Inflection Point for IoT

In a relatively short amount of time, the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications — from smart cars to the myriad of interconnected sensors in the General Service Administration building reminiscent of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey — has rapidly proliferated, providing significant opportunities and benefits. However, the increased ubiquity of IoT comes with heightened risks to security, privacy and physical safety and without a standardized set of cybersecurity requirements, many IoT devices and systems are vulnerable to attack. Earlier this month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (through the Interagency International Cybersecurity Standardization Working Group (IICS WG)) released a draft report to help both federal agencies and private companies plan and develop cybersecurity standards in their use and production of IoT components, products, systems and services. The draft report stresses the importance of coordination across the private and public sectors in developing standards to bolster the security and resilience of IoT, provides a snapshot of current international cybersecurity standards, and offers recommendations for gap-filling.Continue Reading Latest NIST Draft Report a Call to Action for Federal Agencies and Private Companies

Last week, President Donald Trump released his long-awaited infrastructure plan, entitled a “Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America.”  Clocking-in at 53 pages, this plan is designed to “stimulate at least $1.5 trillion in new investment over the next 10 years” through $200 billion of federal funding.  The infrastructure plan is intended to provide a “roadmap for the Congress to draft and pass the most comprehensive infrastructure bill in our Nation’s history.”  Our high-level key takeaways from that plan are discussed below.
Continue Reading Key Takeaways from Trump’s Infrastructure Plan—Private Financing And A Capital Budget, But No “Buy American” Requirements?

On February 7, the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded REAN Cloud a contract valued at up to $950 million to work with defense agencies to migrate existing applications to commercial cloud solutions. The award is of significant relevance to efforts currently underway in connection with the upcoming DoD Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure—or “JEDI”—procurement. However, the award is also important in a broader context in that it was issued as a follow-on production contract to an “other transaction” (OT) prototype agreement awarded on an expedited basis by DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental organization (DIUx). The award, therefore, reflects DoD’s increased comfort with issuing high-value production contracts following preliminary work with DIUx under OT prototype agreements.
Continue Reading DIUx and DoD Other Transaction Prototype Agreements: The Fast Track to DoD Funding

On January 31, 2018, the Department of Defense (“DoD” or the “Department”) published a final rule regarding commercial item purchasing requirements.  Among other key amendments, the final rule modifies the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) by:  (i) formalizing a presumption of commerciality for items that DoD previously treated as commercial; (ii) providing commercial item treatment to goods and services offered by nontraditional defense contractors; and (iii) prioritizing the types of information that the contracting officer (“CO”) can consider when determining price reasonableness in the absence of adequate competition.

The final rule adopts much of DoD’s August 2016 proposed rule, which itself was a revised version of a retracted August 2015 proposed version.  We discussed the August 2016 proposed rule on this subject (and linked to an article regarding the August 2015 version) in a prior post.  Despite receiving repeated input from industry and Congress, DoD’s final rule still provides little concrete guidance, and although these changes were made with the stated purpose of promoting consistency across purchasing components, it appears likely that inconsistencies will persist.  In particular, the final rule continues to leave the door open for individual contracting officers to make potentially burdensome requests for information to support the proposed pricing of commercial items.
Continue Reading Third Time Around: Inconsistencies Persist with Final DFARS Commercial Items Rule

On February 1, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued 1,000 corporate scheduling announcement letters (CSALs) to federal contractors, a move that suggests a renewed emphasis on the agency’s enforcement of anti-discrimination and affirmative action employment laws. CSALs are informal notices that precede the official initiation of an OFCCP compliance evaluation, but the issuance of these letters serves as both a sign of OFCCP’s enforcement posture under the Trump administration and a call to action for the contractor establishments that receive these notifications.
Continue Reading Incoming! Issuance of 1,000 Notifications Portends Ramp-Up of OFCCP Enforcement Activity

During his first State of the Union address on January 30, 2018, President Trump informed the country that “it is time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.”  He called on Congress to “produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.”  And, the President suggested that “every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment — to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.”

The President’s full infrastructure plan has yet to be unveiled, but a leaked summary of the plan from January 22 suggests that the plan will heavily depend upon encouraging “state, local and private investment” by providing incentives in the forms of grants.  Fixing federal infrastructure may be made difficult, however, due to the budgetary scoring rules implemented by the Office of Management & Budget (“OMB”).
Continue Reading Will President Trump’s Infrastructure Plan Address OMB Scoring?

On January 9, 2018, Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued Class Deviation 2018-O0009, designed to reduce barriers to entry for innovative entities through streamlining the awards process for research and development contracts. This Class Deviation allows for the use of simplified acquisition procedures and excuses certain procurement obligations when DoD…
Continue Reading DoD Implements Streamlining Awards for Innovative Technology Projects

Federal contractors may be subject to a slate of new regulations in 2018, including rules that increase cyber reporting burdens, expand small business competition, and change the procedures for competitively awarding IDIQ contracts.

Among the proposed rules, announced in the Semiannual Regulatory Agenda of the FAR Council and the General Services Administration (“GSA”), are changes that would affect nearly every segment of the government contracts industry.  Although some of the rules may simplify the burdens on contractors, most come with enhanced compliance obligations, particularly with respect to data security and cyber incidents.Continue Reading Changes Coming to the FAR: Government Proposes New Rules on Data Breaches, Cost Evaluation of IDIQ Proposals, and Overseas Small Business Contracting

The U.S. Government has recently taken a number of steps to reinvigorate its support of medical countermeasure development. In particular, by pursuing new methods of contracting, updating regulatory frameworks, and establishing additional incentives for capital investment, the U.S. Government has confirmed that countermeasure development remains a critical component of public health preparedness.

Now, over the past two weeks, a two-part congressional hearing has suggested that recent efforts may soon be accompanied by key legislative changes, including much needed funding authorizations and incentives. As a result, the upcoming reauthorization of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (“PAHPA”), and its prior reauthorization, may present a critical opportunity to continue to improve public-private relationships in countermeasure development.

Continue Reading Recent Support of Countermeasure Development Poised to Continue in Reauthorization of PAHPA

On January 19, 2018, FDA announced the availability of a new draft guidance, titled “Material Threat Medical Countermeasure Priority Review Vouchers.” FDA’s publication of the draft guidance, which was issued by FDA’s Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats (OCET) without a statutory mandate – reflects the commitment of FDA leadership to the development and approval of medical countermeasures (MCMs). In a question and answer format, FDA provides details about the Agency’s interpretation and implementation of the MCM priority review voucher (PRV) program, which was established in December 2016 by the 21st Century Cures Act (Section 565A of the Federal Food Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act)). That provision, intended to incentivize the development of MCMs, requires FDA to award a PRV to the sponsor of a successful marketing application that meets certain statutory criteria.
Continue Reading FDA Commitment to MCM Development Reflected in New Draft Guidance on Medical Countermeasure Priority Review Vouchers