“It’s important that USDA employees have a 'heads-up’ on what FAIR is all about, so we’ll all know what it is designed to do and not do, and also so we can minimize any potential misunderstandings about it.”

Dick Guyer was referring to the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act, or FAIR. Signed into law in 1998, the act requires federal departments and agencies to prepare an annual inventory of activities that they currently perform--as part of their mission--that are “commercial” in nature, and therefore potentially could be performed in the private sector or by other appropriate public entities. By contrast, activities regarded as “inherently governmental” are activities that involve policy or oversight or require skills unique to the federal work force, and thereby can be performed only by the federal government.

Guyer, executive assistant to USDA’s deputy chief financial officer, coordinated the Department’s annual FAIR response for both FY 1999 and FY 2000. Both were submitted to the Office of Management and Budget. On December 14, 2000, OMB published a “Notice of Availability” in the Federal Register, advising that USDA’s FAIR listing for FY 2000 was available for review by interested parties on USDA’s website, http://www.usda.gov/ocfo

He explained that in preparing USDA’s two annual submissions thus far, he contacted USDA agency heads generally in May. “We asked them to indicate which of their activities would qualify under the act’s definition of 'commercial’,” he said. “But, in addition, agencies determined which of their 'commercial activities’ the act exempts from the possibility of private sector competition--and each agency has the right to do that, under the provisions of the FAIR Act.”

Guyer pointed out that part of the process in preparing the Department’s FAIR submission is to give interested parties an opportunity to challenge USDA’s FAIR inventory report. “This means,” he explained, “that groups--such as federal employee unions which may feel we have too many types of USDA activities listed as 'commercial activities,’ and industry trade groups which may feel we don’t have enough USDA activities categorized that way--may challenge and appeal any decision within the Department concerning which USDA activities we’ve listed as commercial.”

He noted that in 1999 the Department entertained nine appeals to USDA’s FAIR listing. “In 2000,” he advised, “there were no challenges or appeals to USDA’s FAIR list.”

OCFO staff accountant Mel Robinson said that in its FAIR report for 2000, USDA identified a total of 46,516 positions as “commercial” in USDA. This number included the following: the Agricultural Marketing Service (2,553 positions identified as “commercial”), the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (4,044), Departmental Administration (226), the Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services mission area (1,199), the Food and Nutrition Service (570), the Forest Service (20,230), the Food Safety and Inspection Service (796), the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (197), the National Appeals Division (29), the Natural Resources Conservation Service (8,439), the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (1,438), the Office of the Chief Information Officer (233), the Research, Education, and Economics mission area (5,635), and the Rural Development mission area (927).

As a comparison, according to Office of Human Resources Management computer specialist Ed McLaughlin, as of February 20 USDA’s work force consisted of 97,000 federal employees--full- time, part-time, and temporary.

Robinson added that even before the FAIR Act became law in 1998, USDA, like most other federal departments, had been contracting out, or 'outsourcing,’ some of its activities to the private sector. “But the difference,” he noted, “is that the FAIR Act represents a requirement--by law--that federal departments annually list their activities that are 'commercial’ in nature.”

Guyer emphasized that, merely because a USDA activity is listed in USDA’s FAIR report as “commercial,” that does not necessarily mean there are plans to contract that work out to the private sector to accomplish.

“The FAIR Act does not require that federal departments and agencies open its 'commercial activities’ to competition in the private sector,” he explained.

“Within the guidelines of the FAIR Act, it is up to each USDA agency to decide whether to open commercial work to outside competition.”