Bill to streamline federal agency tech acquisition introduced in Senate

Composed by

John Hewitt Jones
Jul 27, 2022 | FEDSCOOP

Senate lawmakers released a new bipartisan bill intended to make improvements to agile technological know-how acquisition in the federal federal government. 

Senate Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, Wednesday launched the AGILE Procurement Act.

The legislation would demand the Office of Management and Budget’s Office environment of Federal Procurement Policy and the Typical Products and services Administration to streamline the means of the federal governing administration to acquire industrial technology and to provide particular education for IT and communications tech acquisition.

It also marks the most recent try by Senate lawmakers to go regulations to mandate the upskilling of the federal federal government acquisition workforce. Previous yr, lawmakers in the chamber handed a bipartisan bill designed to boost federal employees’ knowing of the threats and alternatives introduced by synthetic intelligence, though the legislation has however to be state-of-the-art by the Dwelling.

If the AGILE Procurement Act moves forward, it would supply a pilot program to carry additional junior and mid-career specialists into federal procurement from other fields, including the navy. It would would also build a doing work team to decrease obstacles for federal contractors.

In addition, the bill is meant to facilitate the governmentwide expansion of an present DOD plan that incentivizes personnel inventory ownership strategies between federal contractors.

Commenting on the proposed legislation, Sen. Peters claimed: “Recent technological breakthroughs have tremendously improved the federal government’s will need to get new systems and keep capable procurement professionals to effectively provide taxpayers.” He extra: “This bipartisan laws will make sure corporations are able to give ground breaking alternatives to the federal government’s most pressing worries and can compete on a degree participating in discipline to gain federal contracts.” 

Sen. Ernst extra: “The federal governing administration should really be centered on recruiting and retaining qualified procurement specialists within our govt businesses, not throwing away federal bucks on outsourcing function to high priced govt contractors.” She explained: “By redirecting attempts to receive the correctly geared up specialists and eradicating purple-tape on significant-tech small businesses, we will see a much more efficient and less pricey implementation of our state-of-the-art engineering plans.”

The laws is supported by trade teams which include the Association of Procurement Technological Support Centers, the Info Technologies Marketplace Council, GovEvolve, HUBZone Contractors Nationwide Council, Women’s Procurement Circle and Gals Veterans Business Coalition.

Editor’s take note: This tale was updated to explain that the legislation would extend an current DOD program to incentivize staff inventory possession strategies among federal contractors.