Professional Services Council Legislative Update Cate Benedetti Vice President of Government Relations Benedetti@PSCouncil.org August 2, 2017 1
PSC s Legislative Advocacy 2
115 th Congress: PSC priorities Demonstrate the Value of Government Contracting and Contractors: Establish policies that enable government to adopt a fair and balanced total workforce management approach that encompasses federal contractors Help Government Become a Smart Buyer and Improve Acquisition Outcomes: Promote an effective, streamlined, and competitive federal contracting system; and eliminate onerous compliance requirements that increase costs without improving performance or essential accountability Promote Technology and Innovation to Achieve Agency Mission Results: Improve information technology acquisition and address the national imperative for improved cybersecurity. Help PSC Members Build Workforces to Meet Future Government Missions: Establish balanced policies that improve effective government management of the total workforce Address the continuing issues with security clearances (backlogs, wait time, continuous monitoring and other process improvements) 3
National Defense Authorization Act Congress has passed an NDAA for 55 consecutive years. Status of the Fiscal Year 2018 NDAA: 14 July: House passes the NDAA by 344-81 vote 28 June: Senate Armed Services Committee reported the NDAA, awaiting full Senate floor consideration (as of 8/2/17) 4
PSC Supported Provisions in the House-passed FY18 NDAA Opens the door to third party audits to help DCAA address it s backlog (Sec. 802) Increases the Truth in Negotiations Act threshold (Sec. 803) Establishes a government-wide online marketplace for COTS products (Sec. 801) Requires DoD to define and measure Procurement Administrative Lead Times (Sec. 871) 5
PSC Opposed Provisions in the House-passed NDAA Imposes arbitrary caps on service contracts that ignore current realities at DoD and are simply unworkable (Sec. 870) Requires additional planning for service contract and imposes penalties for bridge contracts (Sec. 814) 6
PSC Supported Provisions in the Senate Committee-passed NDAA Repeals temporary prohibition on public-private competition (Sec. 801) Slightly increases the TINA threshold (Sec. 813) Requires outcome-base requirements for services contracts (Sec. 818) Initiates comprehensive debriefings and amends GAO protest timelines (Sec. 822) Reduces the LPTA reporting threshold (Sec. 825) Amends DCAA backlog reporting requirements (Sec. 894) 7
PSC Opposed Provisions in the Senate Committeepassed NDAA Imposes a Loser-Pay penalty for protests and withholds payments for incumbent protesters (Sec. 821) Requires contracting officers to account for certain violation of state and federal workplace laws, Fair Pay Safe Workplaces-lite (Sec. 830 and 831) Transfers security clearance authorities from NBIB to DoD (Sec. 938) 8
DoD s Legislative Recommendations On 3 July, DoD submitted a Legislative package to Congress with two PSC priorities: Would apply executive compensation reporting requirements only to companies subject to the Cost Accounting Standards. DoD: "Generally, executive compensation data is not used in making procurement decisions. Would raise the threshold for Service Contract Inventory Reporting Requirements. DoD: "Despite the good intention underlying this provision, the inventory process has produced limited value for the significant amount of effort required of contractors and related work required of agencies." 9
The Fiscal Environment The Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2015 set the discretionary spending caps for FY16 and FY17 above the levels of the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) Defense and non-defense spending remain independently capped by statute; one can t be cut to increase the other Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding is not BCA constrained BCA caps that apply to FY18-FY21 restrain growth, do not cut further but no one likes them Funding for federal agencies expires on 30 September and Congress must pass a funding bill to avoid a shut down 10
FY18 Appropriations in the House The House Appropriations Committee approved all 12 spending bills by 19 July The House passed an appropriations package or mini-bus on 27 July which includes the DoD, MilCon/VA, Legislative Branch and Energy/Water bills The $789 billion package included funding for covered federal agencies and includes $1.57 billion for a border wall Passed the House by a 235-192 vote 11
FY18 Appropriations in the Senate The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved 6 bills: MilCon/VA, Agriculture, Energy & Water, T-HUD, Commerce/Justice/Science and Legislative Branch No Senate floor action on any approved Appropriations bills (as of 8/2/13) Senate Majority Leader McConnell placed the House-passed mini-bus on the schedule, but consideration before the August recess appears unlikely 12
302(b) Allocations: The top line of the House allocations does not adhere to the BCA levels ($1.132 T) and the Senate s do ($1.070 T). Because of that, nine of the appropriations subcommittees have similar allocations in the House and Senate but some have major difference in spending levels, including: Bill House Senate Defense $584 $513 OCO $74 $82 Labor-HHS-Education $156 $164 State- Foreign Operations $35 $30 OCO $12 $6 13
September Deadlines Must-pass bills awaiting action when the House and Senate return from the August recess: A debt ceiling increase: Treasury Secretary says extraordinary measures will last through 29 September Expiring Program Reauthorizations: Federal Aviation Administration Food and Drug Administration user fee program Flood Insurance Program Appropriations: Congress has until the end of September to fund federal agencies or the government shuts down 14
PSC Priorities Moving Forward Promoting Value Based Procurement Act (H.R. 3019): To limit the misuse of LPTA at the civilian agencies Modernizing Government Technology (MGT/H.R. 2227) Act: To establish a dependable funding source for agencies to invest in IT modernization DHS Acquisition Package: Four bills to codify and strengthen a number of acquisition management and policy initiatives at the Department of Homeland Security -Senator McCain amendment on DHS bid protest reporting adopted in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee 15
PSC Priorities In Progress Security Clearance Reform Working to address backlogs, wait time, continuous monitoring, reciprocity, and other process improvements, with a goal of one application, one investigation, one adjudication and one clearance. Incremental Funding Working to limit this funding technique the requires significant administrative work by federal agency budgeting, accounting, and contracting teams and by the affected contractors teams while creating gaps in performance or increases in costs. Cyber Regulations Harmonization Working to require an annual compilation of the myriad of cybersecurity and intrusion reporting requirements imposed on contractors and making recommendations for consolidating such requirements where feasible. 16
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