House lawmakers are calling for a three-year ban on public-private job competitions at the Defense Department.

The 2009 Defense authorization bill, as passed by the House Armed Services Committee 61-0 on May 14, would halt competitions “to ensure that the services’ operations are fully met” while troops are fighting abroad and the department is reorganizing at home, the committee said in a news release today.

A bipartisan group of legislators is concerned that a draft bill overhauling the Food and Drug Administration could cripple the agency by imposing a vast new workload.

There will be a few changes in the way employees at intelligence agencies are evaluated and rewarded with pay raises, according to the intelligence community’s top personnel official, Ronald Sanders. Among those changes: