Sunset Outdated Laws

Have the Buy American and Trade Agreement acts outlived their usefulness? The Buy American Act (BAA) was adopted 70 years ago to ensure federal-procurement policies support American jobs. In recent years, some lawmakers have introduced Buy American amendments that would extend the law to include products manufactured in the United States with foreign-made components.

The Trade Agreements Act (TAA), for example, allows agencies to purchase products from countries with which America has trade agreements. The General Services Administration's (GSA) Schedule contracts, which agencies use for many equipment purchases, are covered under the Trade Agreements Act of 1979 rather than the Buy American requirement.

The TAA imposes a wholesale preclusion on the sale of products that do not comply with the act, compared to the BAA, which permits the offer of noncompliant products but imposes an evaluation penalty on such offers.

Fortunately, there are many people on Capitol Hill who oppose the Buy American and Trade Agreements acts. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) adamantly opposes the Buy American, offshore outsourcing restrictions and other trade policies that could limit competition in the government market.

Such policies fly in the face of the global economy, potentially denying the federal government access to products and services from industry leaders, Davis said at Microsoft's Public Sector CIO Summit.

"Globalization is driving everything we do in the private sector," Davis said. "It's not a trend, it's not a fad--it's an international system that replaced the Cold War" in shaping national economies, he said.

While these laws were meant to create and protect American jobs, some are using a well-intentioned government initiative to hurt citizens. In the past year, several companies selling office-supply products were fined millions of dollars for carrying "noncompliant products" on their GSA Schedule contracts. This is clearly unintended consequence and misapplication of the law.

Numerous industry observers say the latest "Buy American" legislation would invite similar restrictions from other countries and raise the government's cost of doing business. This legislation puts politics in front of common sense in combating terrorist threats. At the same time, it sends a signal to our trading partners that protectionism trumps global trade.

Both laws predate the Information Age and the proliferation of the Internet in all aspects of everyday life. Today's world runs on IT products from handheld devices to high-end servers. Many of these items are designed by American engineers, software developers and professionals, but for numerous reasons the end products may not be manufactured or assembled in the United States or in any of the countries specified in the TAA. These products are deemed noncompliant and may not be offered on the GSA Schedule and many other Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs).

Nevertheless, all of these products are available to our citizens through a variety of Web sites, solution providers and retailers, but the government customer is generally precluded from buying these commercially available products.

It's only natural for government customers to require these commercial off-the-shelf products. To meet this demand, manufacturers are forced to find compliant manufacturing locations, thereby making many of them custom products with their own unique product identifiers. That, of course, increases the cost to the taxpayers without obtaining any added features or benefits.

The government has come a long way since the early 1990s in reforming the IT buying process to become more commercial-like through the use of credit cards, blanket purchase agreements and having an open dialogue with industry. It's high time to exempt IT buying from BAA/TAA to truly bring the government closer to commercial practices and save the taxpayers millions of dollars on product-acquisition costs. Congress should sunset these laws for the sake of the IT manufacturers, solution providers and resellers--and itself.

Alan Bechara is CEO of PC Mall Gov, a Herndon, Va.-based solution provider to federal, state and local government organizations.