'No bid' earmarks

Coburn Amendment 2945 would prohibit Congress from using earmarks to award “no bid” government grants and contracts.

A “no-bid” grant or contract is government funding that goes directly to an entity after bypassing the standard competitive process.  Ideally, government funding is supposed to be awarded only after competing bids are solicited in order to select the most cost efficient and qualified entity to perform a service.

This amendment would prohibit the secretary of defense from awarding earmarked funds in the form of no-bid grants or non-competitive contracts. This would mean, in practice, that all earmark funding would be competitively bid rather than directed to a pre-selected recipient.

The Department of Defense would also be required to provide a report to Congress every year with the name of the recipients of the funds awarded, the reasons the recipient was selected and the number of entities that competed for the earmark contract.

National Drug Intelligence Center

Coburn Amendment 2196 would close the National Drug Intelligence Center and reassign the center's necessary and essential activities.

Each year, million of dollars designated for defense spending are instead siphoned away from the military's budget to pay for this congressional earmark.  The program is not administered by the Pentagon, but by the Department of Justice (DOJ).  However, DOJ believes the center's operations are duplicative and has asked Congress to shut down the program.

The Coburn amendment would protect defense dollars from being misspent and improve the management of counter-drug intelligence efforts by eliminating this program.  This amendment would appropriate the funds necessary to close NDIC.  Additionally, the amendment would ensure any activities performed by the center deemed necessary or essential to the appropriate agencies, as requested by the Department of Justice, are relocated and not discontinued.

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Click here to read a letter of support of Coburn Amendment 2196 from the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.