[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4999 Introduced in House (IH)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4999

    To ensure the effective and appropriate use of the Lowest Price 
            Technically Acceptable source selection process.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 20, 2016

Mr. Beyer (for himself and Mr. Wittman) introduced the following bill; 
         which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To ensure the effective and appropriate use of the Lowest Price 
            Technically Acceptable source selection process.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Promoting Value Based Defense 
Procurement Act''.

SEC. 2. STATEMENT OF POLICY.

    It shall be the policy of the Department of Defense to avoid using 
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection criteria in 
inappropriate circumstances that potentially deny the Department the 
benefits of cost and technical tradeoffs in the source selection 
process.

SEC. 3. REVISION OF DEFENSE FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SUPPLEMENT.

    For new solicitations issued on or after the date that is 120 days 
after the date of the enactment of this Act, Lowest Price Technically 
Acceptable source selection criteria shall be used only in situations 
in which--
            (1) the Department of Defense is able to comprehensively 
        and clearly describe the minimum requirements expressed in 
        terms of performance objectives, measures, and standards that 
        will be used to determine acceptability of offers;
            (2) the Department of Defense would realize no, or minimal, 
        value from a contract proposal exceeding the minimum technical 
        or performance requirements set forth in the Request for 
        Proposal;
            (3) the proposed technical approaches will require no, or 
        minimal, subjective judgment by the source selection authority 
        as to the desirability of one offeror's proposal versus a 
        competing proposal;
            (4) a review of technical proposals of offerors other than 
        the lowest bidder would result in no, or minimal, benefit to 
        the Department; and
            (5) the contracting officer has included a justification 
        for the use of a Lowest Price Technically Acceptable evaluation 
        methodology in the contract file, if the contract to be awarded 
        is predominately for the acquisition of information technology 
        services, systems engineering and technical assistance 
        services, or other knowledge-based professional services.

SEC. 4. AVOIDANCE OF USE OF LOWEST PRICE TECHNICALLY ACCEPTABLE SOURCE 
              SELECTION CRITERIA IN PROCUREMENTS OF INFORMATION 
              TECHNOLOGY AND AUDITING.

    To the maximum extent practicable, the use of Lowest Price 
Technically Acceptable source selection criteria shall be avoided when 
the procurement is predominately for the acquisition of information 
technology services, systems engineering and technical assistance 
services, audit or audit readiness services, or other knowledge-based 
professional services.

SEC. 5. REPORTING.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, and annually thereafter for 3 years, the Secretary of Defense 
shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the 
number of instances in which Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source 
selection criteria is used, including an explanation of how the 
criteria in section 2 was considered when making a determination to use 
Lowest Price Technically Acceptable source selection criteria.
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