Prior to the July 4 recess, the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee passed legislation – H.R. 4631, “The GSA Act of 2012” – redressing the proposal that would severely restrict federal agency participation in conferences hosted by private organizations. Working with the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), AGC was the only other organization in the room to meet with House Oversight & Government Reform Committee and House leadership concerning this issue.
This legislation came as a result of overly restrictive provisions within other measures—H.R. 2146 and S. 1789—which passed separately, with minimal debate, in both the House and Senate as a response to the General Services Administration training conference scandal. Though not enacted into law, the old proposal would have barred a federal agency from sending more than one staff member to meet with an association like AGC in any given year. A reasonable reading might be, for example, if employees from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) attend a construction conference sponsored by one AGC chapter, no other USACE employees could attend any other conference or meeting sponsored by an AGC-affiliated organization until the next fiscal year.
Though H.R. 4631 is a step in the right direction, legislation with the restrictive conference provisions still remains viable in the Senate. AGC will continue to work closely with ASAE to address these provisions in the Senate.
For more information, contact Jimmy Christianson at 703-837-5325 or christiansonj@agc.org.
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