DHS Acquisition Review Board Act of 2017

DHS Acquisition Review Board Act of 2017

(Sec. 2) This bill amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish an Acquisition Review Board to strengthen accountability and uniformity within the DHS acquisition review process, review major acquisition programs (programs estimated to require a total expenditure of at least $300 million over their life cycle costs), and review the use of best practices.

The board shall convene at DHS's discretion and whenever: (1) a major acquisition program requires authorization to proceed from one acquisition decision event to another, is in breach of its approved requirements, or requires additional review; or (2) a non-major acquisition program requires review.

The board's responsibilities are to:

• determine whether a proposed acquisition program has met the requirements of phases of the acquisition life cycle framework and is able to proceed to the next phase and eventual full production and deployment;
• oversee whether a proposed acquisition's business strategy, resources, management, and accountability is executable and aligned to strategic initiatives;
• support the acquisition decision authority in determining the appropriate direction at key acquisition decision events;
• conduct reviews to ensure that acquisitions are progressing in compliance with the approved documents for their current acquisition phases;
• review the acquisition documents of each major acquisition program to ensure the reliability of underlying data; and
• ensure that practices are implemented to require consideration of tradeoffs among cost, schedule, and performance objectives as part of the process for developing requirements for major acquisition programs prior to initiating the second acquisition decision event.

If the person exercising acquisition decision authority over a major acquisition program approves such program to proceed into the planning phase before such program has a DHS-approved acquisition program baseline, as required by DHS policy, DHS shall create and approve a baseline report regarding such approval and notify Congress.

DHS, by one year after this bill's enactment and annually through FY2022, shall provide information to Congress on the board's activities.

Written by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. All summary versions on Congress.gov