§563b Acquisition Baseline Establishment and Reports

Summary

Before the Department buys or starts using any security-related technology, the Department’s acquisition official must create and record a formal baseline. That baseline must show estimated costs (including lifecycle costs), a schedule, and performance milestones for the whole acquisition. It must list risks and plans to reduce them. It must say what staff are needed to run the acquisition, manage the program, and support training and operations. The acquisition official, working with the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, must make sure the milestones are technologically possible when they can. The Administrator, with the Under Secretary, must make a test and evaluation plan that explains how the technology will be checked against the milestones, what mix of lab tests, field tests, modeling, simulation, and analysis will be used, a schedule to avoid delay, and, if passengers will interact with the technology, ways to measure passenger acceptance and familiarization. For items marked a high priority in the most recent Plan, independent reviewers must verify the milestones and cost estimates, but reviewers must not cause undue delays. The Administrator must also provide a simple way for interested vendors to get access to the baseline and test plans so they can take part. After an acquisition is in place, the acquisition official must review it to see if it meets the baseline. The review must check that the planned testing was done and that test results show the milestones are technically feasible. If the review finds that actual or planned costs exceed the baseline by more than 10 percent, or delivery is delayed by more than 180 days, or a missed performance milestone harms security, the Administrator must report to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives within 30 days. The report must include the assessment results, the cause of the problem, and a plan to fix it.