Sec. 824. Increasing competition in defense contracting
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Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall issue guidance, including examples and templates where appropriate, on— when the Department of Defense should accept past performance on a wider range of projects, such as a requirement without much precedent, in order to have increased competition among eligible firms with capability to perform a requirement, by including commercial or non-government projects as relevant past performance for the purposes of awarding contracts or other agreements; a means by which the Department may validate non-government past performance references, including by requiring an official of an entity providing past performance references to attest to their authenticity and by providing verifiable contact information for the references; and using alternative methods of evaluation other than past performance that may be appropriate for a requirement without much precedent, such as demonstrations and testing of technologies as part of the proposal process for contracts or other awards of the Department.
The guidance issued under paragraph
(1)shall supplement existing Department of Defense policy and procedures for consideration of past performance and other evaluation factors and methods. Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall convene the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (in this section referred to as the Council ), to make recommendations to identify and eliminate specific, unnecessary procedural barriers that disproportionately affect the ability of small business concerns and nontraditional defense contractors, to compete for contracts with the Department of Defense, with a focus on streamlining documentation and qualification requirements unrelated to the protection of privacy and civil liberties. The Council shall obtain input from the public, including from the APEX Accelerators program (formerly known as Procurement Technical Assistance Center network) and other contractor representatives, to identify procurement policies and regulations that are obsolete, overly burdensome or restrictive, not adequately harmonized, or otherwise serve to create barriers to small business concerns and nontraditional defense contractors contracting with the Department or that unnecessarily increase bid and proposal costs. The Council shall consider the input obtained under paragraph
(2)and any other information determined to be relevant by the Council to identify legislative, regulatory, and other actions to increase competition and remove barriers to small business concerns and nontraditional defense contractors participating in the procurement process of the Department of Defense. Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall implement the regulatory and other non-legislative actions identified under paragraph (3), as determined necessary by the Secretary, to remove barriers to entry for small business concerns and nontraditional defense contractors seeking to participate in Department of Defense procurement. Not later than two years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives a briefing on the legislative actions identified under paragraph
(3)and the actions implemented under paragraph (4). The Secretary of Defense shall advocate for and prioritize contracting policies that ensure that cost-efficiency and quality of goods and services are key determining factors in awarding procurement contracts. In this section— the term nontraditional defense contractors has the meaning given such term in section 3014 of title 10, United States Code; and the term small business concern has the meaning given such term under section 3 of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 632 ).
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Sec. 824
Increasing competition in defense contracting
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