Defense Bill Would Shed Light on Bundling The Defense Department would be required to give public notice before bundling contracts under the final Defense authorization bill pending in the Senate. A House-Senate conference committee completed action on the final version of the 1,500-page bill. The House approved it on Oct. 8. It calls for DOD to publish a notice on FedBizOpps 30 days before issuing a solicitation for a bundled contract. The bill is an annual catch-all for procurement policy changes large and small. This year’s crop: Sole-source contracts. The bill requires all federal agencies to provide a written, public justification and approval for sole-source awards above $20 million. IT acquisition. A number of changes are designed to speed the development and hold down the cost of IT systems. The conference report says, “The DOD process for acquiring new IT systems is often too slow, given the frequency at which changes and upgrades of these systems are needed.” The overhaul adopts recommendations by the Defense Science Board. Acquisition workforce. Initiatives to increase and improve the acquisition workforce include expansion of the expedited hiring authority for those jobs; authorization to increase spending on the Acquisition Development Workforce Fund; and elimination of the limits on the number of civilian personnel that can be hired for DOD acquisition work. The conference report endorsed Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s plan to hire 9,000 new acquisition workers and to convert 11,000 contractor jobs to DOD civilian positions. Job competitions. The bill extends the ban on public-private job competitions by DOD. Ethics. The bill directs the Panel on Contracting Integrity, which was created in the 2007 Defense authorization act, to review revolving door policies. It clarifies that suspension or debarment makes a company ineligible for subcontracts as well as prime contracts.