Section 3458 (formerly 10 U.S.C. § 2380c) authorizes DoD to acquire innovative commercial products and services — or nondevelopmental items — by competitively selecting proposals received in response to a general solicitation (a Commercial Solutions Opening), evaluated through peer or scientific/technical review.
The CSO began as a pilot under Section 879 of the FY2017 NDAA (Pub. L. 114-328) and was made permanent by Section 803 of the FY2022 NDAA (Pub. L. 117-81), which also renumbered the authority into the reorganized Title 10. Awards may be structured as FAR procurement contracts and, for follow-on production, as contracts or other transactions under § 4022 — making CSO a flexible on-ramp for nontraditional and commercial vendors.