Reforming the Federal Acquisition Regulation

Last week, President Trump signed a new executive order (EO) intended to reform the regulations governing federal acquisitions. Standing currently at more than 2,000 pages long, the Federal Acquisition Regulation or FAR has become a complex tangle of rules impeding the efficient and rapid procurement of goods and services by federal agencies. The new EO starts the process of unraveling this web.
Specifically, the EO directs the Administrator of the Office of Federal Public Procurement Policy (AOFPP) and the FAR Council to

1. Identify all FAR provisions not required by federal statute that should remain in the FAR.
2. Authorize each agency exercising procurement authority pursuant to the FAR to designate a senior acquisition or procurement official to work with the AOFPP and the FAR Council to ensure agency alignment with FAR reform and to provide recommendations regarding any agency-specific supplemental regulations to the FAR.
3. Consider amending the FAR so that any of the agency-specific provisions identified above expire 4 years after the effective date of the final FAR rule promulgated, unless renewed by the FAR Council.
4. Consider whether any new FAR provision not required by statute that is promulgated after the effective date of the final rule’s publication should include a provision stating it will expire 4 years after its effective date unless renewed by the FAR Council.

The EO sets deadlines for each of these steps to be enacted, including the following, which have been arranged from soonest to latest:

By April 30, each agency exercising procurement authority pursuant to the FAR shall designate a senior acquisition or procurement official to work with the AOFPP and the FAR Council to ensure agency alignment with FAR reform and to provide recommendations regarding any agency-specific supplemental regulations to the FAR.

By May 5, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the AOFPP, shall issue guidance regarding implementation of the order. That memorandum shall ensure consistency and alignment of policy objectives and implementation regarding changes to the FAR and agencies’ supplemental regulations to the FAR.  

By October 15, the AOFPP, in coordination with the FAR Council, agency heads, and appropriate senior acquisition and procurement officials from agencies, shall take appropriate actions to amend the FAR to ensure that it contains only provisions that are required by statute or that are otherwise necessary to support simplicity and usability, strengthen the efficacy of the procurement system, or protect economic or national security interests.

The shape that some of this could take may be known sooner rather than later, thanks to a report published by Washington Technology concerning a related effort underway at the General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA will soon be releasing a plan in coordination with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy “ to create a more lean regulatory framework. The Defense Department is also involved.”

WT is also reporting that work is underway on revising FAR Part 34, “which defines what a major system acquisition is, and [outlines] the policies for [the] acquisition planning and management for those systems.” In addition, planning is underway to re-examine FAR Part 10, which governs market research, and FAR Part 12, which concerns commercial products and services.

The intent of all these changes is to streamline the procurement of goods and services by federal agencies, an outcome that should help support industry partners working with government customers. How all of this will play out at the Department of Defense, which is guided by its own set of rules known as the Defense FAR or DFARS, remains to be seen.