)

• A homeowner would find a contractor with a record of law-breaking to be untrustworthy, and they would worry that the contractor might again violate the law in doing work on their home. A homeowner would look to someone other than the law-breaker to work on their home. The federal government should exercise similar foresight in its contracting decisions.

• It is not reasonable for companies to claim that the responsible contractor regulations would unfairly burden them. In what way is substantially complying with the law a burden? Failure only to comply with a "technicality" would not constitute "substantial noncompliance" with the law, and therefore there is no reason to fear companies would be unfairly blocked from receiving federal contracts.

• Because the contracting officers will largely rely on final adjudications to make their determinations, there is no reason to fear the responsible contractor screening process will become too bureaucratic, burdensome or time consuming.

• The proposed regulation should be strengthened by the issuance of guidelines that specify what "substantial noncompliance" means in different areas (i.e., size of fine, criminal versus civil pleas or convictions, number of law-breaking instances). If you have ideas on such guidelines, you should suggest them.

• The process of enforcing the responsible contractor provisions would be greatly streamlined by the maintenance of a centralized database of corporate lawbreakers. The General Services Administration (GSA) should work with relevant agencies, including especially the Justice Department, to establish such a database. As an interim step, GSA and the Justice Department should consider creating a database of corporate criminal convictions and pleas.

The more you can put these sentiments in your own words, and offer your own insights, the better.

Written comments should be sent by regular mail to:

General Services Administration
FAR Secretariat (MVR)
1800 F Street, NW, Room 4035 ATTN: Laurie Duarte
Washington, D.C. 20045

Or, you can send comments by e-mail to [email protected].

Be sure to mention in all written comments that you are commenting in reference to FAR case 99-010.

Our Anti-Scofflaw main page enables you to E-mail comments directly to the agency.