EPA fails to make promised industry outreach

The contracting freeze at the Environmental Protection Agency has thawed, and it seems that everything is back to normal after the Trump administration called for a halt to contracts and grants while a review took place.

One element of the thaw was that EPA officials said in internal communications that they planned to reach out to industry and explain what happened and take questions.

But as far as I can tell, no communications have taken place. I’ve reached out to both the Professional Services Council and the IT Alliance for Public Sector and neither group has been contacted by EPA.

A couple days before the thaw, PSC sent a letter to EPA asking for the halt on contracts to end and better communications.

It seemed as if EPA was headed in that direction, according to an EPA email that was shared with me.

In that email, Donna Vizian, EPA’s acting assistant administrator, in the office of administration and resources management, said that Kimberly Patrick, EPA’s director of acquisition management, would be setting up a call with the contracting community to answer questions.

But no call has materialized.

And, OK, maybe it is a moot point. The contracts aren’t frozen any longer. So, it’s no big deal, right? But it is still disappointing, especially coming from a pro-business administration that they said they would make a call and they didn’t.

One incident doesn’t constitute a pattern, but it is worth noting.