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A ban on Chinese tech is on the books — are feds ready?

Federal agencies have less than a week to update their upcoming and in-process contracts to include provisions that prohibit telecommunications equipment or services — or components of equipment or services — that are produced by Huawei Technologies Company, ZTE Corporation, Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company or Dahua Technology Company.

The interim rule added to the Federal Acquisition Regulation Aug. 7 by the Department of Defense, General Services Administration and NASA notified agencies that they have until Aug. 13 to update their acquisitions to reflect the prohibition of products that are produced by companies with suspected links to the Chinese government.

The rule change is not unexpected, as the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act initially codified the prohibition on such acquisitions, but the new rule formally implements such requirements for federal agencies.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/08/08/a-ban-on-chinese-tech-is-on-the-books-are-feds-ready

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Money spent through OTAs surges to more than $4 billion

Other Transaction Agreements are an increasingly popular contracting tool, and they’re affecting overall government contracting numbers.

OTA purchases across the government surged from $2.3 billion in fiscal 2017 to over $4 billion in fiscal 2018.

The numbers come from the BGOV200, an annual ranking of the top 200 federal contractors created by Bloomberg Government.

“While multiple-award contracting is expected to dominate spending for years to come, agencies are also leveraging new acquisition methods to buy goods and services more quickly and easily in ways they haven’t before,” the report states.

The OTA authority, which was expanded by the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, allows agencies to sidestep the Federal Acquisition Regulation and work with innovative, small companies that don’t normally do business with the government.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/otas-contracting-fiscal-2018-bgov/

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New rule bans government purchase of Chinese telecom gear

Three departments in charge of federal purchasing policy have unveiled an interim rule amending Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to ban agencies from purchasing telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from five Chinese firms, including Huawei.

The interim rule from the General Services Administration, the Department of Defense and NASA took effect Aug. 13 and stems from a provision in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibiting federal agencies from purchasing telecommunications and video surveillance equipment, along with any “substantial or essential component of any system, or as critical technology as part of any system” from the Chinese tech firms or their affiliates. The regulation language will apply to all new contracts and procurements as well as existing indefinite delivery contracts, as well as options picked up for existing contracts.

While the NDAA does allow for the issuance of individual, one-time waivers to agencies, the rule requires contractors to identify as part of their offer any telecommunications equipment or services that will be provided to the government, including those provided by subcontractors. Acknowledging that such a rule could result in a heavy “information collection burden” on federal agencies, the three departments are updating the System for Award Management to allow contractors to disclose these parts and components on an annual basis.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2019/08/07/china-telecom-regulation-johnson.aspx?m=1

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Audit: Pentagon acquisition reform requires more leadership attention

The Defense Department has made progress implementing acquisition reforms in recent years, but leadership needs to pay more attention for meaningful change to take place, according to an audit released this week by the Government Accountability Office.

The audit was completed at the request of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, which sought to determine whether and how the Pentagon was handling numerous acquisition reforms included in the 2017 and 2018 National Defense Authorization Acts.

The answers are a mixed bag, according to GAO auditors.

On one hand, military departments have taken on a larger share of the decision-making authority for major multibillion-dollar, multiyear defense acquisitions since 2016. That year, the Office of the Secretary of Defense oversaw 30 major defense acquisition programs, compared to 58 overseen by military departments. As of March, OSD only oversaw nine major defense acquisition programs, while military departments oversaw 80.

OSD oversees only those programs that are high-risk, joint or had significant cost or schedule growth, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program or the Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense program.

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/policy/2019/06/audit-pentagon-acquisition-reform-requires-more-leadership-attention/157548/

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2019 NDAA analysis: Enhancing IDIQs and other provisions

Over the past several months, this blog has analyzed several key provisions of the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that impact government contractors. This post briefly summarizes a variety of other government contracts-related provisions of the FY 2019 NDAA that we have not yet discussed, including several that reflect a congressional intent to enhance the use of multiple-award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts and encourage commercial item contracting, several that concern subcontracting and supply-chain considerations, and assorted other issues.

Awarding IDIQ Contracts Without Considering Price to Increase Order-Level Competition.

Section 876 provides a limited exception to the general requirement in 41 U.S.C. § 3306 that agencies must include cost or price to the government as an evaluation factor in evaluating proposals. The exception applies to task-order contracts (i.e., IDIQ contracts) for services that are priced on the basis of hourly rates. Specifically, agencies need not consider price as an evaluation factor for such contracts if:

  1. the agency will award a base contract to every “qualifying offeror”—meaning a responsible source whose proposal conforms to solicitation requirements, meets all technical requirements, and is otherwise eligible for award; and
  2. the agency will consider cost or price to the government in competitions for individual task orders.

This provision applies to non-defense agencies. Defense agencies had previously been granted a similar exception in the FY 2017 NDAA. See 10 U.S.C. § 2305(a)(3)(C).

Congress’s goal, as evidenced by the title to section 876, is “Increasing Competition at the Task Order Level.” By awarding base IDIQ contracts to all compliant proposals, without discriminating between them based on price, agencies are likely to have more contract-holders available to compete for specific work at the task-order level. Use of this mechanism should reduce an important barrier to entry to many potential competitors—not holding the necessary IDIQ contract to compete for work solicited under task order solicitations—and, by increasing competition, could result in lower pricing and better technical offerings at the task order level.

 

 

Keep reading article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=810088

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