Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

Taskforce on the supply chain will make recommendations for 2022 NDAA

By

In the three months leading up to the year’s biggest defense bill, a group of representatives plan to come up with ways Congress can change the law to better the nation’s most important supply chains.

The Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force is a bipartisan effort created by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.).  It’s comprised of eight lawmakers and co-headed by Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.).

The task force will finish up around June with a report and recommendations for bettering the means of production.

During a Wednesday roundtable with reporters, Slotkin said the lack of masks and other protective equipment during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic showed the weaknesses in the United States’ supply chain.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

NDAA for fiscal year 2021 includes numerous provisions impacting government contractors

By

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 (Pub. L. No. 116-283) was enacted into law on January 1, 2021, when the Senate voted to override President Trump’s veto of the bill.  The Senate’s move, the final step in the legislative process, followed the House’s earlier vote to override President Trump’s veto in December 2020.

The FY21 NDAA sets funding levels and outlines policy priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD).  It also addresses many areas of importance to government contractors, including acquisition policy and management, supply chain and industrial base matters, and small business issues.  The final version of the NDAA produced by negotiators on the Conference Committee included provisions from earlier House and Senate versions, which [Wiley] summarized in an earlier article.

This article includes [Wiley’s] annual summary, by topic, of the most relevant provisions of the FY21 NDAA for government contractors.  As detailed below, some of the provisions from the earlier House and Senate versions of the NDAA that [Wiley] highlighted in [its] previous article were not accepted into the final version.  As [Wiley] previously summarized, the NDAA also includes numerous provisions addressing cybersecurity and artificial intelligence policies with ramifications far beyond DOD, including implementing recommendations from the Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s 2020 Report.

Continue reading at:  Wiley

Key provisions you should know from FY 2021 NDAA

By

On January 1, 2021, Congress passed the Fiscal Year (“FY”) 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (“NDAA”) (the “Act”), Pub. L. No. 116-283.  The $740 billion defense bill establishes funding levels for United States Department of Defense (“DOD”) activities for the fiscal year (running through September 30, 2021).  While the bill includes nearly 1500 pages, you can read a summary here of select provisions of the Act in three categories: (1) generally noteworthy for government contractors, (2) supply chain security, and (3) semiconductor incentives.

Read the summary document here.

SBA interim final rule allows certain 8(a) program participants to extend participation for one year

By

On January 13, 2021, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued an interim final rule (effective immediately) to allow certain 8(a) Business Development (BD) program (the “program”) participants to extend their program term by a period of one year.  The interim rule implements a provision in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, which permits businesses that were in the program on or before September 9, 2020, to extend their participation in the program for a period of one year.

Continue reading at:  Pillsbury

See also related article at Bradley’s Buildsmart blog.

DoD’s squeeze of Chinese telecom equipment continues

By

At the end of 2019, the Department of Defense (“DoD”) took another step to limit the potential cyber risks posed by telecommunications equipment manufactured by Chinese companies (and potentially Russian ones too).  We previously have blogged on this topic here, here, here, here, here, and here, noting developments both in terms of general, government-wide regulations through the FAR Council, and those specifically emanating from DoD.  On December 31, 2019, DoD issued a Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) interim rule to further implement parts of the 2018 and 2019 National Defense Authorization Acts (“NDAA”).

Continue reading at:  Government Contracting and Investigations Blog

NDAA requires Contracting Officers to provide information to unsuccessful offerors for task and delivery orders valued under $5.5 million

By

The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has long been used to impose government-wide procurement reforms.  The recently enacted NDAA, signed by President Trump on December 20, 2019, continues this practice, by requiring agencies to provide unsuccessful offerors on smaller dollar task or delivery orders above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold an explanation as to why their proposal was unsuccessful as well as the rationale for the award.

Currently, agencies are not required to provide debriefings to unsuccessful offerors on FAR Part 16 task or delivery orders smaller than $5.5 million, leaving many contractors with no explanation as to why their offers were not successful.  Section 874 of the FY 2020 NDAA requires that Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 16.505(b)(6) be amended to provide that, upon request by an unsuccessful offeror, the Contracting Officer on a contract above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold and less than $5.5 million shall “provide a brief explanation as to why such offeror was unsuccessful that includes a summary of the rationale for the award and an evaluation of the significant weak or deficient factors in the offeror’s offer.”

Continue reading at:  Pillsbury

What the Fair Chance Act means for government contractors

By

The “Fair Chance Act” was signed into law as 2019 came to a close, just one part of the National Defense Authorization Act.  It prohibits federal contractors that have openings for positions within the scope of federal contracts, as well as all federal agencies, from inquiring about or otherwise seeking criminal history information from an applicant until after a conditional job offer has been extended.

The Act won’t actually go into effect until December 20, 2021, but it could change the hiring process for some contractors.  It “bans the box,” which means that federal contractors would be prohibited from asking applicants about their criminal histories until a contractor extends a conditional job offer.  Moreover, it prohibits contractors from even seeking any information about criminal activities from other sources.

Continue reading at:  Clearance Jobs

The FY 2020 NDAA – What the defense contracting community needs to know

By

On December 20, 2019, President Trump signed the fiscal year 2020 (FY20) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law (Pub. L. 116-92).  The NDAA, Congress’ annual defense policy bill, is a critical piece of legislation for the contracting community because it provides the funding authority for programs and activities of the Department of Defense (DoD), the largest procurer of goods and services within the US government.  In addition, the NDAA is a vehicle for encouraging in some cases, and requiring in others, changes to both DoD and government-wide procurement practices.  Therefore, it is critical for the contracting community to understand the provisions of the enacted NDAA.

Budget/Funding

The NDAA provides $738 billion in topline funding for the DoD, defense-related programs of the Department of Energy, and defense-related activities of other federal agencies, with a base budget of nearly $660 billion and an additional $71.5 billion in funding for overseas contingency operations.  In total, the FY20 NDAA authorizes an increase of nearly $25 billion in national defense topline funding in comparison to the FY19 NDAA.

Continue reading at:  Dentons

DoD issues final rule restricting the use of LPTA procurements

By

Effective October 1, 2019, a new rule issued by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) amends the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to limit the use of lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) procurements.  In December 2018, we highlighted the DOD’s proposed rule limiting LPTA procurements.  The final version of that rule, published on Thursday, September 26, 2019, is, as of October 1, 2019, found at section 215.101-2-70 of the DFARS.  As our earlier analysis concluded, this amendment to the DFARS significantly restricts DOD’s ability to favor low-cost options over technical superiority.

Continue reading at:  Perkins Coie

Regulatory change intended to discourage the use of LPTA procurements is coming

By

The government contracting industry has spoken—and Congress listened.  In the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (2019 NDAA) Congress passed significant limitations on the use of Lowest-Priced, Technically-Acceptable (LPTA) source selection criteria, presumably intending to curtail this widely-used but generally unpopular procurement vehicle.  Section 880 of the 2019 NDAA includes the following policy statement: “It shall be the policy of the United States Government to avoid using lowest priced technically acceptable source selection criteria in circumstances that would deny the Government the benefits of cost and technical tradeoffs in the source selection process.”

So what does that mean?  Fortunately Congress clarified the limited set of circumstances in which an agency may use LPTA.

Continue reading at: Obermayer

Contracting News

Read More

Contracting Tips

Read More

GTPAC News

Read More

Georgia Tech News

Read More