Welcome to my final news roundup for 2025! It’s been a busy year for the government tech media, and it still hasn’t slowed down even as we enter the holiday season. This week, acquisition reform was an area that grabbed reporters’ attention. You can find links to many of those stories below:
NDAA Push for Acquisition Reform
The Senate this week approved the $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As you might imagine, the bill covered lots of ground – with acquisition reform one of the areas that garnered press attention. Here’s a sampling of some of that NDAA coverage:
- In Defense News, Stephen Losey quoted Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, who said the $900 billion spending bill puts the Pentagon “on a path to modernize our defense capabilities and augment our drone manufacturing, shipbuilding efforts and the development of innovative low-cost weapons.”
- The bill includes a “major acquisition reform push” directing the Pentagon to adopt a “portfolio acquisition executive model” to make it easier for private contractors to do business with the department, according to coverage by Valerie Insinna in Breaking Defense.
- Acquisition-related provisions in the bill include language allowing the Pentagon to award larger sums for advanced technology achievements, permitting cost-sharing with other federal agencies to foster innovation in the industrial base, and repealing previous limitations on acquisition authorities, according to an analysis by Greg Hadley in Air & Space Forces Magazine.
- Also in Breaking Defense, Theresa Hitchens highlighted language in the bill forcing the Space Force to address “what lawmakers contend is a lack of focus on its acquisition workforce in favor of operators.” In a separate piece reported from the Spacepower 2025 conference, Hitchens quoted Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, who said the service is nearing the “end game” on its acquisition reform plans.
- Noting that the bill contains a section requiring the Space Force to train and assign an equal number of operations and acquisition officers, Thomas Novelly of Defense One provided an in-depth overview of the longstanding divide within the Space Force between operations and acquisition.
- Lisbeth Perez noted in MeriTalk that the NDAA does not include a reauthorization of the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), which supports civilian agency IT upgrades. The fund expired on December 12.
- Miranda Nazzaro of FedScoop interviewed observers who said they were frustrated with Congress after the expiration of the TMF resulted in a freeze of nearly $200 million in funding for government IT projects.
- The NDAA also dropped a provision to expand the definition of “non-traditional defense contractor [to] any firm that allocates less than $1.1 million in independent research and development and bid-and-proposal costs to cost-reimbursement contracts in a given year,” according to an article by Nick Wakeman in Washington Technology.
Acquisition Reform Across Government
Beyond the NDAA, there was additional acquisition reform activity at the Pentagon, civilian agencies and on Capitol Hill. From software acquisition to the ongoing effort to update the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), these efforts continue to gain traction. Here are some examples:
- In the area of software acquisition, Congress passed the Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets (SAMOSA) Act to streamline software procurement across federal agencies to reduce unnecessary costs, according to a report by Grace Dille in MeriTalk.
- In Nextgov/FCW, Edward Graham noted that the SAMOSA Act “aims to push the federal government to enhance oversight of its software licensing agreements to reduce waste and save money on duplicative purchases.”
- In other software acquisition-related news, the Pentagon released a summary of the industry comments on its Software Fast Track (SWFT) Initiative, which aims to reform the ways the Pentagon acquires secure software – with nearly all companies stating they already perform software risk assessments and would provide officials with required risk assessments, according to an article by Anastasia Obis for Federal News Network.
- Obis’ colleague Jason Miller reported the news that the State Department has accelerated a plan to reorganize and elevate its acquisition office to give leadership better access to information they need for decision making.
- Melina Druga wrote in Homeland Preparedness News that the Senate unanimously passed the Acquisition Reform and Cost Assessment Act to establish a centralized Office of Acquisition at the Department of Veterans Affairs to streamline oversight and contracting processes.
- The Air Force is embracing a new commercial-first approach to IT acquisition, outsourcing networks and other infrastructure and reducing the amount of customization required from vendors, according to a piece by Shaun Waterman in Air & Space Forces Magazine.
- Washington Technology published a series of pieces this week on acquisition issues. Wakeman reported on new data from the Government Accountability Office indicating that bid protests may not be the problem they are often cracked up to be. He also published an article on how the White House plans to change the government’s acquisition culture as part of its major overhaul of the FAR. And Wakeman and his colleague Ross Wilkers also interviewed Stephanie Kostro of the Professional Services Council on a podcast about how the contracting community is responding to these and other changes.
Normally, this would be the section of the newsletter in which we list some of the upcoming industry events you might want to attend in the coming week. But given the holiday break, I’ll skip that this week and instead wish all of you a peaceful and joyful holiday season.
Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to and followed along with these weekly updates over the past year. Be sure to come back on January 9 for my first news roundup of 2026. We can only guess what the new year has in store. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that on LinkedIn or via the form below.