WASHINGTON - Senator Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.,
Friday expressed concern over the Bush administration’s decision
to suspend a requirement that the government hire contractors who
abide by federal environmental, health and safety, civil rights,
labor, and consumer protection laws.
"I am dismayed that the Bush administration
would thwart such common sense policy," Lieberman said.
"Tax-payer funded contracts should go to those who obey the
laws that protect the environment, the safety of workers, and
other fundamental protections. These contracts should not be going
to chronic lawbreakers."
Federal contractors are already required to show a
satisfactory record of "integrity and business ethics."
The new requirement, known as the "Contractor
Responsibility" rule, would clarify that such integrity
includes compliance with specific laws. The regulation became
final in December 2000, after lengthy consideration and revision,
responding to extensive public comment. No public comment was
sought before this suspension.
"This requirement is well-balanced and
targets only companies that show ‘repeated, pervasive, or
significant’ violations of law," Lieberman said. "The
public, whose health and environment are at stake, really deserves
a say in these decisions - and didn’t get one."
The Bush administration made its first assault on
the rule in late January, when it invited agencies to suspend the
new contractor responsibility requirements for 180 days. On
Friday, it went further and decided to suspend the new
protections, government-wide, and proposed that they be
permanently revoked. Senator Lieberman and others protested the
earlier suspension as unwise and possibly unlawful. But now, the
administration is moving more decisively against the rule before
soliciting the views of the public.
"The administration’s decision on the
Contractor Responsibility rule is just the latest in an almost
daily and distressful drumbeat of regulatory rollbacks,"
Lieberman said. "And, as has been the case in the past, the
public is being frozen out."
As ranking member of the Senate Governmental
Affairs Committee, Lieberman has launched an investigation into
the assault on health, safety and environmental protections, as
well as the closed-door nature of the decision-making process that
has led to rescinding rules formulated over many months and with
substantial public participation.
