Insights

On January 11, 2024, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) focused on building a modernized industrial ecosystem that provides a sustained competitive advantage to the US over its adversaries.  Specifically, the NDIS provides a strategic framework to guide the DoD’s engagement, policy development, and investment in the industrial base over the next three to five years.  As part of this investment strategy, the NDIS highlights several investment tools and opportunities that DoD is already using to spur growth and innovation in key industries.

On January 9, 2024, the FAR Council issued a proposed rule, seeking to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) in order to enhance consistency and alignment between the suspension and debarment procedures in the FAR and in the Nonprocurement Common Rule (NCR) system (contained in 2 CFR Part 180).  The FAR and NCR are two separate suspension and debarment regulatory regimes, with the former governing procurement matters and the latter governing grants, cooperative agreements, contracts of assistance, and loan guarantees.  While these suspension and debarment regimes are similar, the proposed rule would remove some differences—definitional and procedural—between the FAR and NCR.  

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, signed into law on December 22, 2023, makes numerous changes to acquisition policy. Crowell & Moring’s Government Contracts Group discusses the most consequential changes for government contractors here. These include changes that impose a new conflict of interest regime for government contractors with a connection to China, impose new restrictions and requirements, require government reporting to Congress on acquisition authorities and programs, and alter other processes and procedures to which government contractors are subject. The FY 2024 NDAA also includes the Federal Data Center Enhancement Act, the American Security Drone Act, and the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2024.