Judge Halts Transfer of Milcon Funds to Border Wall
Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River 
economic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.
A federal judge halts $3.6 billion diverted from military construction projects for 175 miles of a border wall, reports Defense News. Tuesday’s ruling by District Judge David Briones in El Paso, TX, doesn’t apply to $2.5 billion of DoD money initially meant for counter-drug operations. In July, the Supreme Court granted an emergency order allowing that money to be spent during a legal challenge.The Justice Department said it would appeal Tuesday’s ruling.
Congress orders the Navy to get USS Kennedy ready for F-35Cs, reports Breaking Defense. The Navy planned to add F-35 modifications to its two brand-new aircraft carriers at a later date, but an annoyed Congress wants it done now. The new NDAA released Monday night “requires the Navy to insert the Joint Strike Fighter ship alterations on the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) before her first deployment,” in the mid-2020s, a requirement that either requires tens of millions in extra funding, or some other program to lose out.
Democrats “got completely rolled” in NDAA talks, reports Roll Call. The final National Defense Authorization Act, passed this week, represents a victory for Republicans. That’s the word from a large number of angry Democrats in Congress, their supporters and, more discreetly, from many Republicans. The Washington Post reports on what is in the deal.
Pentagon orders review of vetting for international students in US military programs, reports The Associated Press, and demands the process be strengthened, in direct reaction to last week’s deadly shooting at a Pensacola Navy base by a Saudi aviation student.
What began as an evaluation of medical resources at basic training by the DoD inspector general has evolved into a look at medical protocols in light of recent recruit deaths at military training, reports Military Times.
It’s full speed ahead for the first phase of the JEDI rollout expected in February, reports Defense News, which, according to the Pentagon, will not be hampered by Amazon’s protest of the DoD enterprise cloud contract award. Amazon’s lawsuit, released this week, alleges President Donald Trump personally steered a $10 billion cloud computing contract away from frontrunner Amazon Web Services out of personal and political animus against Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, reports FCW.
US lawmakers are expected to call for sanctions against Turkey’s decision to buy the Russian S-400 defense systems, reports Reuters. Ahead of the vote, Turkey says it will retaliate against any sanctions and added that with Britain had agreed to speed up a joint fighter jet program to meet Turkish defense needs. The Pentagon is unsure of what to do with Turkey’s undelivered F-35s, reports Military Times, but the FY 2020 NDAA gives DoD the option to purchase Turkey’s F-35s and the authority to spend up to $30 million to store the jets until a plan for their use is formalized.
Afghanistan’s former president says American cash fed corruption, reports Military Times, by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades without accountability. In an interview with The Associated Press, Hamid Karzai responded to findings from a trove of newly published documents that successive US administrations misled the public about the war in Afghanistan.
Even as Navy leadership is more and more recognizing the likely limitations to its spending power today and in the coming years, the acting SecNav Thomas Modly doubled down on reaching a 355-ship Navy in 10 years, reports USNI. First priorities paper also highlighted the importance of unmanned systems.
Congress approves 12 weeks of paid parental leave for federal workers, reports Federal Times. The defense appropriations agreement reached by House and Senate appropriators will officially provide federal employees with 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child, whether through birth, adoption, or foster care.
New medical training for all services on the way, reports Army Times. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines might all soon have new training on how to save their buddy’s life in the first critical minutes of injury in combat. That’s because the curriculum, known as Tier 2 Tactical Combat Casualty Care, could become the new, uniform standards of methods taught to troops with non-medical jobs if approved by the Pentagon.
Pilot training recovers in 2019, after hypoxia fixes are put in place, reports Air Force Times. The Air Force graduated 1,279 pilots from undergraduate pilot training in fiscal 2019, according to Air Education and Training Command — a marked improvement from the previous hypoxia-plagued year.
Gender integration at both Marine Corps recruit depots would be required with new defense bill, reports Marine Corps Times. While every other service branch of the US military has gender-integrated boot camp, in the Marine Corps, for the most part, men and women still train separately.
USNI News Fleet and Marine Tracker: Dec. 10, 2019
Contracts:
Etolin Strait Partners LLC, Norfolk, Virginia, was awarded a $30,000,000, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price job order contract for minor construction projects located primarily within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Washington, District of Columbia, area of responsibility (AOR). The work to be performed provides for the accomplishment of various maintenance, repair, alteration and minor new construction projects to government facilities located primarily within the NAVFAC. The contractor shall provide all labor, supervision, engineering, materials, equipment, tools, parts, supplies and transportation to perform all work described in the task order’s request for proposal. Work will be performed primarily in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, and is expected to be completed by September 2020. Fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance, Navy (O&M) funding in the amount $10,000 and will expire at the end of fiscal 2019. Future task orders will be funded primarily by military construction (Navy); O&M (Navy); O&M (Defense Logistics Agency); and Navy working capital funds. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website with 11 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N40080-19-D-0007). (Awarded Sept. 30, 2019)
Nightingale Corp., Tonawanda, New York (FA8003-20-A-0001); Great Journey West LLC, Saint Charles, Missouri (FA8003-20-A-0002); SCS Integrated Support Solutions LLC, Manassas, Virginia (FA8003-20-A-0003); Feigus Inc., Wall, New Jersey (FA8003-20-A-0004); Govsolutions Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia (FA8003-20-A-0005); SLM Contract Furniture Inc., San Diego, California (FA8003-20-A-0006); Workplace Solutions Inc., Virginia Beach, Virginia (FA8003-20-A-0007); NxVet LLC, Woodbridge, Virginia (FA8003-20-A-0008); Seating Inc., Nunda, New York (FA8003-20-A-0009); and Trade Products Corp., Fairfax, Virginia (FA8003-20-A-0010), have been awarded an $80,000,000 multiple award blanket purchase agreement for executive, task, conference room and side chairs. This agreement provides for delivery of office chairs at a discount off General Services Administration Federal Supply Schedules pricing to Air Force offices in the continental US. Work will be performed at Tonawanda, New York; Hawthorne, California; Buena Park, California; Bryan, Texas; Hillsboro, Oregon; and Nunda, New York, and is expected to be completed by December 2024. This award is the result of a 100% small business set-aside competitive acquisition and 26 offers were received. Current fiscal year operations and maintenance funds will be obligated with each order and no funds are being obligated at the time of award. The 771st Enterprise Sourcing Squadron, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, is the contracting activity.
KBRwyle Technology Solutions LLC, Rockville, Maryland, has been awarded a maximum $9,690,076 cost-plus-fixed-fee, bridge contract for hydrant fueling automation maintenance. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 US Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a 17-month base contract with one three-month option period. Locations of performance are all 50 states, Japan, Wake Island, South Korea, Guam, Diego Garcia, Portugal, Crete, Spain, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, with a May 12, 2021, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Contracting Services Office, Columbus, Ohio (SP4702-20-C-0006).
KBRwyle Technology Solutions LLC, Rockville, Maryland, has been awarded a maximum $7,936,316 cost-plus-fixed-fee, bridge contract for automated tank gauging, independent alarm system, and overfill protection equipment maintenance. This was a sole-source acquisition using justification 10 US Code 2304 (c)(1), as stated in Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1. This is a 21-month base contract with one three-month option period. Locations of performance are Belgium, Djibouti, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom with a Sept. 12, 2021, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, National Guard, and Coast Guard. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Contracting Services Office, Columbus, Ohio (SP4702-20-C-0005).
