Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
CQ Today
October 25, 2007 By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff
As informal conference negotiations begin on the defense authorization bill, conferees are leaning toward including strong restrictions on the Pentagon’s troubled personnel system.
The move could set the bill (HR 1585) on a collision course with the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure if it includes restrictions on the personnel system that were included in the House’s version of the bill. The Senate’s version includes milder language.
Members of the House and Senate Armed Services subcommittees on readiness met Oct. 23 to discuss proposed legislative changes to the Defense Department’s National Security Personnel System, or NSPS. They were trying to find middle ground to bolster the rights of the Pentagon’s civilian workers, who adamantly oppose their treatment under the program.
But lawmakers and aides said the House provisions, which would go further in ensuring collective bargaining and appeals rights, are gaining strength.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said a compromise was in the works.
“We’re going to make some real changes to what was done before but which would survive the White House veto,” he said.
NSPS is the Pentagon’s effort to move its more than 700,000 civilian employees off the federal government’s General Schedule system toward a merit-based, pay-for-performance approach. Now in use for 110,000 employees, NSPS has faced legal and legislative challenges from unions and others who claim that the government has far exceeded the authority Congress granted it to execute the system.
The Senate’s version of the authorization bill would slow the Pentagon’s rollout of the labor-relations portion of NSPS, hoping to ensure that employees have a valid and independent stake in future negotiations, and exempt blue-collar wage workers from the system.
The House bill would go much further. It would force stronger collective-bargaining rights for unions, call for an independent appeals board to judge employee grievances, and mandate that cost-of-living increases granted by Congress be separated from the subjective evaluations under NSPS.
In a statement of administration policy issued May 16, a day before the House passed the defense measure, the White House threatened to veto the measure, saying that “the effect of the [House] bill is in essence a total revocation of the flexibilities Congress granted the department.”
But recent events have strengthened the House’s position in the informal conference negotiations, according to lawmakers and aides. For example, in September the Pentagon said it plans to guarantee employees under NSPS only half of the congressionally granted pay raise in fiscal 2008, saving the other half for performance-based bonuses.
That action prompted an Oct. 10 letter to the Pentagon from Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., and James P. Moran, D-Va., who are members of the House Appropriations Committee, and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. They wrote that “it would be difficult, if not impossible to recruit or retain employees if they knew they could not rely on their promised salaries.”
Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, said ensuring that Pentagon employees receive their annual cost-of-living increases and restoring collective-bargaining rights are the minimum changes he would be satisfied with.
‘A Failed System’
In an interview, Ortiz was not shy about his disdain for NSPS. “If the members had a choice, we wouldn’t have NSPS,” he said. “But that was a little too far for us to go at this point.”
Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, said the House provisions enjoy wide bipartisan support. “Many of us feel that NSPS is a failed system, and many of the employees feel that, too,” he said
Jones, who also described NSPS as “a very poor investment of the taxpayers’ money,” said an independent appeals board called for under the House bill is crucial. He added that he is not overly concerned about a potential veto.
“When the entire bill is put together, there will be things that the White House wants,” Jones said. “I think we’re probably in the strongest position we’ve been in in a while.”
Jones cosponsored an amendment to the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriations bill (HR 3222), by Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would prohibit funds in that bill to be used to expand the NSPS program.
The Inslee amendment was a response to a July report by the Government Accountability Office, which stated that because of a lack of financial oversight at the Pentagon, “DoD and Congress do not have visibility over the actual cost to design and implement NSPS.”
But Moran said that because neither of the original versions of the Defense appropriations bill contained the NSPS language, it may not survive in conference.
Moran said the defense authorization measure was the most appropriate legislative vehicle to address NSPS from a policy perspective. He expressed confidence that Congress would move this year to intervene on behalf of those who want changes in the system.
“Civilian workers have a lot of friends on these committees,” Moran said.
The Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment.
