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 27, 2020
May 27th OUSD ACOVID Conference Call Notes: OSD MIBP: Top issues: returning to operations post COVID> Pentagon starting process now as a multi-phased plan to reopen fully—details forthcoming; telework will be a reality for the Pentagon staff going forward. OSD Small Business: Webinar is next Wednesday June 3rd at 3pm, “Future of Telework” ; see businessdefense.gov for details. DCMA: Over the last month the number of closed facilities has decreased significantly. New closures generally short term in nature; DCMA reports that it is taking 9.8 days to process invoices. 11.3 days for progress payments; they are maintaining rapid turnaround on payments. DPC: Sec 3610 comments--141 pages of comments received; 300-400 separate comments to the draft; working thru the volume; trying to maintain week from Friday publication but with volume of responses, final publication may be delayed. A number of inputs came in with restrictive markings on emails that are standard with some companies that content is only for addressee, but DPC has to publish all comments on their website; so DPC will be contacting each contractor with these markings to get permission to publish the comments and if the answer is no, DPC will be forced to dismiss the input from that particular company. Some of the actual comments were marked accordingly vice a general email foot note from industry which makes this adjudication effort more complicated. DLA: Trying to fix PPE for contractors in need—DLA still working issue and in final stage of coordination--will provide details of solution on Friday call this week—this is the potential opening of the Fed Mall to industry. Operation Nursing Home has been effective. Working strategic national stockpile effort and just released RFP for gloves and masks--solicitation closes tomorrow—and expect significant response; award by 12 June if at all possible. CIO: PDF guidance will be issued to us for our members on the latest CIO update later today. OSD PA: Sec Esper and Chairman will do a town hall tomorrow to talk stop movement, health protection, installation status, supporting summer PCS’, and how installations can work together. Live at Defense.gov at 0930 28 May as scheduled at the moment. Associations and Chamber: A discussion regarding lack of DoD standards for PPE and seeing a variety of DoD office and organizational requirements that are inconsistent—this has been a recurring ask of DoD (publishing standard PPE requirements) but to date has not been adequately addressed. OSD noted need and said they will work it. NAM chimed in that they have conducted a national survey on PPE requirements and have complied the results which they will share today with OSD. A Service association mentioned that expanding the scope of these calls to the broader weapons readiness matters, COVID impact upon readiness and future of force readiness whether sustainment, diversity of supply, training missions, operational missions, all in the context of COVID impact would be useful.
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.
