Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Madam Chair, I rise today to highlight what I believe are anti-competitive practices at the Government Printing Office, or GPO.

As its name implies, the GPO was set up to do government printing. Title 44 of the United States Code states that ``all printing, binding, and blank-book work for Congress, the Executive Office, the Judiciary, other than the Supreme Court of the United States ..... shall be done at the Government Printing Office.'' GPO's mission statement is to ``produce, protect, preserve, and distribute the official publications and information products of the Federal Government.'' Somehow, GPO has interpreted this to mean that ``printing'' includes the creation of secure federal credentials.

Madam Chair, the production of secure federal credentials cannot be reasonably classified as printing. The production of these credentials involves electronic storage capability, anti-counterfeiting technologies, and specialized manufacturing techniques. Furthermore, Title 44 was codified in 1968--secure credentials were not created until 30 years later. It is hard to believe that lawmakers in the 1960's could have envisioned the technical know-how that goes into making these credentials, much less classified the production as printing.

The real problem, however, lies with GPO asserting its authority to make these products while crowding out private sector competition. The federal government has successfully contracted out production of secure credentials to the private sector for years. The private sector competes for these contracts, ensuring that we end up with the best product for the best price. More disturbingly, I have heard reports indicating that GPO has a dedicated sales staff, and sends other staffers on sales calls to promote its secure credentials capabilities to federal agencies. GPO's attempt to fill this space inhibits competition by encouraging the federal government to insource at the expense of innovations in the private sector. I believe we need to level the playing field.

By highlighting this issue, I hope to trigger a discussion that will define a clear role for the GPO today, but also to ensure that the private secure credentials industry, the acknowledged leaders in this field, will have a chance to compete for government contracts.

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