WASHINGTON – The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has adopted language introduced by Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) in the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to ensure that the Department of Defense (DoD) seeks the best long-term value for the taxpayers during the procurement process for complex information technology and engineering services by providing greater clarity on DoD’s existing Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA) evaluation criteria.

Through the LPTA process, all proposals meeting a defined set of minimum technical requirements are considered, and the contract is awarded to the lowest-price bidder. However, in cases of more complex and knowledge-based procurements, such as IT services, technical requirements are often difficult for DoD to fully define and articulate, and the least expensive option may not be the best overall value if it doesn’t encourage participation by private-sector partners providing innovative products and services and the most talented people.

The Committee adopted as an amendment to the NDAA language from the bipartisan Promoting Value Based Defense Procurement Act, which was introduced last month by Sens. Warner and Rounds. It ensures that DoD is limiting the use of LPTA by directing DoD to avoid, to the maximum extent practicable, LPTA criteria when the procurement is for information technology, systems engineering and technical assistance, or other knowledge-based professional services.

“Innovation and technological advancement are key to our continued national security, especially as we must stay ahead of the growing threat posed by cyberattacks,” Sen. Warner said. “For this reason, I am pleased that the Senate Armed Services Committee included in its National Defense Authorization Act for 2017 legislation I introduced to bring more reason to the LPTA process.  While LPTA is a useful and cost-effective source selection evaluation method in certain circumstances, its misapplication undermines efforts to ensure that the DoD is using, producing, and driving innovative and cutting-edge IT and engineering solutions. When it comes to maintaining America’s superiority in producing and leveraging technology and innovation, DoD should use procurement methods that provide taxpayers and servicemembers with the best product or service at the lowest price – not simply the lowest-priced product or service.”

In the area of cybersecurity – which is an increasingly important pillar of our national security efforts – LPTA is particularly constraining, given the constantly evolving nature of the cyber threat and cyber technology.  The LPTA approach has resulted in a trend of awarding contracts to the lowest bidders who do not provide a full network architecture approach but instead only meet minimal technical and security requirements.  Such an approach fails to address the multi-faceted nature of cybersecurity, meet long-term cyber requirements, or account for future network expansion or reconfiguration to keep pace with changing threats.

As noted by Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Frank Kendall in a March 2015 memo to DoD officials, LPTA procurements are the appropriate selection source “only where there are well-defined requirements, the risk of unsuccessful contract performance is minimal, price is a significant factor in the source selection, and there is neither value, need, nor willingness to pay for higher performance.” He also noted that, if LPTA is not applied appropriately, DoD “can miss an opportunity to secure an innovative, cost-effective solution to meet warfighter needs to help maintain [its] technical advantage.”

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