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bob7947

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Posts posted by bob7947

  1. We are blessed with so much information at our fingertips now.  As President Eisenhower read his address, I noticed him looking at something to his right.  I wondered if he was using a Teleprompter.  Here is the answer from wikipedia.org -

    "On January 4, 1954, Dwight Eisenhower was the first President to use a teleprompter for a State of the Union address. Jess Oppenheimer, who created I Love Lucy and served for its first five years as its producer and head writer, developed the first "in-the-lens" prompter and was awarded U.S. patents for its creation."

    So, he may have been using a Teleprompter.

    Then I began wondering if President Eisenhower added his own personal notes and changes to his transcript.  Was there something he felt was important enough to change?  We have that too.

    President Eisenhower's Annotated Farewell Address

     

     

  2. This morning, I was introducing someone to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning about the "Military Industrial Complex."  The warning was given on January 17, 1961 in President Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation.  The quote above was also from the address and deals with research.

    I've never listened to the address before today.  That was my mistake.  The address lasts about 16 minutes and it is important.

  3. I thouught the lead-in to this COFC opinion was amusing.  

    Seventh Dimension LLC v. U. S., No. 21-2275C, May 11, 2022.

    "This case requires the Court to answer the question of whether, and under what circumstances, the government may cancel a Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) part 15 procurement and start over from scratch. The facts are reminiscent of “a game of Lucy and the football from the world of Charles Schulz. Plaintiff, Seventh Dimension, LLC — after successfully achieving its desired outcome in two successive protests — was the last offeror standing in this contractor edition of Survivor. Although Seventh Dimension’s proposal was highly rated, and offered a competitive price, Defendant, the United States — acting by and through the U.S. Department of the Army, Special Operations Command (the “Army” or “USASOC”) — decided to pull the plug on the show, cancelling the procurement following a two-year process. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1491(b), Seventh Dimension challenges the Army’s decision to cancel the solicitation for Army Special Operations Forces (“ARSOF”) training support as arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law. The parties filed cross-motions for judgment on the administrative record pursuant to Rule 52.1 of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC”)."

  4. On the Home Page, I post only the Federal Acquisition Regulation requests for information because they are used in comments for the FAR.  From memory, DoD posts the most requests for information but since they are one Department I do not add requests on their supplements.

  5. Everyone:

    I've locked this topic, not because of any post in this topic, but because of the reality of the last several posts.

    I will be 73 years of age in a few months.  Other regulars are older than I am.   Because I am writing this, it means that the update of the Home Page is being delayed because I am the one who does it.  I will be up late again.

    Don't worry about me.  I don't do much around here.  But others do and they all have been contributing to this community for many years.  

    I want to thank all the contributors for the efforts they make here  This site, with all of its current flaws, was created in 1998 with one purpose--to help other members of the contracting community by gaining knowledge.  You have done that!

    If you believe in something, you cannot quit because we're not done yet.

    Thank you.

     

  6. Whenever I see Carl Vinson, I think of P.L. 87-653.  Others may call it The Truth in Negotiations Act or TINA.  If you are old enough, you may, like me, refer to it as 87-653.   In searching for news tonight, I found the article on the USS Carl Vinson.  It is about the 40th commissioning anniversary of the Vinson on March 13.

    Since Carl Vinson was instrumental in 87-653's enactment, I felt it important to post it.   

  7. There are around 500 max planes flying now.  To my knowledge, none crashed since they were allowed to fly again.  However, the damage is done in consumers' minds.

    Boeing decided on development of a software program that took the controls of the Max out of the pilots' hands and sent the pilots--and passengers--on a series of 10-second roller coaster rides until the pilots were unable to compensate for the faulty progam and crashed into the ground at over 500 mph.  Boeing was at fault.  The FAA approved the MAX and MCAS as it was originally set up.  The FAA is at fault and someone needs to evaluate how FAA conducts tests.  No crash test dummies need apply.

    The European Union Aviation Safety Agency put the Max with the larger engines through its paces even without MCAS on and it was stable during the tests.

    Boeing and FAA failed all of us because they gave Communist China the opportunity to be the first country to ground the Max after the two crashes.  They didn't enjoy that much, I'm sure.

  8. I found a new report that is hot off the press.  It is called:  DoD: State of Competition within the Defense Industrial Base.

    It was announced at the White House today in a Fact Sheet entitled:  Department of Defense Releases New Report on Safeguarding our National Security by Promoting Competition in the Defense Industrial Base.

    In the report something called a Procurement Business Intelligence Service Competition Analysis Scorecard may exist somewhere in DoD.  I found it mentioned at p. 3 of the DoD report.  I found this toolbox (I'm sure you know how much I love the term scorecards and toolboxes.)

