Defense Authorization Legislation Contains Major Contracting Reforms

The House and Senate have approved a sweeping set of acquisition reforms, some of which had been under consideration for the past two years. Provisions in the fiscal 2009 Defense authorization bill (S. 3001) would increase competition in contracting, tightening regulations on interagency procurements and mandate the establishment of a database to monitor companies that have faced criminal and civil actions. The House passed the bill 392-39 on September 24 and the Senate approved it on September 27. President Bush is expected to sign it soon. The bill would mandate a scaled-down version of the much-debated contractor misconduct database, which would house information on nearly all complete criminal, civil or administrative proceedings against contractors with awards in excess of $500,000. AGC and other industry groups opposed the provision, arguing that the information in the database might prove unreliable and should not be presented out of context. As a compromise, the provision's Democratic sponsors -- Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) -- agreed that only government officials would be granted access. The original bill would have opened the repository to the public. The authorization bill also contains pieces of Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) Clean Contracting Act, including a one-year limit on sole-source emergency procurements, a prohibition on excessive layering of subcontracts and a requirement for more competition for multiple award contracts. An AGC-supported provision addressing the depleted acquisition work force was included in the legislation as well.