§719 Research projects; transactions other than contracts and grants

Summary

The Commandant may make special transactions (not normal contracts, cooperative agreements, or grants) to do basic, applied, and advanced research. The Commandant may also work with the Director of DARPA, the Secretary of a military department, or other Defense officials designated under section 2371b of title 10 to join prototype projects and follow-on production efforts that are directly related to the Coast Guard’s cyber capability and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and intelligence initiatives. This power is in addition to the authority in section 717. The Commandant may use funds provided in advance in appropriations Acts for operations and support; research, development, test, and evaluation; and procurement, construction, and improvement. Cooperative agreements or other transactions may require a recipient to make payments to the Coast Guard or another federal agency, and those payments must go into the general fund of the Treasury and may be used to carry out this authority if Congress provides funding. The Commandant must avoid duplicating Coast Guard research, and may use these special transactions only when ordinary contracts, grants, or cooperative agreements are not suitable. Staff who run these transactions must get proper training and meet minimum continuous learning and acquisition certification requirements. Certain proposals, abstracts, and confidential business or technical material submitted for possible awards are protected from disclosure under section 552 of title 5 for 5 years after receipt. The Commandant must write rules to implement this and must, on the date the President submits the budget under section 1105 of title 31, report to the House Committees on Appropriations and Transportation and Infrastructure and the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Commerce, Science, and Transportation about each use during the most recently completed fiscal year, including the amount, the entities involved, the product or service, the research project, and how costs were shared.