Homeland Security waives contracting laws for border wall

Sacramento Bee ^ | 18 Feb 2020 | ELLIOT SPAGAT ASSOCIATED PRESS

[BeauBo]

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it will waive federal contracting laws to speed construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Department of Homeland Security said waiving procurement regulations will allow 177 miles (283 kilometers) of wall to be built more quickly in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The 10 waived laws include requirements for having open competition, justifying selections and receiving all bonding from a contractor before any work can begin.

...Tuesday's announcement marks the first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules. Previously they were used to waive environmental impact reviews.

The Trump administration said it expects the waivers will allow (an additional) 94 miles of wall to be built this year, bringing the Republican president closer to his pledge of about 450 miles since taking office and making it one of his top domestic priorities.

[BeauBo]

These waivers are for the DoD 2020 Counter-Narcotics money ($3.8 billion), that was just released last week. In the past, there have been a couple of months of lag before getting the waivers issued - indicating that this was well planned and coordinated ahead of time.

DoD has shown before that it can be very quick to contract for border barrier. It looks like they are also going to be quick in dropping contracts for this pot of money (which just by itself, is more than Congress appropriated in 2017, 2018 and 2019 combined).

Also of note, this money will include wall building in the Del Rio (Texas) Sector of the Border, where none has yet started.

[Vendome]

Injunction in 1, 2, 3...

[rlmorel]

Thanks for these updates, BeauBo.

I am gratified to see no wall is being built...:)

[CatOwner]

Injunction in 1, 2, 3...

The judges aren't awake in Hawaii yet. :p

[hardspunned]

Hasn’t this been adjudicated before the SupremeCourt already. Hard to believe how big the border, dreamers, etc. was a year ago. Today, as Trump steamrolls to another promise kept, its a non issue.

[BeauBo]

30 foot bollards in Calexico, CA; which previously led the Nation in assaults on Border Patrol Officers. No longer.

In addition to the being lavishly appointed with concertina, the Calexico Wall System comes with a robust suite of monitoring and detection systems. A secondary barrier (also 30 foot bollards) has been funded for this segment, that will make the enforcement area between the barriers "SuperMax" strength.

Really, just about 300 miles of this kind of stuff in the border cities and the Rio Grande Valley, is going to transform the situation on our border. The schedule is currently to get up to 450 miles built by the end of this year, including some rural runs through Federal Parkland and Military Ranges - but the three biggest corridors (San Diego, the Rio Grande Valley and Yuma) are expected to be largely completed by then (San Diego is almost done now).

[lurk]

This shows horrendous insensitivity toward the drug cartels and gangs.

[exDemMom]

That is amazing, so nice to see the progress.

Once we have an effective border in place, what are the left going to do?

[spokeshave]

Most bigly WINS on the border.

[BobL]

In California they waived the rules after the Northridge earthquake. Basically Pete Wilson got on the phone with every large contractor he knew in the southern half of the state, and told them to drop everything and get to I-10 and Fairfax (I think), and then tear down and then rebuild the huge freeway bridge that came down (I-10 is something like 20 lanes wide there). As to schedule and price, they’d go that later.

It was done in either a week or a month...can’t remember.

[SharpRightTurn]

Good news.

Thanks, BeauBo.

[Redwood71]

“Tuesday’s announcement marks the first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules.”

Not true. These practices are covered in the existing DOD directives and have been used before. An example is the procurement of the healthcare system used by the military called Tricare. When the contractor for the northwest was selected, it was determined that United Healthcare was going to get the contract over Healthnet, the company in at the time, even though United bid $200 million more than their competitor. But it didn’t hurt that Obama had been a community organizer for United for a number of years in Chicago. And they even had to hire Healthnet to run parts of their in place computer system so United could survive.

So, it’s been done before. It’s just the GOP representation doing it. Otherwise it would be no big deal and you wouldn’t hear anything about it.

rwood

[rlmorel]

Yes!

Putting these up in the right places can funnel people to try and cross in places where it is easier to detect them I would think.

Thanks again...

[BeauBo]

“Tuesday’s announcement marks the first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules.”

I think that they meant its the first time procurement rules have been waived for President Trump’s Border Wall Program.

That might not even be true, because last year DoD put money on contract head-spinningly quickly - a mountain of money, in a matter of weeks. I’m not sure what kind of special exemptions they might have invoked.

But I believe it is true that this is the first time in the Wall Program, that when DHS published their (now routine) waivers, that procurement rules were included. Usually it is a fixed set of laws like the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, NEPA and others that require lengthy documentation and review periods (with little other real effect).

One thing that is likely to come of this (beyond just getting contracts awarded quickly), is that losing bidders will probably not be able to hold up the schedule, while filing protests.

I expect that we will see more of the stops being pulled out from the Wall building Program this year, like more rapid exercise of eminent domain in Texas.

We are really off to the races, with over $12 billion dollars to contract this year. By contrast, only $400 million was available in the President’s first year in office.

[Redwood71]

“....while filing protests.”

They don’t really have something to protest. It is within the directives on contracting that the contracting agent doesn’t have to take the lowest bidder.

In government accounting, there are a number of undercover things that are bartered. And most of it is findable, but not looked for. Example, if a contractor can give you a price on this job, will you hire him for the other job that pays more because it’s bigger? Done all the time.

Another is a thing called sole source. Let’s look at buying a basketball for the gym. If you want a specific basketball, in the column for the agent it will say it must be NCAA, must have the small stripes, and must say Wilson NCAA on it. That limits the field to just Wilson NCAA balls. Done all the time.

There are many “games” played in government contracting the public doesn’t know about. The first time that waivers have applied to federal procurement rules. Maybe those waivers the public saw, this time. And with the games being played on money procurement for the wall, it probably isn’t the first or last. It’s just the one they wanted you to see. And both sides do it.

rwood