In a letter last week to Karen Evans, the administrator of E-Government and Information Technology at the OMB, Rep. Tom Davis, (R-Va.), asked Evans to "intercede in this particular issue" to help persuade the Treasury Department to join the federal Networx contract instead of making its own separate deal and continuing to "stovepipe" its older and diverse telecommunications systems.

The controversy between Davis and the Treasury Department has been going on since early last year, after the agency approved the three-year, US$1 billion Treasury Communications Enterprise (TCE) contract for telecommunications services from AT&T Corp. That deal also included seven one-year extension options. The agency canceled the contract last May after other bidders protested and the Government Accountability Office. The agency rebid the contract last September and a new bid award is pending.

Davis wants the Treasury Department to join Networx, the telecommunications procurement program set up by the General Services Administration (GSA) to replace the existing telecommunications contract, known as FTS2001. Among the federal agencies using FTS2001 are the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, as well as NASA and the Social Security Administration. Those agencies will move to the Networx contract when it is completed.

The Networx program is designed to provide legacy and leading-edge voice, data and video services to all U.S. government agencies. Although the Networx program could be worth as much as $20 billion, the government has so far committed to spend only $575 million on the program.

A spokeswoman for Evans said she had no comment on Davis' letter because the contract procurement process is still ongoing.