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14 Pub. Cont. Newsl. 1 (1978-1979)

handle is hein.journals/procurlw14 and id is 1 raw text is: SECTION OF PUBLIC CONTRACT LAW AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION Vol. 14, No. 1, October 1978 A FEDERAL STATE & LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS Copyright © 1978 American Bar Association Martin J. Harty, Editor, 9926 Rand Drive, Burke, VA 22015 Edwin B. Neill, Assistant Editor THE CHAIRMAN'S LETTER Dear Colleagues: Our committee members and our officers and coun- cil members are busy in meeting the demands of the exploding opportunities for our Section to serve the public interest. The range of our current activities is now very wide indeed. In the grants field we have recently proposed to the Office of Management and Budget the assistance of' our grants committees in connection with the OMB study of federal assistance programs mandated by Public Law 95-224. We have suggested that our grants committees may be able to contribute to the study by investigating (a) the feasibility of developing uniform federal standards and criteria for (1) the competitive selection of the recipients of discretionary awards of assistance, (2) the selection of the recipients of block grants and formula grants, (3) the termination of assistance by the grantor or the grantee, (b) the revi- sion of Attachment 0 to OMB Circular A-102 (and other comparable attachments) to conform to the con- cepts of the Model Procurement Code project, and (c) the feasibility of providing a comprehensive system of uniform administrative and judicial remedies to cover all phases of the assistance process and including the provision of such remedies at appropriate federal, state and local levels and in conjunction with the Model Procurement Code. We look forward to early discussions with OMB to work out the details of our offer of assistance to the study. As I reported in the July Newsletter, the Model Pro- curement Code will be submitted this fall by the Model Procurement Code Coordinating Committee to the Councils of our Section and the Local Government Section for review and approval and then will go to the House of Delegates early in December for approval at the 1979 midyear meeting in Atlanta. Our Section Council is scheduled to meet for this purpost in ARTICLES Developments in Federal Grant Law .......... 6 Allowability of Attorneys' Fees ............... 9 Washington on Saturday, November 4, starting at 9:30 A.M. in the Mayflower Hotel, Presidential Room, and then again on Sunday, November 5, as necessary. The Local Government Law Section Council is also planning to meet for this purpose in Washington the following weekend. We are particularly indebted to the Dembling Committee of our Council (Messrs. Paul Dembling, Fred Sass and Tom Abernathy) for unader- taking the review and analysis of the Code draft that will be submitted to the two councils and for providing a torumn for considering any possible changes to the Code as approved by the Coordinating Committee. The pending federal acquisition and disputes legislation has been moving ahead, but more slowly than we had expected. In the Senate, S. 1264, the Federal Acquisition Act, was reported by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee last spring (S. Rep. No. 95-715) and was then referred to tile Committee on Armed Services for further review. That Commit- tee may hold hearings on the bill and our Section may be asked to testify. Subject to our obtaining the requisite clearance under the ABA Blanket Authority Procedures, we plan to propose an amendment to S. 1264 that would prohibit, as a general matter, the public disclosure of commercial, technical or financial information submitted to tile federal government by business firms in connection with competing for or performing government contracts. Most of this infor- mation constitutes business trade secrets and the public disclosure of it is ordinarily harmful to a firm's competitive position. As is confirmed by a recent report of the House Committee on Government Operations (H.R. Rep. No. 95-1382), there is much evidence of abuse of tile Freedom of Infornation Act for competitive advantage in the business world. The continuation of this abuse harms the public interest by discouraging responsible firms from doing govern- ment business or from submitting sensitive business data to the government in connection with procure- ment. The proposed legislation was approved by our Council at the August 8 meeting and as a result of the splendid efforts of Ruth Burg and Stanfield Johnson the statutory language and related commentary have been prepared for presentation to Congress. In any event there is a fair to good chance for (contilued oil ex'I page) Produced by the ABA Press

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