Keith Webster
President, Defense and Aerospace Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
President, Federal Acquisition Council, Cyber, Space and National Security Policy Division, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Published
May 13, 2020
May 13th OSD ACOVID Conference Call Notes: DoD and DHS announced a $138M contract award with ApiJect Systems America for project âjump startâ and âRAPID USAâ effort for medical grade injection devices starting by Oct 2020. JATF is supporting jump start for a high-speed response to medical needs like prefilled syringes> this is in preparation for massive vaccine response at the federal level; small business webinar event this afternoon with Kim Herrington Acting Dir OSD DPC; SCIF reciprocity matter still evolving and OSD is seeking additional information from industry; an upcoming conference call topic will be lessons learned regarding telecommuting and remote working. SAPCO: Reciprocity matter regarding use of secure sites. Data call with specific questions will be issued to the Associations and Chamber this evening for input from our members to drill into this issue more deeply. All agencies working hard to be innovative and creative on this matter. JATF: JATF FEMA portal integration. Each portal will remain independent and the merging of data sharing between DoD and FEMA is still under development. JATF was able to respond to one vendor directly regarding their submission into the JATF portal in response to a task given during the Monday conference call. PA: Release last night on contract for jump start program; department update coming soon from SecDef and Lord addressing COVID support, stop movement and some other emerging challenges and DoD responses to those challenges (China was mentioned as an example). DPC: Still working draft Sec 3610 guidance, made good progress with the Services and across the department; this guidance is the main issue DPC is working at the moment. DCMA: Positive trend for DIB with 270 suppliers reopened and only 41 closed as of this morning. One area of concern is that of furloughs and layoffs due to reduced sales for select industries which could have an adverse impact on the DoD—OSD watching this closely. CIO: Of various memos published which are largely internal and marked FOUO, one which addresses authorized telework and remote work guidance will be remarked removing the FOUO control and released publicly--copy will be issued soon for us to pass to our members. Policy: New FBI public service announcement out today regarding organizations involved in COVID research as these entities are being targeted. FBI is seeking for targeted organizations to report directly to the FBI regarding any cyber activity or other activity of concern. DHS CISA essentiality guidance version 4.0 due out by end of week or early next week which will republish essentiality of GOGO facilities which was mistakenly dropped in DHS CISA 3.0 update. OSD has not asked for any changes to DHS CISA essentiality guidance other than reinserting GOGO. Associations/Chamber: OSD continues to encourage industry to engage with members of Congress on any stimulus matters and needs. OSD confirmed that in the House draft Bill they have addressed the effective date confusion specific to the CARES Act aligning the start date with DoD’s position—31 January 2020. Language included in House bill requiring DoD payment of invoices within 15 days which for DLA will require the provision of funds into their working capital fund to do so. Given that the House version does not provide additional funds to the DoD, DLA would not be able to comply with the accelerated payment legislated mandate if passed as drafted.
About the authors
Keith Webster
Keith Webster, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Defense and Aerospace Council, guides the focus of the council to strengthen the U.S. defense and aerospace industries by influencing domestic and international policy on behalf of its members.
