Government offshore report becomes political hot potato

House Democrats want a Commerce Dept. report on the effects of outsourcing released

By Patrick Thibodeau

March 24, 2006 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - Democrats on the U.S. House Science Committee are demanding that the U.S. Department of Commerce release the complete version of a study that examined the impact of globalization and offshoring on U.S. jobs.

The $335,000 report, originally produced in 2004, didn’t surface until last fall -- and then only as a 12-page summary offered up by the Commerce Department. The full 200-page report has never been released and the summary was never made available electronically.

Earlier this month, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, (D-Tenn.), the Science Committee’s ranking Democrat, introduced a resolution requiring the Commerce Department to produce the complete report. Action by the committee on the request could come as early as next week, said one committee source.

The summary report, titled “Six-Month Assessment of Workforce Globalization in Certain Knowledge-Based Industries,” may contain useful information, believes Ron Hira, an assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, It is “the first and only government study” that could look at all private sector and government data in assembling its research, said Hira.

“I think it’s odd that they would try to cover up the study,” said Hira. “You would think that if we paid for this study we could at least see it.”

Commerce Department officials were not immediately available to comment.

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