EconDefense
USC-04 / Acquisition, transition and contract finance

Lend or sell replenishment parts for replication and fund qualifying small-business source testing

Give domestic businesses access to government replenishment parts for design replication or modification in preparing future offers, and use the separately conditioned qualification-testing route to develop additional small-business sources.

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Authority / instrument · USC-04

Alternative-source development

Acquisition, transition and contract finance

Statute & instrument
Authority holder

Secretary of Defense for replenishment-part programs; head of the procuring agency for qualification testing

What this does not authorize / hard limit

Borrowing a part does not itself convey third-party intellectual-property rights or guarantee a later award.

Recorded executor

Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative

Continue to actor →

Recorded executing role; this record-specific route is not an additional institutional office.

Legal basisSources linkedLegal sources and instrument limits are recorded.
RequirementsGates recordedRead the requirements for this instrument; applicability depends on the proposed action.
Public fundingRules recordedLawfully available source-development and procurement funds; no tested company eligibility, current program funding, or accepted qualification verified. Office budget figures are separate institutional context, not an allocation to this instrument.
Assigned rolesRoles recordedPublic sources describe institutional authority. The instrument identifies approval and execution roles; a specific signature remains transaction-dependent.
EngagementProgram unverifiedAdded in the October 5 statutory review; no current implementing program, intake or individual delegation verified.

Public evidence describes the institution and instrument; it is not approval of an individual transaction.

At a glance

Possible toolUSC-04 · Loans & guarantees
Legal basis10 U.S.C. §3773

Authority holder: Secretary of Defense for replenishment-part programs; head of the procuring agency for qualification testing

Loans & guarantees

Mechanism tags describe the source text; they do not expand the authority.

Availability and verification

Express statutory pathway identified in the USC scrub. Current implementation, public intake, appropriations, available balances, and transaction-specific delegations were not independently verified.

Requirements and limits

Eligibility & prerequisites

  • Parts under §3773 support later offers for the same or like parts; national-security and inventory restrictions remain applicable.
  • For government-paid testing under §3243(d), fewer than two actual manufacturers or their products must be available to compete; the small business or its product must meet the specified standards and reasonably be expected to compete.
  • The small business must certify size status; paid testing excludes producing the item or establishing the production or quality-control system.
  • Amended §3243(e) separately requires an expedited, risk-based qualification process for advanced manufacturing before or during war or activation of the Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network.

Limits & exclusions

  • Borrowing a part does not itself convey third-party intellectual-property rights or guarantee a later award.
  • P.L. 119-60 §812(a)(6) removed the former cost-savings-amortization finding: do not carry that repealed prerequisite into the current route.

Funding conditions

  • Lawfully available source-development and procurement funds; no tested company eligibility, current program funding, or accepted qualification verified.

Read the funding and execution guide

Who contributes what

Need & planning

  • Relevant DoD mission or program sponsor

Resources

  • Sponsoring component budget owner and comptroller; available funding not verified

Approval

  • Secretary of Defense for replenishment-part programs; head of the procuring agency for qualification testing; transaction-specific delegation must be confirmed
    Office profile

Execution

  • Authorized component contracting, agreements, or personnel office; assignment is illustrative

Partners & review

  • Program counsel, fiscal officials, and eligible external counterpart as applicable

Office links are editorial matches to the original role text, not verified delegations. Composite labels and unmatched actors are preserved.

Coordination pathway

Mission sponsor → relevant program or personnel lead → counsel and fiscal review → official holding the required authority → eligible counterpart. Named functions are routing guidance, not verified individual delegations.

Actor and execution-role sources

October 5 statutory review

Added in the October 5 statutory coverage review. The cited legal mechanism and its conditions were examined; a current implementing program, intake, funding balance and individual delegation were not verified.

Section coverage and review findings

Legal basis

What this research establishes

Legal basisSources linkedLegal sources and instrument limits are recorded.
RequirementsGates recordedRead the requirements for this instrument; applicability depends on the proposed action.
Public fundingRules recordedLawfully available source-development and procurement funds; no tested company eligibility, current program funding, or accepted qualification verified. Office budget figures are separate institutional context, not an allocation to this instrument.
Assigned rolesRoles recordedPublic sources describe institutional authority. The instrument identifies approval and execution roles; a specific signature remains transaction-dependent.
EngagementProgram unverifiedAdded in the October 5 statutory review; no current implementing program, intake or individual delegation verified.

Confidence: High on the cited statutory text and express conditions; operational availability is unverified.

Currentness: Reviewed 2026-10-05 against official GovInfo 2024 Code text and a targeted P.L. 119-60 enacted-amendment search. OLRC direct pages were intermittently under maintenance. This is not an exhaustive certification of legislation after that baseline, funding, implementation, or individual delegation.

Review scope: Record reviewed 2026-10-05. Publication is not legal-currentness certification.

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