Buying Faster than the Enemy Act of 2025
Buying Faster than the Enemy Act of 2025 seeks to accelerate defense innovation by expanding reliance on commercial products and services, broadening the use of open, general solicitations, and reducing procedural friction in defense procurement. The bill would reshape how the Department of Defense (DoD) buys, funds, and awards contracts—favoring commercial items and streamlined processes (including sole-source follow-ons in certain cases), creating nontraditional acquisition pathways, and increasing upfront payments. It also sets up new structures like consortia to develop and produce capabilities and attempts to simplify contract-clause flowdowns to subcontractors. The overall goal is to speed up the development and fielding of military capabilities while preserving oversight and governance, but with a greater emphasis on market-driven solutions and nontraditional contractors. The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator Banks on March 12, 2025, and referred to the Committee on Armed Services. It includes extensive amendments to the Defense acquisition framework (Title 10, U.S.C.), reorganizing how commercial and defense-unique requirements are determined, how solicitations are run, and how contractors are paid and managed.
Key Points
- 1Expanded authority for commercial solutions openings: The DoD can acquire commercial products and services through competition based on general solicitations and peer/technical/operational reviews, with the option to issue follow-on or sole-source awards to winners without additional justification. It also adds a nontraditional vehicle for rapid capability development and production.
- 2Nontraditional vehicle and consortia: The bill requires the establishment of at least five consortia to run prototype projects and follow-on production under a DoD authority for each systems command and portfolio acquisition executive. These consortia would utilize urgent capability, middle-tier, software, or services acquisition pathways within the DoD Adaptive Acquisition Framework.
- 3Simplified flowdown of contract clauses: It limits the flowdown of contract clauses to subcontractors working on commercial products/services, mandating a single clause for commercial contracts and a single clause for noncommercial contracts. It requires implementing regulations within 120 days and updating the DFARS within 180 days.
- 4Defense-unique statutes and contract clause determinations: The bill reorganizes how defense-unique statutes and clause requirements are applied to commercial purchases and subcontracts. It directs the Defense DFARS to maintain a list of applicable defense-unique provisions and to require written determinations by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (and related officials) when extending certain post-1994 provisions to commercial procurements.
- 5Increase in advance payments: The maximum allowed advance payment is raised from 15% to 30% of the contract price, improving cash flow for suppliers engaged in rapid development or production.
- 6Default to commercial determinations with safeguards: DoD would default to treating products and services as commercial and use commercial procedures, unless a contracting officer determines otherwise. When a product or service is claimed as non-commercial for defense-unique reasons, the contracting officer must produce a written justification with market research and obtain approval from the head of contracting activity.
- 7Definition of defense-unique development: The bill clarifies that a defense-unique development involves DoD-financed development to repurpose a commercial solution or to create a new product to meet defense-specific capabilities.