October 25, 2007 By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff
As informal conference negotiations begin on the defense authorization bill, conferees are leaning toward including strong restrictions on the Pentagon’s troubled personnel system.
The move could set the bill (HR 1585) on a collision course with the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure if it includes restrictions on the personnel system that were included in the House’s version of the bill. The Senate’s version includes milder language.
Members of the House and Senate Armed Services subcommittees on readiness met Oct. 23 to discuss proposed legislative changes to the Defense Department’s National Security Personnel System, or NSPS. They were trying to find middle ground to bolster the rights of the Pentagon’s civilian workers, who adamantly oppose their treatment under the program.
But lawmakers and aides said the House provisions, which would go further in ensuring collective bargaining and appeals rights, are gaining strength.
Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said a compromise was in the works.
“We’re going to make some real changes to what was done before but which would survive the White House veto,” he said.
NSPS is the Pentagon’s effort to move its more than 700,000 civilian employees off the federal government’s General Schedule system toward a merit-based, pay-for-performance approach. Now in use for 110,000 employees, NSPS has faced legal and legislative challenges from unions and others who claim that the government has far exceeded the authority Congress granted it to execute the system.
The Senate’s version of the authorization bill would slow the Pentagon’s rollout of the labor-relations portion of NSPS, hoping to ensure that employees have a valid and independent stake in future negotiations, and exempt blue-collar wage workers from the system.
The House bill would go much further. It would force stronger collective-bargaining rights for unions, call for an independent appeals board to judge employee grievances, and mandate that cost-of-living increases granted by Congress be separated from the subjective evaluations under NSPS.
In a statement of administration policy issued May 16, a day before the House passed the defense measure, the White House threatened to veto the measure, saying that “the effect of the [House] bill is in essence a total revocation of the flexibilities Congress granted the department.”
But recent events have strengthened the House’s position in the informal conference negotiations, according to lawmakers and aides. For example, in September the Pentagon said it plans to guarantee employees under NSPS only half of the congressionally granted pay raise in fiscal 2008, saving the other half for performance-based bonuses.
That action prompted an Oct. 10 letter to the Pentagon from Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., and James P. Moran, D-Va., who are members of the House Appropriations Committee, and Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. They wrote that “it would be difficult, if not impossible to recruit or retain employees if they knew they could not rely on their promised salaries.”
Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Texas, chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, said ensuring that Pentagon employees receive their annual cost-of-living increases and restoring collective-bargaining rights are the minimum changes he would be satisfied with.
‘A Failed System’
In an interview, Ortiz was not shy about his disdain for NSPS. “If the members had a choice, we wouldn’t have NSPS,” he said. “But that was a little too far for us to go at this point.”
Walter B. Jones of North Carolina, the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, said the House provisions enjoy wide bipartisan support. “Many of us feel that NSPS is a failed system, and many of the employees feel that, too,” he said
Jones, who also described NSPS as “a very poor investment of the taxpayers’ money,” said an independent appeals board called for under the House bill is crucial. He added that he is not overly concerned about a potential veto.
“When the entire bill is put together, there will be things that the White House wants,” Jones said. “I think we’re probably in the strongest position we’ve been in in a while.”
Jones cosponsored an amendment to the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriations bill (HR 3222), by Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would prohibit funds in that bill to be used to expand the NSPS program.
The Inslee amendment was a response to a July report by the Government Accountability Office, which stated that because of a lack of financial oversight at the Pentagon, “DoD and Congress do not have visibility over the actual cost to design and implement NSPS.”
But Moran said that because neither of the original versions of the Defense appropriations bill contained the NSPS language, it may not survive in conference.
Moran said the defense authorization measure was the most appropriate legislative vehicle to address NSPS from a policy perspective. He expressed confidence that Congress would move this year to intervene on behalf of those who want changes in the system.
“Civilian workers have a lot of friends on these committees,” Moran said.
The Defense Department did not respond to requests for comment.