EVALUATION OF CONTRACTS FOR PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL SERVICES

SEC. 834. EVALUATION OF CONTRACTS FOR PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL SERVICES (a) In General.— (1) Chapter 137 of title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new section: “§2331. Contracts for professional and technical services “(a) In General.— The Secretary of Defense shall prescribe regulations to ensure, to the maximum extent practicable, that professional and technical services are acquired on the basis of the task to be performed rather than on the basis of the number of hours of services provided. “(b) Content of Regulations.— With respect to contracts to acquire services on the basis of the number of hours of services provided, the regulations described in subsection (a) shall— “(1) include standards and approval procedures to minimize the use of such contracts; 104 STAT. 1614 “(2) establish criteria to ensure that proposals for contracts for technical and professional services are evaluated on a basis which does not encourage contractors to propose uncompensated overtime; “(3) ensure appropriate emphasis on technical and quality factors in the source selection process; “(4) require identification of any hours in excess of 40-hour weeks included in a proposal; “(5) ensure that offerors are notified that proposals which include unrealistically low labor rates or which do not otherwise demonstrate cost realism will be considered in a risk assessment and evaluated appropriately; and “(6) provide guidance to contracting officers to ensure that any use of uncompensated overtime will not degrade the level of technical expertise required to perform the contract. “(c) Waiver of Task Order Limitation.— (1) The Secretary of Defense may waive the limitation in section 2304(j)(4) of this title on the total value of task orders on a case-by-case basis for specific contracting activities to the extent the Secretary considers necessary the use of master agreements in order to further the policy set forth in subsection (a) of this section. “(2) During any fiscal year, such a waiver may not increase the total value of task orders under master agreements of a contracting activity by more than 20 percent of the value of all contracts for advisory and assistance services awarded by that contracting activity during fiscal year 1989. “(3) Such a waiver shall not become effective until 60 days after the Secretary of Defense has published notice thereof in the Federal Register.”. (2) The table of sections at the beginning of such chapter is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 2330 the following new item: “2331. Contracts for professional and technical services ”. (b) Regulations.— Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall publish for public comment new regulations to carry out the requirements in this section. The Secretary shall promulgate final regulations to carry out such requirements not later than 270 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.