FAR Council releases changes to 6 sections of acquisition regulation

The Trump administration is pushing forward in its deregulatory effort to overhaul the primary rules for how the government purchases goods and services, known as the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

The FAR Council released new text for six parts of the FAR on Thursday — parts 4, 8, 12, 38, 40 and 51 — including the section dealing with commercial acquisition. 

“We’re removing hundreds of unnecessary requirements,” a senior administration official told Nextgov/FCW about the changes, offering the removal of requirements for commercial contractors to report the names and compensation of the five most highly paid executives as an example. 

The goal is to reduce costs and time to deliver and increase competition, they said.

President Trump launched the endeavor in April with an executive order directing the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to strip the FAR to provisions “required by statute or essential to sound procurement.”  

The FAR Council has already been issuing model deviation text for various parts of the FAR. Eventually, the council will put the revised FAR through formal rulemaking, including a notice and comment process. 

The commercial acquisition section is slimmed down and has fewer requirements, the administration official said, in an effort to “allow [government] to get back to just procuring commercial products as the commercial marketplace does, instead of putting a whole bunch of nuanced, government, non-value-added issues.”

The White House also said Thursday in a press release that some parts of the FAR — section 38 and 51 — have been retired completely and folded into a central section on information and supply chain security policies.

Also within the updates, part 8 directs agencies to use government-wide contracts for common commercial products and services, including “best-in-class” and “preferred contracts.”

Last month, the Office of Management and Budget released a memo on consolidating contracts for common goods and services, which some have warned could affect small businesses especially.

The government official said that the move to government-wide contracts for common commercial products and services in the FAR “pushes our contractor community, our industry, to aim for very specific goals that help the government: the ease of the use of the contract, the price at which we pay… the way that the contract is managed in terms of delivery timelines.”

“It’s an important mechanism by which we measure how we’re getting service,” they said.

Asked about what the administration is doing to preserve the government’s contracting base of small businesses, they said that deregulating the FAR will benefit small businesses especially. 

“A lot of this stuff doesn't provide any value to the government, so we're taking away those burdens that are overly so to small business versus large business,” they said. 

The FAR Council has removed 500 requirements for agencies and contractors so far, the White House says. Another 500-plus are expected.

Beyond the regulations themselves, changing the contracting landscape will also require addressing intangibles — like a risk averse culture among government buyers — and laws. 

The Office of Management and Budget has submitted 16 suggested legislative proposals to Congress, the official told Nextgov/FCW.

“The teams that are out there doing the [overhaul] are A, top professionals, and B, making real strides towards streamlining some processes, and they deserve a lot of credit for that,” said Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and a former defense acquisition official.

“But the transformation of acquisition is going to require a whole lot more, including much more aggressive statutory changes and much more aggressive attention to workforce and culture,” he continued. “From that perspective, the revolution hasn't even started yet.”

Coming down the pike are changes focused on emerging technologies, pricing transparency and agency accountability, the White House says. Government buyers can also look for new implementation materials and learning tools about how to use the new regulations.