Senate panel set to vote on Williams this week

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will consider Jim Williams’ nomination to head the General Services Administration July 30 at a committee markup, the panel’s chairman said.

At Williams’ confirmation hearing July 25, Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said the next GSA administrator has a lot to do in the five months left in this administration.

Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the committee’s ranking member, questioned Williams about his involvement in a dispute with Sun Microsystems over its Multiple Award Schedule contract.

According to a 2004 audit, Sun billed the government millions of dollars more under a contract awarded in 1999 for products and services than it charged its commercial customers — a violation of contract requirements.

Williams said he believed he did nothing wrong in a dispute over the contract. Williams said he removed the contracting officer from the case, after the officer said he no longer wanted to work on it. “Looking back, I would have done things differently,” he said.