Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

America’s depleted industrial base is a national security crisis

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address is most famous for its warning against the “unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex.  But Eisenhower also stressed the defense industry’s importance to the country’s security: After all, it helped the U.S. maintain superiority over its rivals, forestall great-power conflict and win the Cold War.

Six decades on, America’s military remains the most advanced in the world — but the industrial base supporting it has deteriorated.  Industry consolidation, domestic manufacturing decline, and dysfunctional federal budgeting have combined to reduce competition throughout the defense supply chain, eroding military readiness and potentially jeopardizing national security.

Continue reading at:  Bloomberg

DoD initiates CMMC review

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When the Defense Department confirmed that Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks decided to review the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program, initial reactions were mixed.

Some experts said this is a significant sign that the Biden administration wants to rethink major aspects of CMMC.

Others say it’s a perfunctory review and one any new administration would undertake given the importance of the program.  They say these reviews likely are happening across DoD.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

See also this article in FedScoop:  CMMC is under an internal DoD review

Potential FCA changes and enforcement priorities on the horizon

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On February 17, 2021, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Brian Boynton, Acting Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, provided opening remarks at the Federal Bar Association’s annual Qui Tam Conference.  Both emphasized the key role of the FCA in combating fraud against the Government and noted an anticipated increase in FCA enforcement actions in the coming years, particularly related to the Government’s pandemic response.  In addition, Senator Grassley offered a preview of potential legislative changes to the False Claims Act, and Boynton outlined DOJ’s enforcement priorities for the coming year.

Continue reading at:  Inside Government Contracts

US Army ready to roll out futuristic goggles to larger force

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After two years of development, the U.S. Army’s augmented-reality headset is headed for the big time.

The service announced on Tuesday a contract with Microsoft worth as much as $21.88 billion over the next ten years.  An Army statement said the award “transitions IVAS to production and rapid fielding to deliver next-generation night vision and situational awareness capabilities to the Close Combat Force.”  That’s at least 120,000 soldiers, AP reported. The contract is for ten years, with a five-year base and a five-year option.

Continue reading at:  Defense One

Matthew Travis hired as CMMC Accreditation Body CEO

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The third-party board implementing the Department of Defense‘s new cybersecurity standards for contractors finally has a CEO after months of searching.

Matthew Travis, a former deputy director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has been tapped to lead the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification Accreditation Body (CMMC-AB) — the organization tasked with overseeing the ecosystem of assessors who will inspect the IT networks of the 300,000 companies in the defense industrial base.

Travis will lead day-to-day operations of the CMMC-AB, a job that has largely been filled by the AB’s board of directors in the nearly 15 months since it was incorporated.

Continue reading at:  FedScoop

Company pays more than $315K to resolve allegations involving U.S. DBE program

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A highway construction company based in Summit County, Ohio has agreed to pay the United States $315,252.92 to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit claiming that the company violated the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program rules that are designed to encourage participation by women- and minority-owned businesses.

Continue reading at:  U.S. Department of Justice

How the defense industry survived — and thrived — during the pandemic

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U.S. Air Force leaders faced a dilemma.  The service needed a key raw material from Italy for one of its critical nuclear modernization programs.  But in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as industrial facilities shut down and transit between nations slowed, it was unclear how the material could reach the United States.

Air Force officials were so worried that they eventually authorized military aircraft to fly to Italy to pick up the remaining supply in person, averting an interruption in one of the nation’s most strategic weapons programs.

According to Will Roper, who led Air Force acquisition efforts under the Trump administration, the ordeal was one example of when the Pentagon had to make a “worst-case scenario call” to protect the U.S. military’s technological edge as COVID-19 threatened the defense-industrial base.  This sense of urgency would prove common over the next year.

As the pandemic spread, the reality of having a global supply chain that featured a number of small, sole-source suppliers, as well as an aging industrial workforce, collided into a calamity — one that threatened to irreparably damage the American defense industry.

Continue reading at:  DefenseNews

DUNS not “done” until spring 2022

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GSA has recently announced that the long-anticipated DUNS Number transition to the new Unique Entity ID (UEI) Standard has been pushed back to April 2022.

SmallGovCon first blogged on GSA’s intention to swap out the DUNS numbering system for the UEI Standard in July 2019.  They also “demystified” the DUNS-to-UEI-transition in a later blog, getting into a few of the details released in GSA’s Q&A on the topic.  As they explained, GSA initially anticipated a transition date of December 2020.  But clearly, that didn’t happen.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

OHA: Prime-subcontractor teams are different than Joint Ventures for size purposes

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The ostensible subcontractor rule says that, for a small business or socioeconomic set-aside such as 8(a), the small business prime contractor must perform the primary and vital parts of the contract and can’t be unduly reliant on a subcontractor.  If the small business is found to violate the rule, the size of the small prime contractor and the large subcontractor are grouped for size purposes, which can result in loss of award.  But the ostensible subcontractor rule is different from SBA’s joint venture rules because SBA rules (and other federal law) distinguish between a prime-sub team and a joint venture.  In a recent decision, OHA reversed a determination that a small business prime was affiliated with a subcontractor where the Area Office mixed up the analysis of the ostensible subcontractor rule and the joint venture rules.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

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