H.R. 4123 — FIT Procurement Act

This section defines terms used in the Act, including acquisition workforce as employees of an executive agency responsible for procurement, contracting, or program or project management involving acquisition-related functions; Administrator as the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy; Chief Acquisition Officer as appointed under 41 U.S.C. 1702(a); cross-functional as a team structure drawing individuals with different functional expertise; executive agency as defined in 41 U.S.C. 133; experiential learning as on-the-job experiences or simulations; information and communications technology as defined in 41 U.S.C. 4713(k) and the Federal Acquisition Regulation; relevant committees of Congress as the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; senior procurement executive as designated under 41 U.S.C. 1702(c)(1); and small business as a small business concern under the Small Business Act.

This section authorizes the Director of the Federal Acquisition Institute to establish a pilot program incorporating experiential learning into federal acquisition certification programs within 18 months. It directs development and implementation of a cross-functional training program on information and communications technology acquisition, covering market research, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing, commercial solutions, case studies, and fraud prevention, to be offered for at least 6 years with updates every 2 years. This section increases the allocation to the acquisition workforce training fund to 7.5 percent (from 5 percent). It also redefines the Director under the Artificial Intelligence Training for the Acquisition Workforce Act as the Administrator.

This section increases the simplified acquisition threshold to $500,000 (from $250,000). It increases the threshold for using simplified procedures for small purchases to $10 million (from $5 million). It increases the micro-purchase threshold to $25,000 (from $10,000). It expands advance payment authority to cover commercially available content and charges for information and communications technology subscriptions, reservations, or tenancy in cloud environments.

This section increases thresholds defining a major system in 41 U.S.C. 109: for Department of Defense systems, to $275 million for research, development, testing, and evaluation and $1.3 billion for procurement (from $75 million and $300 million in fiscal year 1980 constant dollars); and for civilian agencies, to $2 million (from $750,000 in fiscal year 1980 constant dollars). It also raises cost or pricing data submission thresholds in 41 U.S.C. 3502 to $10 million (from $2 million) and $2 million (from $750,000), updates the relevant dates to 2026, and sets subcontract thresholds at $10 million for prime contracts after June 30, 2026, and $2 million for earlier contracts.

This section directs the Administrator to issue guidance within one year on accepting a wider range of commercial, non-government, and government projects as relevant past performance, validating non-government references, and using alternative evaluation methods such as demonstrations for requirements without precedent. It requires the Chief Acquisition Officers Council to recommend within 90 days actions to eliminate unnecessary procedural barriers disproportionately affecting small businesses, with implementation of regulatory changes within two years and a congressional briefing. It requires the Administrator to prioritize contracting policies that make cost-efficiency and quality key factors in awards.

This section directs the Comptroller General to submit a publicly available report to the relevant congressional committees within 18 months of enactment. The report assesses small business participation levels in Federal procurement, identifies barriers and policy impacts on competition, evaluates the effectiveness of supporting programs, and analyzes trends in Federal technology contracts including award data, sector diversity, and geographic distribution of contractors.

This section directs the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council and the Administrator to update the Federal Acquisition Regulation to provide additional guidance to executive agencies on addressing personal and organizational conflicts of interest involving members of the acquisition workforce.