10 U.S.C. § 129b — Authority to procure personal services

(a) Authority. Subject to subsection (b), the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the military departments can (1) hire experts or consultants (or organizations of them), following the rules in section 3109 of title 5; and (2) pay their travel expenses — including transportation and a daily allowance instead of covering meals and lodging separately — while they travel between home or their regular workplace and their official duty station. (b) Conditions. These experts or consultants can only be hired if the Secretary of Defense, or the relevant military department Secretary, decides that (1) hiring them benefits the United States, and (2) the Department of Defense can't adequately provide the service itself. (c) Regulations. The Secretary of Defense must write regulations governing how these experts and consultants are hired. (d) Additional Authority for Personal Services Contracts. (1) Besides the authority in subsection (a), the Secretary can also make personal services contracts if the services (A) are provided by people outside the United States, of any nationality, and the Secretary decides they're necessary to support Defense Department activities outside the U.S.; (B) directly support a defense intelligence or counterintelligence organization's mission; or (C) directly support the special operations command's mission. (2) The contracting officer for one of these contracts must make sure that (A) the services being bought are urgent or unique, and (B) it wouldn't be practical for the Department to get them another way. (3) The usual rule in section 3109 of title 5 doesn't apply to contracts made under this subsection.