Cost/Price Might Become the Most Important Evaluation Factor

Representative Grayson (Florida) introduced legislation earlier this month that, if passed, would reduce the flexibility that Government procurement authorities have in structuring the importance of evaluation criteria for awarding competitive proposals. This legislation, by the way, would only affect DoD contracts.

This proposed legislation would make cost or price to the Government the most significant evaluation factor in evaluating contractor proposals. No longer would a contracting officer be able to make the combination of all evaluation factors other than cost or price, more significant than cost or price.

The existing regulation reads:

"... shall include cost or price to the Federal Government as an evaluation factor that must be considered in the evaluation of proposals and shall disclose to offerors whether all evaluation factors other than cost or price, when combined are
     significantly more important than cost or price
     approximately equal in importance to cost or price, or
     significantly less important than cost or price."

The proposed regulation would read:

"...shall include cost or price to the Federal government as an evaluation factor that must be considered in the evaluation of proposals and that must be assigned importance at least equal to all evaluation factors other than cost or price when combined."

The proposed legislation also provides for waivers to the rule if the head of the contracting activity wants to grant a waiver and put the justification in writing. Those waivers would also be reported to Congress annually. We wouldn't expect to see much enthusiasm by the contracting community to pursue waivers.

One bill tracking website gives this proposed legislation a two percent chance of becoming law as stand-alone legislation but a much higher chance if tacked on to some other legislation, such as next year's NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act).