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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle G—Other Matters

P. L. 114-

House Conference Report. 114-270

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment to revise the guidance required under the provision.
The conferees believe that the technical advisors described in the provision include contractors, federally funded research and development centers, university-affiliated research centers, non-profit entities, and federal laboratories that provide systems engineering and technical direction, participate in technical evaluations, support preparation of specifications or work statements, or otherwise provide technical advice to acquisition officials on the conduct of defense acquisition programs. The conferees further believe that "potentially unfair competitive advantage'' includes unequal access to acquisition officials responsible for award decisions or allocation of resources, or to acquisition information relevant to award decisions or allocation of resources.

In responding to this provision, the conferees expect the Secretary to review these definitions, as well as the efficacy of current conflict-of-interest policies, the use of non-
disclosure agreements, the application of appropriate regulations, and decisions to allocate resources through direct award of funds to intramural programs or sole-source task orders to entities that provide technical advice on defense programs versus open and competitive extramural solicitations. Based on the results of this review, the conferees expect the
Secretary to review and revise guidance to clarify these issues if necessary.

The conferees also expect the Secretary to develop metrics and processes for collecting and evaluating complaints and concerns relating to examples of the exploitation of unfair competitive advantage by technical advisors.

Senate Report 114-49 to accompany S. 1376 as it was reported out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Steps to identify and address potential unfair competitive advantage of technical advisors to acquisition officials (sec. 881)

The committee recommends a provision that would require the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics to issue guidance on identifying and addressing potential unfair competitive advantage of technical advisors to acquisition officials. Organizational conflict of interest and personal conflict of interest issues have been addressed for contractors in previous legislation. While it would be expected that the Undersecretary would review the implementation of these efforts, there has been a neglected aspect of potential conflicts raised when the Department of Defense uses federally funded research and development centers, other non-profit entities, or federal laboratories that provide technical advice on defense programs and subsequent work has been directed to these entities or their clients. The committee believes that the Department needs to ensure that the engineering and technical advice it is given is free from unmitigated potential conflicts of interest.