ALEXANDRIA, VA (November 7, 2002) – The Printing Industries of America, Inc. (PIA), the trade association for the commercial printing industry, praises the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its proposed changes to federal printing procurement policies. The OMB proposals, which were made public on Wednesday, are scheduled for publication in the Federal Register with a thirty-day public comment period. The announcement by OMB follows months of political debate among the Executive Branch, the Government Printing Office, the Joint Committee on Printing and PIA about the effort by OMB to increase the flexibility afforded to Executive Branch agencies in printing and print procurement decisions. Under current law (Title 44 of the U. S. Code), all printing and printing procurement is required to be done by the Government Printing Office. In April, the OMB announced that it intended to issue proposed changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulations to permit Executive Agencies to make printing decisions either through GPO or directly with individual commercial printers, regardless of Title 44 restrictions. PIA did not oppose the OMB initiative; however, support for the effort was contingent on OMB meeting three requirements in its proposed new regulations. Those three requirements were limitations on in house printing by Executive Branch agencies, an open procurement system to enable GPO’s large number of private contractors to have access to bid opportunities, and implementation of a "best value" procurement system. The OMB proposal has met all these requirements. Ben Cooper, PIA’s Executive Vice President for Public Policy said, "We are pleased that OMB has made such progress on this proposal. We look forward to continuing to work with them as well as the Government Printing Office to assure that the federal government gets good value in its printing and print procurement needs." For more information about PIA’s position on the OMB announcement, please call Ben Cooper at 703/519-8184 or email him at [email protected]