ProPublica, March 8, 2017 by T. Christian Miller
It’ll cost $20 billion or more. Mexico will pay for it, or it won’t. Amid uncertainty, Trump clearly seems intent on making the border wall handsome.
President Donald Trump built his campaign on the promise of a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border. Just a month after his inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to begin construction.
And last Friday, the department took a step to make sure it will look good.
In a little-noticed update, the department now says it wants a wall that will be “nominally 30 feet tall,” and, importantly, that bids will be judged on “aesthetics,” as well.
The new language, perhaps coincidental but likely not, appears to be a bureaucratic translation of Trump’s oft-repeated promise to build a “beautiful” wall from 30 to 55 feet high.
Of course, the federal government does not typically focus on beauty in building its walls, fences and barriers. Procurement officers prefer to evaluate bids on concrete things such as price or a company’s past performance — or, for that matter, concrete itself. As a contract requirement, appearances usually only figure into high-end projects (think of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial).
But the Trump administration’s apparent demand for a wall with style is only one of the oddities that has arisen in planning for the massive project, estimated to cost as much as $21.6 billion and cross hundreds of miles.
The rush for raising the wall has veteran contracting officers comparing the process to the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan, multibillion-dollar efforts widely considered failures because of poor planning.
“This isn’t normal,” said Steven L. Schooner, a professor of government contracting at George Washington University. “This is shoot first, aim later.”
A CBP spokesman said the agency was “not in a position” to conduct an interview for this story.
The initial request, released with fanfare on Feb. 24, was not for building the actual wall, but for a prototype of a “total wall solution.”
The real bidding specifications — where the government would lay out details about the size, shape and construction of the wall — have yet to be announced. It’s not clear when they will be.
[Excerpted]
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-invites-bids-to-build-wall-cites-importance-of-aesthetics