Making Competitive Sourcing Work: CRE Challenges Incomprehensible USDA FAIR Act Inventory
Federal agency inventories of activities that are not inherently governmental in nature, and thus should be open to competition from the private sector, are absolutely incomprehensible. The Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act directs agencies to develop and publish lists of agency activities "that are not inherently governmental functions...." The law also directs that interested parties be allowed to challenge the "omission of a particular activity from, or an inclusion of a particular activity" on an agency's inventory of activities.

However, the implementation directions provided to agencies through OMB Circular A-76 result in lists that are meaningless. Specifically, the OMB Circular requires that agencies utilize broad, vague "function codes" that do not allow interested parties to identify any particular activities. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) services provided by USDA's National Finance Center are a case in point.

PKI activities are not inherently governmental in nature since private-sector vendors as well as USDA are on the federal Certified Provider List. Even though USDA is a Trusted Certificate Authority and engages in a variety of PKI-related activities, as discussed on the National Finance Center's website, there are no functions on USDA's nearly 1,100 page FY 2004 FAIR Act Inventory that can be discerned as relating to PKI.

The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a regulatory watchdog, has filed a formal Challenge with USDA and OMB. In the Challenge, which was filed pursuant to a Federal Register notice, CRE requests that USDA and OMB fulfill their statutory duties by clearly identifying each and every activity associated with the development, provision, support and/or maintenance of PKI/eAuthentication services and/or products.

CRE expects to receive a formal response to their Challenge by the end of June.