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Acquisition System Improvement Act (ASIA)
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In May 2005, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) re-introduced H.R. 2067, the Acquisition System Improvement Act (ASIA), legislation he had originally introduced in April 2004. Both times, the legislation was co-sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA).
There are four major provisions to this legislation, outlined below.
Government - Industry Exchange Program
This section of the legislation essentially calls for the creation of an acquisition professional exchange program to permit the exchange of high-performing acquisition professionals between the federal government and participating private-sector organizations with the expectation that each would gain beneficial insider knowledge to bring back to and share with their respective organizations. Excluded from participation in this program would be the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of an organization, and the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA).
An employee would be loaned at the request, or with the agreement, of his/her employer, and with the consent of the employee. The employee would not have a change in position. Eligible employees are:
working in the field of federal acquisition or acquisition management; considered exceptional performers by their current employer; expected to assume increased acquisition management responsibilities in the future employed at the GS-11 level or above (or equivalent) serving under a career or career-conditional appointment or an appointment of equivalent tenure in the excepted service.
Agencies that participate in this program must provide a written agreement between the agency and the employee concerned the terms and conditions of the employee's assignment. Agency employees must serve in the civil service upon completion of the assignment for a period equal to the length of the assignment. In the event the employee fails to carry out the agreement (in the absence of a good reason) the employee is liable for expenses of the assignment. Assignments may be terminated by the agency or private sector organization concerned for any reason at any time.
Assignments can last between 6 and 12 months and can be extended in 3-month increments for up to an additional year. An employee of an agency assigned to a private sector organization is considered to be on detail to a regular work assignment in his/her agency, and an employee of a private sector organization assigned to an agency is considered to be on detail to the agency.
Share in Savings Amendments
H.R. 2067 seeks to make permanent agency authority for entering into share-in-savings (SIS) contracts for information technology with respect to defense contracts and under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949.
Agency Acquisition Protests
The agency acquisition protests provision provides statutory authority for the agency-level acquisition protest process; in effect, it puts into statute the current regulatory agency process and adds a stay of performance that has heretofore not been included in the process. The provision provides that an interested party filing a protest with the Comptroller General within 5 days of the issuance of the agency protest decision would qualify for a stay of performance during the 20-working-day period an agency has to decide on the protest.
Use of Commercially Available Online Services for Federal Procurement of Commercial Items
This section outlines requirements for the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to be revised to include provisions that require agencies, to the maximum extent practicable, to use commercially available online procurement services to purchase commercial items, including those services that allow agencies to conduct reverse auctions. It also calls for a report, no later than a year after the revisions to the FAR are issued, by the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy to various committees on
the executive agencies that have used commercially available online procurement services and the number of times each has so used those services the types of commercially available online procurement services used by each executive agency and the dollar value of the procurements conducted through each type of commercially available online procurement service; and the Administrator's recommendations for further encouraging the use of commercially available online procurement services, particularly those that afford the federal government the opportunity to conduct reverse auctions.
ASIA also:
extends the deadline for the submission of a report of the Statutory and Regulatory Advisory Panel raises the threshold (to $550,000) required before executive agencies and contractors and subcontractors must use the cost accounting standards of the Cost Accounting Board in estimating, accumulating, and reporting costs in connection with negotiated prime contract and subcontract procurements enables the GSA Administrator to allow state and local governments to use GSA's Federal Supply Schedules for goods and services for defense against or recovery from terrorism or nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological attack provides uniform standards for contract financing consolidates the various agency boards of contract appeals.
On May 4, 2005, H.R. 2067 was referred to the Committee on Government Reform and to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
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