This series of FAR summaries is meant to take a meaningful portion of the Federal Acquisition Regulations to ensure an easy-to-understand approach to maintain that readers comprehend the process of doing business with the government and that the government exercises a fair and reasonable approach to doing business with the general public.
FAR Part 18 Emergency Acquisitions
The below only holds true in terms of military action(s), international disaster recovery or Presidential declaration of emergency or disaster.
There are few rules. The Contracting Officer must not violate improper business practices per FAR Part 3
The vendor does not have to be registered in SAM to provide a quote or submit a proposal but does have to be registered to be seen in the Disaster Response Registry (FAR 18.102).
The CO does not need to synopsize or summarize the contract action to be visible on SAM (FAR 18.103).
Sources and competition may be limited or non-existent (FAR 18.104).
Schedules and other “blanket contract types” may be better and faster for planning buys and making them (FAR 18.105).
FPI (FAR 18.106) and AbilityOne (FAR 18.107) are not a manditory source and can be ignored.
Qualification requirements may not exist (FAR 18.108).
DoD has authorized a quick perusal of vendors (FAR 18.109).
Sole source buys are within bounds up to the micro-purchase threshold which is $250,000 currently (FAR 18.110).
Phone, email or word of mouth can substitute the formal request for proposal process (FAR 18.111).
Letter contracts can be used to begin immediate performance (FAR 18.112).
Interagency buys are an option (FAR 18.113).
Awards to the SBA (FAR 18.114), a HUBZone on a sole source basis (FAR 18.115), a SDVOSB on sole source justification (FAR 18.116) and women-owned small businesses of various categories (FAR 18.117) are available to the CO.
Overtime is retroactive (FAR 18.118).
Trade agreements may be bypassed (FAR 18.119).
Bid guarantees may be waived and qualifications assumed (FAR get 18.121).
Advanced payments may be made to awardees (FAR 18.122), due dates of payment may be neglected (FAR 18.123) and electronic transfers of money may be waived (FAR 18.124).
Contract actions can continue after a protest to GAO is made (FAR 18.125).
Awardees can use government property rent free (FAR 18.126).
The CO is granted broad contracting relief (FAR 18.127) to adjust pricing, overlook mistakes and allow performance from informal commitments.
The agency head can adjust the micro-purchase threshold (MPT) and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT). Both can be adjusted in whole or in part during military operations (FAR 18.201), in times of resulted emergency caused by modern warfare (FAR 18.202) and humanitarian relief (FAR 18.204).
Preference is given to proximity in terms of contract awards during a declared disaster or emergency and ships can go as they please (FAR 18.203).
The government provides resources by way of the National Response Framework and through OFPP (FAR 18.205).
My experience lies in declared emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic within the VA’s FSS program. We amended pricing for medical services by adding a line-item referred to as pandemic pricing to allow for an increase in wage and earnings during the pandemic without modifying the base FSS contract. This allowed the awardee to bid using their FSS contract pricing, terms and conditions but gave them the liberty to increase their prices when prices began to skyrocket in the medical services field. When the pandemic ended the amended line-item was removed.
This type of contracting is fast and furious. The name of the game is award or amend by any means necessary.
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