Two EOs continue biggest overhaul of federal acquisition since 1990s

The Trump administration is attempting to reshape the federal acquisition process in a way that hasn’t been seen since the 1990s.

Not since Congress and the Clinton administration passed two seminal bills, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act (FASA) and the Federal Acquisition Reform Act (FARA), into law has there been an effort to modernize and improve how agencies buy products and services.

The White House kicked off the effort about a month ago when President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the consolidation of common goods and services at the General Services Administration.

Now the administration wants to take its proverbial chainsaw to the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

Trump yesterday signed the much-anticipated executive order that calls for the remaking of 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.”

“More than 40 years ago, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) was implemented to establish uniform procedures for acquisitions across executive departments and agencies,” Trump wrote in the EO. “The ‘vision’ of the federal acquisition system, codified at section 1.102 of the FAR, is to ‘deliver on a timely basis the best value product or service to the customer, while maintaining the public’s trust and fulfilling public policy objectives[,]’ but since its inception, the FAR has swelled to more than 2,000 pages of regulations, evolving into an excessive and overcomplicated regulatory framework and resulting in an onerous bureaucracy. Federal procurement under the FAR receives consistently negative assessments regarding its efficiency.”

The President also signed a second executive order yesterday calling on agencies to buy commercial products or justify why they can’t.

The White House said FASA directs agencies to prioritize the procurement of commercially available products and services, but for too long previous administrations have spent too much money on buying custom products and services.

“Doing so simultaneously stifled the integration of commercially available innovations in government procurement while increasing government spending, resulting in avoidable waste and costly delays to the detriment of American taxpayers,” the President wrote in the EO. “My administration will enforce existing laws directing the federal government to utilize, to the maximum extent practicable, the competitive marketplace and the innovations of private enterprise to provide better, more cost-effective services to taxpayers.”

Long-time goal to buy commercial IT

This EO is particularly impactful for federal technology spending. In a fact sheet, the White House said that the government could have saved an estimated $345 billion over the last 25 years if it had bought more commercial off-the-shelf IT solutions, rather than building systems from scratch.

The push to buy commercial IT products and services isn’t new. Previous administrations and industry have been pushing for a heavier reliance on commercial buying for decades.

In 2021, for example, three industry groups and 44 technology companies wrote a letter pressing the White House to make clear to agencies that they should follow this long-held requirement of buying commercial software first so they can take more advantage of private sector innovations.

In 2016, the Defense Department issued a memo telling the services and defense agencies to focus more on commercial systems when modernizing business IT applications. The guidance came after Congress included a provision in the fiscal 2016 defense authorization bill.

And going back to 1998, Congress told the Pentagon to buy more commercial products and services.

To address both of these long-standing, and many times frustrating problems, the executive orders set a host of deadlines for agencies to begin changing their habits.

The FAR rewrite EO puts the GSA and the FAR Council on tight deadlines.

In the next six months, GSA, the council and agency procurement leaders “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.”

Multiple sources say this effort already has begun, with many expecting an initial draft to be released imminently.

“Led by OFPP, the FAR Council will rewrite the FAR in plain English, eliminate non-statutory and duplicative regulations, remove DEI and wokeness and add buyer guides in place of burdensome and outdated requirements,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a release. “The federal government will no longer procure useless and wasteful products like paper straws. It will focus on results above all else — the best products and services at the best price.”

OMB guidance coming on FAR rewrite

As part of this rewrite, GSA must identify all FAR provisions not required by statute that will remain in the FAR, consider amending the regulations so that these non-statutorily required rules would sunset in four years after their effective date, and consider whether any new FAR provision not required by statute would also expire after four years unless renewed by the FAR Council.

Agencies also have to rewrite their specific FAR supplements to align with the restructured regulations.

In 15 days, agencies have to name a senior official to lead this effort. In 20 days, OMB must provide implementation guidance for the EO.

“This long-overdue Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) will ensure a faster acquisition cycle, lower barriers to entry for small businesses, startups, and other new entrants and eliminate wasteful bureaucratic bloat,” OMB said. “To complement the RFO, a brand-new website will bring an unprecedented level of transparency to the procurement process, so that any member of industry or the general public can stay informed on regulatory updates, buyer guides, and the overall process.”

The deadlines for the commercial buying EO also are not as tight. Agencies have 60 days to tell contracting officers to review all open agency solicitations, pre-solicitation notices, solicitation notices, award notices and sole source notices for non-commercial products or services, such as highly specialized, government-unique systems, custom-developed products or services, or research and development requirements where the agency has not identified a satisfactory commercial option.

“Each contracting officer shall consolidate each such agency solicitation, pre-solicitation notice, solicitation notice, award notice and sole source notice into a proposed application requesting approval for the purchase of the non commercial products or services, which shall be submitted to the agency’s approval authority,” the EO states. “The proposed applications shall contain the market research and price analysis used to determine the availability of commercial products and services to meet the government’s needs and to justify the procurement of a non-commercial product or service … and the rationale for pursuing a government-unique, custom-developed or otherwise non-commercial product or service.”

Then, within 30 days of the analysis, agency acquisition leaders must assess each proposed application’s compliance with FASA, looking at the market research, price analysis and then make a recommendation on whether commercial products or services would meet the agency’s needs.

Additionally, in 120 days, agencies must provide report to OMB detailing their compliance with FASA and its progress toward implementing the commercial buying policies. The report then is due annually after the first one.

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