House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., proposes requiring the Government Accountability Office complete a report on federal agencies’ procurement of equipment from certain Chinese companies, or entities using such equipment, which was blacklisted in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019.
The NDAA currently under development for 2021 should require “a GAO report on the implementation of section 889 of the FY19 NDAA,” reads a recently released summary of the chairman’s proposed legislation.
The chairman’s mark also calls for a series of oversight mechanisms for the acquisitions process in general, including a thorough report to Congress on the Pentagon’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program.
Section 889 of the 2019 NDAA—which is set to take effect Aug. 13—is a pain point for many federal contractors. Some trade associations have written to House and Senate Armed Services leaders asking for a six-month extension for complying with the law. And in congressional testimony earlier this month, Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, also raised concerns it would have “unintended consequences” for the defense industrial base.
"The thought that somebody in six or seven levels down in the supply chain could have one camera in a parking lot, and that would invalidate one of our major primes being able to do business with us gi ..
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