Month: January 2025

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks hosted the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) for its winter Board meeting in the Pentagon on January 13th, 2025.  Underscoring Secretary Austin’s commitment to defending the nation through innovation and modernization, the DIB, chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg, discussed its efforts to catalyze and empower defense innovation leaders within the DoD and the defense industrial base.  The Board presented its two latest studies on Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation and A Pathway to Scaling Unmanned Weapons Systems.

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The Department of Defense released an update to the names of “Chinese military companies” operating directly or indirectly in the United States in accordance with the statutory requirement of Section 1260H of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.  The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) Military-Civil Fusion strategy supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities.  Section 1260H directs the Department to begin identifying, among other things, Military-Civil Fusion contributors operating directly or indirectly in the United States.  The Department will update the list with additional entities as appropriate.

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“Under the Buy American Act components of end products that are sold to the federal government can also be subject to tariffs,” said Dan Ramish. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin get a detailed look now from Haynes Boone procurement attorney Dan Ramish.

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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) proposes to revise its Small Business Subcontracting Program regulations to encourage faster payments to small business subcontractors and streamline the reporting process for prime contracts. This proposed rule will require prime contractors notify contracting officers in writing when it fails to make full or timely payments to the subcontractor within 30 days past due; require prime contractors cooperate with contracting officers to correct/mitigate this failure until payment is made in full to the subcontractor; and allow contracting officers to modify a prime contractor’s past performance for failure to make full or timely payments.  Comments must be received on or before February 18, 2025.

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