Congress | The Contracting Education Academy

September 10, 2020 By cs

CMMC auditors about to wrap up training

Highly anticipated audits related to the Pentagon’s new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification process are inching closer, with auditors assigned to evaluate companies expected to complete their training by the end of September, according to the official spearheading the initiative.

Industry has been waiting with bated breath for the audits as part of CMMC implementation, which is meant to protect defense industrial base networks and controlled unclassified information from cyberattacks. Contractors will be required to meet different levels of security — Level 1 being the lightest and Level 5 the most stringent — depending on the type of work they are performing. The new rules will require contractors to be certified by third-party auditors to ensure that companies are adhering to certain standards.

Katie Arrington, chief information security officer in the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment and the Defense Department’s point person on CMMC, said training for the first batch of auditors began Aug. 31.

“We’ll be starting to get some provisional assessors out into the marketplace very soon,” she said Sept. 2 during the Department of the Navy Gold Coast Small Business Procurement Event. The webinar was hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association. “Within a couple of weeks, we should have some capability out in the environment.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/9/2/cmmc-auditors-about-to-wrap-up-training

August 14, 2020 By cs

Changes to the CMMC Advisory Board as Congress turns up scrutiny of cyber standards

Less than two months after the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) advisory board became official, there’s already changes afoot.

Two original members of the advisory board have recently left. John Weiler, CEO of the IT Acquisition Advisory Committee (IT-ACC), and Jim Goepel, the CEO and general counsel for Fathom Cyber LLC, are no longer listed on the main board of directors section.

Goepel left for personal reasons, while Weiler decided to work with the CMMC AB in a new way.

The change comes as the Senate and House armed services committee members turn up the heat on the CMMC by adding nine provisions — six from the Senate — in the fiscal 2021 Defense authorization bill.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/08/changes-to-the-cmmc-advisory-board-as-congress-turns-up-scrutiny-of-cyber-standards/

February 14, 2020 By cs

A call to inaction on Defense acquisition law

The best thing Congress could do for a while is stop passing new legislation.

All of the defense-acquisition-reform legislation passed in recent years by Congress has been well-intentioned; some of it has also been helpful.

Various rapid acquisition and Other Transaction Authorities have helped speed new capabilities to the field. Other changes have helped protect the national security innovation base, shoring up the process by which the Treasury Department reviews foreign investments in U.S. manufacturers, countering Huawei’s dangers, and urging DoD to protect its supply chains. Still other provisions have usefully encouraged more commercial practices in DoD.

But too much recent legislation is burdensome beyond its benefits. The FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, contains over 3,400 pages of law and explanation of law. This act contains no provision as helpful as those listed above, and even repeals an earlier waiver authority designed to promote flexibility. It requires extensive reporting on costs and then directs GAO to do a report on these reports. It contains 77 provisions dedicated to acquisition policy – the third-highest number in 15 years. And yet the FY 2020 NDAA is hardly a recent outlier. On average, each of the last five NDAAs contained 79 acquisition provisions, up from an average of 47 over the decade before that.

It’s time for Congress to take a strategic pause in defense acquisition reform; in Hippocratic terms, to do no harm for a year or two.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/defense/2020/01/call-inaction-defense-acquisition-law/162662/

January 13, 2020 By cs

3 must-read acquisition provisions in the 2020 NDAA

After a long Congressional conference period the 2020 Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was finally signed into law, and with it come some changes to the defense acquisition process.

Federal News Network compiled three provisions that are particularly interesting regarding the procurement of military weapons.

These provisions involve intellectual property, middle-tier acquisition, and the establishment of a Defense Civilian Training Corps, and are summarized here:

The 2020 NDAA gives DoD more leeway in experimenting with that policy by creating a pilot program on intellectual property evaluation.
The middle-tier acquisition method allows for rapid prototyping and fielding within five years, as long as certain criteria are met.
The Defense Civilian Training Corps will train civilians for public service in the Department of Defense.

Read the complete Federal News Network article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/12/three-must-read-acquisition-provisions-in-the-2020-ndaa/

January 7, 2020 By cs

DoD releases long awaited policy on mid-tier acquisition

After three years and a serious reprimand from Congress, the Defense Department finally released its guidance for the processes governing middle-tier acquisition.

***Click on image above to download document.***

The Dec. 30, 2019 instruction, signed by defense acquisition and sustainment undersecretary Ellen Lord, gives DoD agencies direction for when and how to use middle-tier acquisition, and explains leadership responsibilities for the contracting method.

The DoD guidance, at least temporarily, allays concerns from Congress and the Government Accountability Office about unclear oversight of middle-tier acquisition.

The document doesn’t really tell readers much more than is already known about the process, but rather codifies the way DoD uses it, and then leaves a large part of the way the method is used up to the individual defense agencies.

DoD explains that the Defense Acquisition University will create a companion guide in the near future to expand upon the guidance.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/01/dod-releases-long-awaited-policy-on-mid-tier-acquisition/

Highly anticipated audits related to the Pentagon’s new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification process are inching closer, with auditors assigned to evaluate companies expected to complete their training by the end of September, according to the official spearheading the initiative.

Less than two months after the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) advisory board became official, there’s already changes afoot.

The best thing Congress could do for a while is stop passing new legislation.

After a long Congressional conference period the 2020 Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was finally signed into law, and with it come some changes to the defense acquisition process.

After three years and a serious reprimand from Congress, the Defense Department finally released its guidance for the processes governing middle-tier acquisition.

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