Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Navy Cancels Several of its Unique Procurement Regulations

The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) system is extensive and complex. Not only do we have the basic FAR regulations, but nearly every executive agency has their own FAR supplement. These include the DFARS (Defense) which we refer to often in these pages, DEARS (Energy), NFS (NASA), AGAR (Agriculture), DOLARS (Labor), DOSARS (State), GSAM (GSA) and many many more. There are about 33 FAR Supplements in total. Companies that are seeking work with a Governmental agency would do well to familiarize themselves with the particular regulations of that agency.

Some of these FAR supplements contain cost principles not found in the FAR. Typically these supplemental cost principles are more restrictive than the corresponding cost principles found in FAR and address some particular element of cost that is not covered by FAR. The Defense, Energy, and NASA FAR supplements are three that have significant additional cost principles.

Its not often that regulations are rescinded or cancelled and so when it happens, we should perhaps celebrate. The Navy recently cancelled three of regulations found in its FAR supplement, NMCARS (Navy Marine Corps Acquisition Regulations Supplement). In each case, the regulations were determined to be duplicative of that found in FAR or DFARS. The Navy considered the rule "no longer used" (we suppose that could be the case for many procurement regulations) and "should be removed".

These removed regulations include:

  • 48 CFR Part 5242 which establishes policy and procedures for requesting refunds for spare parts or items of support equipment.
  • 48 CFR Part 5215 which establishes additional requirements for source selections, evaluation factors and proposal evaluations. These procedures were also found to be superseded by current FAR and DFARS guidance.
  • 48 CFR Part 5252 which are solicitation/contract clauses referenced in the other cancelled provisions.

Keep the momentum going. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a lot of other regulations that are "no longer used or valid and should be removed".

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