The Federal Regulatory Council is giving the federal community one more chance to speak up before the first set of major revisions to acquisition regulations becomes final.
In Tuesday’s Federal Register, the FAR Council will release the first tranche of proposed rules for 17 sections of the FAR.
“Industry and government have largely seen these changes in the deviations, but there are additional differences or changes from what we have in deviations,” said an OMB official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the proposed rules. “The general premise for each of the rules should already be familiar to most people. This is now to tell us where we missed something or how to refine a particular area.”
The proposed rules will move the FAR overhaul from deviations into the formal rulemaking process for FAR Parts:
- 1—Federal Acquisition Regulations System
- 2—Definitions of Words and Terms
- 3–Improper Business Practices and Personal Conflicts of Interest
- 4–Administrative and Information Matters
- 5–Publicizing Contract Actions
- 6–Competition Requirements
- 7—Acquisition Planning
- 10—Market Research
- 18—Emergency Acquisitions
- 24–Protection of Privacy and Freedom of Information
- 26—Other Socioeconomic Programs
- 29–Taxes
- 33–Protests, Disputes and Appeals
- 39–Acquisition of Information and Communication Technology
- 40– Information Security and Supply Chain Security
- 41–Acquisition of Utility Services
- 49–Termination of Contracts
- 53—Forms
The FAR Council is accepting comments on each of the parts through mid-July. The council also will release two more batches of proposed rules in the coming months, including some of the often used parts like 8, 12, 16 and 19.
The OMB official added that the goal is to get all of these proposed rules finalized by the end of the calendar year. The official said while that may be ambitious, OFPP wants to move fast.
“As we celebrate 250 years of independence and the revolutionary spirit of our founders, it’s only fitting that we implement this bold and truly revolutionary overhaul,” OFPP Administrator Kevin Rhodes said in a statement to Federal News Network.
Updates since initial deviations
President Donald Trump’s April 2025 executive order kicked off the first rewrite of the FAR in 40 years. The EO charged OFPP and the FAR Council to remake the FAR by including only those “provisions required by statute or essential to sound procurement, and any FAR provisions that do not advance these objectives should be removed.”
Over the last year plus, a team of experts rewrote the regulations in plain language, cut the number of mandates by 3,000 and reduced the number of pages by 500.
“The FAR parts now also follow sequentially for how we do business from start to end of the process,” the OMB official said. “Where before it was disparate chapter after chapter, now you read it and it flows through the timeline of how we do business. It should be especially helpful for new businesses who are entering the federal market, particularly small businesses.”
The OMB official said while many of the changes may seem familiar based on the initial deviations, the council did receive feedback on the first draft of the updates and highlighted what they altered.
For example, under FAR Part 10, the official said the council streamlined market research, including raising the threshold for vendors to do market research for certain subcontracts on non-commercial contracts from $6 million to $7.5 million.
In all, the council has issued further updates to 10 different parts since the initial deviations.
“We have changed the requirements for negotiations. We have changed the requirement for communications. We even point to where we are allowing oral acquisition planning at agencies. We are encouraging communications throughout the entire process where it used to be a very structured process and there was some stigma about talking to industry. We are now saying negotiations can be done throughout the lifespan of an acquisition,” the official said. “We also removed barriers if there is an administrative error like the margins are off or something minor. We are now saying industry can fix their bid and resubmit it. Previously, offers would be thrown out if the margins were off or there was some other minor problem. We were thinking through what is in the best interest of the government and talking to industry and government folks about this. What is most important thing? It’s getting the things that we need and we don’t want to cut our nose to spite our face because someone had the wrong font size. Unfortunately, that does happen.”
Governmentwide metrics under consideration
Another significant change is around the requirement for contract close-out audits. The change now requires agencies to coordinate with auditors for contracts worth more than $2 million and to use a risk-based approach. The official said the previous requirement mandated audits for all contracts, leading to a waste of time and money on oversight of low-risk contracts.
The official said instead of mandating a one-size-fits-all approach, the FAR update lets acquisition leaders make risk-based decisions and use discretion that will save resources.
The official said several agencies already are taking advantage of the new rules detailed in the FAR overhaul.
One agency used the new requirements for oral presentations for a multi-million dollar contract for IT management and engineering services to accelerate the timetable and awarded it a month sooner than it had initially planned.
The official said the deviation lets agencies develop a strategy that meets the complexity and risk profile of a solicitation. That, the official said, can lead to more detailed and engaged conversations with industry during the acquisition planning phase and that ultimately saves time.
The official said another example of the impact of the FAR overhaul so far is one agency reduced its procurement administrative lead time (PALT) from solicitation to award by 30% for one effort. Another used the updated processes to save more than 15% of their costs to run the acquisition.
And a third agency applied the RFO changes to an existing contract and saw a huge increase in the number of bidders. The official said 10 years ago, the agency received fewer than 5 bids and this time, they received more than 70 offers.
“The market really has not changed. The bidders said their decision to bid was a direct reflection of the changes we have made in the FAR. They say it’s less burdensome and the agency considering the use of commercial best practices was a big part of it,” the official said.
OFPP is planning to measure the impact of the FAR changes through a series of governmentwide metrics: Cost, speed of acquisition and competition.
“We would hope these metrics are public to show how we are doing, at least governmentwide at first,” the official said. “We also included a sunset clause in the new FAR so every four years the council will have to reconsider the regulations. This will hedge against the FAR becoming another 2,000 page document that no one can understand.”
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