Congressional Interest in Acquisition Reform Growing

Reforming the Pentagon’s acquisition process will be central to defense budget negotiations in the House as authorizers gear up for subcommittee markups next week, Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, [R-CA] said Wednesday. Bipartisan concern about the skyrocketing costs of weapons systems appears to be growing, and could be about to touch off a new cycle of interest in defense acquisition reform on Capitol Hill.

Read the full article on GovExec.com: Armed Services chair eyes Pentagon acquisition process.

Report on Large Firms Scooping Small Business Contracts to be Released

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has ordered the U.S. Small Business Administration (USSBA) to release to the American Small Business League (ASBL) a draft report on the awarding of government contracts. The SBA report describes how large companies are improperly winning contracts in the Federal government’s $60-plus billion small business contracting program.

The Small Business Act of 1953 directs that at least 23% of federal government prime contracts go to small business, but a host of abuses and loopholes have allowed large companies to pick up contracts in this category. The SBA released an edited version of the report on December 28, 2004, acknowledging that small business contracts had gone to such “small businesses” as Raytheon Co., BAE Systems, Northrop Grumann Corp., Carlyle Group, Electronic Data Systems Corp., Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., and Buhrmann NV.

$24M for Joint Air Traffic Control System

Northrop Grumman PRB Systems in Hollywood, MD received a $24 million indefinite-delivery/ indefinite-quantity contract to design, develop, test, and field a single “joint service airspace management and Deconfliction network centric information service/system”. This battlespace management and air traffic control system is to be included in the force employment (Air and Space Operations Center Weapon System (AOC WS)) and/or be included in the mission capability package in the Joint Command and Control Capability resident on the global information grid. The Air Force can issue delivery orders totaling up to maximum amount indicated above, although actual requirements may not require the full amount. Solicitation began February 2005, negotiations were completed April 2005, and work will be complete by April 2011.

US DoD Buys Renewed Support for Red Hat Certificate Software

The department’s Defense Information Systems Agency has agreed to purchase subscriptions for Red Hat Certificate System software. The contract is a two-year deal with possible extensions. It permits the DoD to keep track of as many as 12 million certificates, and an optional extension could boost that to 38 million. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The software is used to issue digital credentials, called certificates, that help identify people and computing equipment such as workstations and network routers. The certificates are included in each Department of Defense (DoD) employee’s digital ID card, used to gain access to buildings or computers.

$15M for Architecture & Engineering at Naval Facilities

The Benham Companies Inc. in St. Louis, MO is being awarded a not to exceed $15 million firm-fixed price, indefinite-quantity contract with a guaranteed minimum of $5,000 for architectural design and engineering services at various locations in Europe, North Africa, Southwestern Asia, Iceland and the Azores. Work is expected to be complete by May 2006. This contract was competitively procured with 14 proposals solicited and 12 offers received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic, Norfolk, Va., issued the contract (N62470-05-D-1003).

SAIC Pays $2.5M to Settle Fraud Charges

Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) has agreed to pay the U.S. Air Force $2.5 million to settle allegations that it defrauded the government by padding the cost estimates to perform environmental clean-up work at the former Kelly Air Force Base. The Air Force had tapped SAIC in the late 1990s to clean up the base before the property was handed over to the Greater Kelly Development Authority for redevelopment. Kelly closed in 2001.