What If . . . H. R. 170 - "The Domestic SUPPLY Act of 2023" Became Law

[bob7947]

I'm looking through all of the fine pieces of legislation that have been proposed by the U. S. House of Representatives in January.  I'll do the same for the U. S. Senate later.

I came across the proposed The Domestic SUPPLY Act of 2023.  Imagine you are a member of the FAR Councils.  What do you do with it if it is enacted into law?  It does refer to subsection (a)(2) of section 8302 of title 41.  Do you need to stick it in the FAR or HHSAR or what?

There are some terms such as Contractual Purchasing Agreements, Eligible Domestic Manufacturers, Qualified Personal Protective Equipment.  What do you do with them?  There are processes too.  What do you do with those?

[Vern Edwards]

2 hours ago, bob7947 said:

Imagine you are a member of the FAR Councils.  What do you do with it if it is enacted into law? 

I'm not sure who is in charge. HHS? Can they handle DOD and DHS?

The implementing regs should be short and relatively easy to write. Actual implementation is going to be the problem. The bill mandates cooperation among three cabinet level agencies, all of which already have a lot on their hands.

Unless I missed it, the law sets no deadline for implementation.

Being the HHS program manager might make or break someone's career.

Whoever it is is going to need a first rate contracting person.

 

 

 

[bob7947]

Vern:

The purpose of the bill is To direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . . .

It's clear that the author intended HHS to run this program.  Also see Section 2(e).  Then there is the and in coordination with . . .  .  In government, I think it is acceptable to let the other Secretaries know about the program and let them coordinate whatever that means.

From Section 2(a) the Secretary of HHS shall establish a program of entering into partnerships with eligible domestic manufacturers.  The word partership bothers me because I would feel that is different from a contractual relationship.  However, since partnership isn't defined I'm going to use contractual relationship and partnership as the same.

Next is 2(b) about the Contractual Purchasing Agreements.  We can substitue a contractual relationship that the government is currently using such as a BPA.  But then there is entering into contractual purchasing agreements with eligible domestic manufacturers to implement the partnerships.  It's clear that the author considers contracts to be a subset of partnerships.  That has to be cleared up with the author and the staff who wrote this thing.  I'd try to persuade them that they meant some type of multiple award IDIQ contracts.

2(c) is up to the offerors that want to be partners (multiple award IDIQ contractors).  If none do, well . . . .

Vern, you are correct, I don't see any changes to the FAR or HHSAR.  They would need a Program Director (or whoever HHS would call them now) to write up a little program statement.  Easy peasy.

The bill will probably die a quiet death in the House before the end of January.

By the way, I believe a new law authorized HHS to negotiate prices for Medicare drugs.  I wonder how that will go?  Yes, the Inflation Reduction Act made the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program.  Without reading the article yet, I wonder what effect this will have on VA's contracting program.