Acquisition Reform in the House and Senate Versions of the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act

Summary

For purposes of this analysis, CRS selected 31 sections of the House-passed version of FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4909), and 68 sections of the Senate-passed version of FY2017 NDAA (S. 2943) that appear closely linked to the respective committee’s stated efforts to reform the acquisition system. Acquisition reform. Each section is identified as fitting into one (or more) of the following six overarching categories:

Gathering information for future action,

Streamlining the current process (focusing on schedule and minimizing bureaucratic effort),

Improving the effectiveness of the current process (focusing on cost, performance, and public policy),

Improving the performance of the workforce (through recruitment/retention, professional development, or empowering decisionmaking),

Improving the use of data in decisionmaking, or

Reorganizing the acquisition management structure within the Department of Defense.