GSA officials left many questions unanswered in their latest briefing on the new OASIS contract for IT and professional services. The briefing, at the GSA Expo in San Antonio, provided no guidance on the estimated number of awards or how small business participation would be achieved, according to consultant Larry Allen of Allen Federal Partners.

GSA plans to release a draft RFP later this summer.

The Defense Department won’t give up if Congress rejects its request for a Base Realignment and Closing Commission. Dorothy Robyn, deputy undersec-retary of Defense for installations and environment, told the newspaper Federal Times that Congress historically has rejected requests for a BRAC on the first try.

The House voted to prohibit DOD from planning a BRAC round in 2013 and opposition in the Senate is also strong. The Pentagon says it needs to shutter some bases as troop levels shrink under tighter budgets.

Joe Jordan is in. Acting with unaccustomed speed, the Senate confirmed Jordan as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy on May 24.

Jordan was SBA associate administrator for government contracting and business development for two-and-a-half years. Before joining the government he worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Co., an executive with an Internet startup and a television producer.

Correction: The May 18 story on Jordan’s confirmation hearing misidentified Alaska Sen. Mark Begich. He is a Democrat.

Jeffrey Neely is out. Neely, the Region 9 commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service, was the prime mover in the infamous $822,000 Las Vegas conference. GSA confirmed that he has left the agency, but did not give details.

Neely had been on administrative leave since April, when the GSA inspector general reported on the lavish spending and possible violations of law and regulations in the conference. The IG’s findings have been referred to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.

The Government Accountability Office found that China is the source of 70% of counterfeit parts sold to the Defense Department. But the chief Pentagon spokesman says the problem goes beyond any one country. Spokesman George Little told reporters, “I mean, the supply chain can have problems from any number of sources.”

In a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, GAO said, “The Chinese government has failed to take steps to stop counterfeiting operations that are carried out openly in that country.”

Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, the committee’s ranking minority member, said, “”The Department of Defense and its contractors must attack this problem more aggressively, particularly since counterfeiters are becoming better at shielding their dangerous fakes from detection.”

USAspending.gov has moved to the cloud. The website, which tracks federal contract and grant spending, was relaunched in April by contractor GCE with its Big Data and Analytics Cloud.

Ray Muslimani, GCE founder and CEO, said the move will save the government money and provide scalability to handle increasing demands for information. GCE operates USAspending.gov under contract with GSA.