IAEE is asking meetings industry stakeholders to contact their members of Congress in order to oppose anti-meetings legislation that is currently pending in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. To assist them in doing so, it has provided the below talking points, which it hopes industry advocates will communicate in their own words.
"Select those points that you feel are most crucial," IAEE advises. "Our objective is to launch a grassroots campaign that avoids appearing as a 'cut and paste' mass message — it is vital for you to communicate in your own words."
GSA Employees Broke the Rules, the Rules Are Not Broken
• The October 2011 GSA conference was an irresponsible — and possibly illegal — event that threatens all meetings, conventions and conferences.
• The findings of the GSA Inspector General’s report clearly details instances of inappropriate spending and poor decision making on the part of federal employees. We strongly oppose these actions.
• Unfortunately, a single instance of irresponsible decision making has the potential to cast a negative light on the millions of men and women who work every day to make America’s meetings, conventions and conference industry the best in the world.
• Meetings and events are vital to our industry and the U.S. economy. In 2011, meetings and events generated $99 billion in direct travel spending, which supported 859,000 American jobs.
• Congress must make clear that this particular event was the result of a failure to follow federal travel regulations that were already in place to protect the misuse of taxpayer funds. We hope you will also recognize that there is still a need for private sector and government travel for conferences, business meetings and events.
Punish Irresponsible Behavior, Not Valuable Travel
• We are troubled by recent Congressional action to severely restrict the federal government’s ability to participate in and hold conferences, including provisions that indiscriminately cut travel budgets, expand the definition of conference to include private sector meetings and limit agencies’ attendance to one meeting held by an organization per fiscal year.
• The conference-related amendments included in the “Digital Accountability and Transparency Act”” or DATA Act (H.R. 2146) and the “21st Century Postal Service Act” (S. 1789) are well intentioned. But several provisions are too broad and would unnecessarily restrict federal agencies from participating in and holding legitimate conferences that provide immense value to the taxpayer and take place within the existing travel regulations.
• For example, such broad-stroke regulations could prevent federal employees from attending training conferences on matters ranging from safety and security, to medical and educational conferences for government health workers and scientists.
• Furthermore, these onerous regulations would, in some cases, be redundant to steps taken by the Obama administration last year. In 2011, the President issued an Executive Order that cut federal travel budgets by 10 percent and required all federal agencies to use a “local first” policy when holding large meetings or conferences.
The Answer is Increased Oversight, Not Overreaching Regulations
• Congress and the Obama administration should carry out a measured and appropriate response to the 2010 GSAA conference that increases oversight but does not discourage productive travel from taking place.
• Just like the taxpayer, we depend on adequate oversight and ethical standards for all federal travel because this is the only way that legitimate and productive travel can continue to take place.
To contact your members of Congress, visit www.congress.org.