A conference committee of House and Senate lawmakers approved Dec. 12 a compromise fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill that retains a Senate provision requiring the Defense Department and its contractors to favor buying electronic parts from "trusted suppliers" in a bid to stem counterfeit parts from entering the military supply chain.

The reconciled authorization bill still must undergo final voting by each chamber and then gain approval from President Obama to become law; the administration has said it may veto the bill over provisions within it regarding the military detention of terrorist suspects.

The anti-counterfeiting measure approved by the conference committee does not require contractors to develop a list of untrusted suppliers, however, as called for by the original version of the anti-counterfeiting language.

The conference also approved language included in an earlier House version that would extend through fiscal 2016 the ability of the Government Accountability Office to hear protests on orders valued at more than $10 million made through civilian indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts.

Last year's defense authorization bill extended through 2016 the GAO's authority to hear such protests, but only for the DoD, NASA and the Coast Guard. Likely through an oversight, the rest of the federal government wasn't included in the extension. As a result, the past year has been a period of confusion, at least for most observers, regarding the GAO's ability to hear protests originating from civilian IDIQs, with the GAO asserting that the way in which the bid protest authority was not extended in fact gave it carte blanch to hear IDIQ protests for orders worth any amount - a reading that the Federal Acquisition Regulation Council may not necessarily agree with.

The conference version also includes language that would prohibit agencies from collecting from companies responding to a solicitation information regarding their political donations. A leaked draft White House executive order earlier this year created intense opposition by suggesting that agencies might be required to do so.

For more:
- download the conference fiscal 2012 defense authorization report (.pdf)

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