Aug 21, 2008

The White House has designated Jim Williams acting administrator of the General Services Administration, effective Aug. 30.

Williams, currently the commissioner of GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, was nominated to succeed Lurita A. Doan as GSA administrator on June 25, but the Senate has yet to confirm him. After a heated July 25 confirmation hearing in which Williams was grilled on his involvement in a controversial information technology contract, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked the nomination, which cleared the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 30.

Grassley has expressed concern that Williams did not properly protect taxpayers in the renewal of a contract with Sun Microsystems, an IT company with which GSA renewed a contract over the objections of some contracting officers. Doan, and now Williams, had taken heat for allegedly influencing contracting officers to renew the award. The GSA inspector general determined the firm broke an agreement with the government that would have offered the agency discounts based on reductions given to private buyers. The Justice Department later sued Sun for fraud.

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