    The first contracting law that I found was in 1792.  Since then there have been many perfections to the process by law, regulation, etc.  What we have is Procurement Process Perfection Proliferation or pee-pees for short.  (If I say pee-pees out loud my dogs will want to go outside and do something.)

  9. 1 hour ago, Don Mansfield said:

    One summer when I was in college, I worked at Brookhaven National Laboratory. It is a DOE lab that was run by an M&O contractor (Batelle) at the time. I never figured out exactly what my job responsibilities were, but I was part of a "crew" that spent a lot of time in a warehouse reading the newspaper and playing cards. We were once called on to ride out to the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) and remove some trash in the form of a broken down steel structure. When we left, the driver passed the road to the dump instead of turning. I asked where we were going. He said "we need to find out if this stuff is radioactive." I asked "what if it is?" "Well, then we'll have to go to medical" he said. "What will they do?" I asked. "They'll have to scrub off the first layer of skin" he said.

    Luckily the stuff wasn't radioactive.

    Good times.

    One of my colleagues wouldn't walk off the paved roadway at Rocky Flats because he feared it was contaminated and we weren't wearing dosimeters.  I was strolling around Oak Ridge after work once and ran into a creek with the radioactive sign.  That was it for that stroll.

  10. This is my third and last post on this subject.  I'll try and make this one short.  Again this was during the 1990s and my first involvement with M&O contracts.  The first thing I did was order a computer run showing DOE's contracts that included, among other things, all the obligations by date to all contracts.  Nothing extraordinary except that DOE was dumping funds in its M&O contracts at the end of the fiscal year.  Of course, unobligated amounts is what Congress looks at.

    I've hightlighted the "commonly recognized indicators for" M&O use.  Let me expand on those a bit:

    • broad statement of work.  The statement of work tells one next to nothing because actual work is sent to the M&Os by task.
    • requirement is continuing with no foreseeable end.  At least one M&O contract had an award date in the 1940s and others were not much younger.
    • The contractor’s workforce is large, remaining at the site despite change of contractors.
    • The contractor must link its accounting system with the Department’s, and integrate its budget process with the Department’s.

    They don't mention another feature. 

    • M&O's are funded with no-year funds.

    Now, sit back and think about this.  Are we really talking about contractors or government regional offices?  That is one thing that always bothered me. 

    Then we were invited to a meeting where DOE explained its accounting system that included the integration of M&O contracts.  It was great.  One could see everything.  The M&O work was coded by task numbers and a new feature that went beyond obligated and unobligated funds.  This was costed obligations (spent funds) and uncosted obligations (unspent funds).  Everything fell into place.  By the end of the DOE meeting, I was squirming in my seat because the uncosted obligations totaled about 80% of DOE's annual budget or about $12 billion.  That was when a billion dollars was a lot of money.  Of course, I orderd one of those computer runs and all the task order codes.

    Then the fun began.   DOE could hide appropriated no-year funds from Congress by obligating it to M&O contracts since they can last for decades.  Once with an M&O, the funds disappeared from Congress's view but was still visible in DOE's financial system.  All that was left for us was proving that DOE could give some of that $12 biillion back to the Treasury.  What to do?  Simple, look for dead programs that continue to be funded and have uncosted obligations.  We found some of those and it was time for a field trip.  One M&O accountant explained that the M&O didn't need the DOE funds because the program was dead but held the funds in reserve.  Another M&O program manager pointed to an empty field and explained that was where the building would have been before the program was killed but the funds remained as uncosted abligations.  When we talked to a DOE Area Office Manager, he said something like "We were wondering when GAO would finally find out about uncosted obligations."  Congress reduced DOE's budget by about $4 billion the next fiscal year.  Now, DOE must submit bith its regular budget request a report on its uncosted obligations.

    That was the end of my work with M&O contracts.  I moved on to the IRS and annoyed them about task order contracts.  From there I retired.

    Quote

    1. Generally, the contractor assumes multi-program scientific and technical responsibilities and work under a broad statement of work.

    2. The requirement is continuing with no foreseeable end.

    3. The contractor is responsible for integration of scientific and technical and infrastructure functions.

    4. The contractor performs the substantial portion of scientific and technical responsibilities with its own workforce.

    5. The contractor’s workforce is large, remaining at the site despite change of contractors. This results in the need for DOE to assume stewardship of employee relations and workplace labor conditions.

    6. DOE oversees security, health, and safety at the site.

    7. Work takes place at very large, Government-owned reservations and facilities.

    8. DOE requires the successful offeror to form a corporate entity specifically for and dedicated to the performance of the DOE M&O contract. The contactor may accept work only directly from DOE or as allowed specifically under the M&O contract.

    9. The contractor must link its accounting system with the Department’s, and integrate its budget process with the Department’s; usually the budgets for M&O contracts are line items in the Department’s budget.

     

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