July 14, 2022

During consideration of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the House adopted by unanimous voice vote an amendment SWACCA helped to develop with Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) that would improve construction contractors’ access to military facilities governed by the Department of Defense (DOD).  Rep. Garamendi’s amendment was made part of a larger amendment package to NDAA which was adopted by unanimous voice vote yesterday afternoon.

Rep. Garamendi’s amendment is similar to the SWACCA-supported H.R. 8158, the Base Access Privileges Improvement Act, and would address mandatory background checks and credentials federal contractors and their employees must get to work on DOD facilities that are often “single-use” and are not interoperable across DOD facilities. H.R. 8158 is intended to replace base-specific access policies with national standards set by DOD and would set forth minimum criteria for personnel vetting and determining the fitness of individuals for unescorted access to military installations.  SWACCA provided significant input during drafting of the legislation, which also includes provisions:   (1) requiring DOD to consider an individual’s participation in other federal security credentialing programs, such as the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) and the Security Identification Display Area (SIDA) badge, for purposes of granting expedited, unescorted access; (2) directing that base access credentials be issued for a minimum of two years; and (3) directing DOD to examine making one installation’s access cards interoperable across other installations.

We are pleased to see this amendment adopted as part of the NDAA and our work now turns to ensuring that it is maintained as the bill heads to the Senate.

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