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It Is Big, It Is Quick, It Is Ugly, And It Is Waiting


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It is H. R. 6523, the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011. Congress thought so much of it that it finished the bill in about 7 days. It is at the White House waiting for a signature.

A major part of the bill is the Improve Acquisition Act which includes several sections on the Defense Acquisition Workforce. Also, there is at least one provision that will affect the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

Since there is no explanation for the bill from Congress in the form of a report, it is set up on Wifcon.com a bit differently from past years. To understand this legislation, I explained how it is set up here.

Here are the contents.

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Bob,

Thanks as always for creating this extremely useful resource for us all.

Section 806 is kind of a mind-blower, isn't it?

Also the Section on DCAA audits of contractor business systems creates some interesting issues for DCAA to deal with, in my view... I'm looking forward (NOT!) to seeing how the agency handles the legislative direction.

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Section 865 provides an example of how a defense authorization act can affect all federal agencies covered under the FAR. As you can see, the following excerpt from Section 865 directs the Secretary of Defense to evaluate the FAR--consulting with the Administrator of OFPP. It is up to the Secretary to "consult" other agencies he considers "appropriate." I assume it is written this way to work around any jurisdictional issue of the defense committees.

"The Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy and the heads of such other Federal agencies as the Secretary considers appropriate, shall review the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement to ensure that such regulations include appropriate guidance for and references to services acquisition that are in addition to references provided in part 37 and the Defense Supplement to part 37."

Remember, the House changed leadership. That filters down to any Committee and Subcommittee. When leadership of a Committee or Subcommittee occurs, the former majority staff, who may know what the legislation meant, are usually purged in the changeover and sent scurrying for a job. The former minority staff, some of whom are the new majority staff, might be able to help but they probably will be cautious.

If any part of ISNDAA is unclear as what to do, well, good luck.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 was pushed through the 111th Congress at its very end--on December 22, 2010. In January 2011, a document appeared on the Library of Congress website entitled: "Joint Explanatory Statement of the Senate and House Committees on Armed Services on H.R. 6523." This document is a good roadmap for Ike's Law. It has been added to the Wifcon.com analysis of the law's sections and additional explanatory information added. You can see it here.

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Did anybody else note the apparent incongruity between the intrusive SECTION 404--INDEPENDENCE OF CONTRACT AUDITS AND BUSINESS SYSTEM REVIEWS and the objective of SECTION 405--BLUE RIBBON PANEL ON ELIMINATING BARRIERS TO CONTRACTING WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE?

CC, the section to which you are referring is not part of the law. It was only in the House version of the bill. Please see section 893 of the final version. It will be interesting to see how DoD implements this section since DoD has had a proposed DFARS rule regarding contractor business systems on the street for almost a year now. Section 893 would appear to have a signficant impact on the draft rule.

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