The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul

When I first read Presidential Executive Order 14275, "Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement" (15 Apr 2025), I was not optimistic. So many reviews and studies intended to transform and streamline the federal acquisition process over the decades resulted in voluminous reports but very little substantive change. The most recent effort was the Section 800 Panel, which was chartered in law by Congress and staffed with some true acquisition experts. The full Section 800 Panel report (Volumes I - III) is posted to Dayton Aerospace’s Defense Acquisition Library, under the category of “Reports/Analysis.” 

In many cases, improvement in the acquisition process can only be accomplished by changing statutory acquisition rules, which are never easily changed. But now that the Revolutionary Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Overhaul (RFO) is published, I am quite impressed!

This RFO was not performed by an independent commission or “greybeard” study. Rather, this effort engaged the government entity responsible for the publishing and maintaining the FAR – the FAR Council. Most of the time, the FAR Council works through implementing new or changed laws and the process moves slowly with a deliberative internal evaluation followed by the formal public review and comment process. The RFO was different.

Clear guidance came down from the White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the group with the greatest knowledge of the FAR was designated as the lead.

The Council knows the history and understands the intent behind the existing FAR rules. Their task was clear:

• Conduct a comprehensive review of the FAR and redesign the regulation quickly in just six months (May – Oct)

• Streamline and simplify the procurement process with a focus on speed, efficiency, and meeting agency mission objectives by:

  • Identifying and retaining requirements based on statute

  • Removing non-statutory rules when not essential to sound procurement

  • Writing the revised regulation in clear and plain language

  • Giving contracting officers (COs) greater discretion and authority in “how” statutory requirement are met

Of course, US law[i] requires that regulations which impact the public must go through a formal public review and comment period. With the mandated short schedule, what could the FAR Council do? They cleverly made version 1.0 of the RFO an informal set of rules that can be adopted by individual agencies using a FAR class deviation (authorized by FAR 1.404) for each of the 53 parts of the FAR. A class deviation authorizes that agency to immediately begin using that rewritten FAR part. This does potentially create some confusion, but given that the deviations drive fewer rules, rather than more, it is generally favorable to all parties.

The FAR Council invited public comment during the short RFO rewrite period, but only through the RFO website and without the formal comment disposition process. The formal review and comment period will still take place during Phase 2 of the RFO. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if many public comments are submitted given how improved RFO version 1.0 is in comparison to the pre-RFO FAR.

Here are the big reasons that I like the “new” RFO FAR:

• The language is easy to read and understand.

• The content is logically organized using the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Contract Management Standard phases of “Pre-Award” “Award” and “Post Award”.

• The regulation is significantly reduced in volume. For example:

  • FAR Part 1, “FAR System” was reduced in word count more than 50% (from 8,200 to 3,700 words).

  • FAR Part 5, “Publicizing Contract Actions” was reduced word count by almost 75%.

  • FAR Part 12, “Acquisition of Commercial Products and Commercial Services” 46 provisions and clauses were removed, representing a 30% reduction in requirements potential applicable to commercial contracting.

  • Part 22, “Application of Labor Laws to Government Acquisitions” was reduced from 184 pages to 130 pages.

• Helpful non-regulatory guidance is available in a “FAR Companion” which provides context, helpful advice, and information with no “shalls”. Experienced COs can proceed without using it, but newer COs can turn to the Companion for help.

• There are “Practitioner Albums” for each change FAR part. These are helpful non-regulatory references that help users understand how the FAR has changed, including a summary line-in/line-out reference showing the FAR changes. The interactive albums describe:

  • Statutory information that was retained along with the legal citation.

  • Content that was moved or changed and provides the new location.

  • Content that was eliminated because it was outdated, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.

  • Rationale and intent for identified changes.

  • "Smart accelerators” to share best practices and stimulate innovation.

  • Ability to earn continuous learning points by reviewing the album.

There are also some significant beneficial changes in the new FAR. For small businesses, there was a concern that the RFO would do away with the “rule of two” which applied to acquisitions over the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) (FAR 19.502(a)) since it was not based in law. The requirement was not only retained but it was expanded to cover all acquisitions above the micro-purchase threshold (MPT). Before this change, the purchases below the SAT but above the MPT were “automatically” set-aside for small businesses, but the criteria for deviating from that general rule and pursuing open competition was unclear. Invoking the rule of two is a meaningful improvement.

The biggest and most useful changes involve FAR Parts 12 & 13. The RFO not only eliminated 46 provisions and clauses applicable to commercial acquisitions, the new FAR made it quite clear that commercial products and services must be ordered using existing contracts whenever possible. While a FAR Part 12 contract is nowhere near as flexible as real commercial contracting, the rewrite takes a few steps closer toward expedited placement of orders and rapid delivery of commercial products and services. The use of simplified procedures for commercial acquisitions up to $9M moved from FAR Subpart 13.5 to FAR 12.201. FAR Part 13 was also renamed from “Simplified Acquisition Procedures” to “Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Non-Commercial Acquisitions,” further distinguishing simplified commercial buying from the traditional FAR Part 13 procedures.

In conclusion, I’m impressed. The new FAR is a significant improvement—less is better and the change was accomplished faster than I believed possible.

Now it is up to COs and those who review their work to embrace the spirit and intent of the RFO: move fast, innovate, and shorten the timeline from requirement to delivery. Government customers, especially warfighters, want and deserve products and services at the speed of need.

[i] The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) of 1946 - Specifically, sections 553(b) and 553(c) of the APA outline the procedural requirements for "notice-and-comment rulemaking” process.

About the Author

Tom Wells has extensive government acquisition-related experience, including executive leadership of major and complex organizations, as well as direction of procurement operations supporting weapon systems life cycle management from research and development to production, test, and sustainment. Prior to retirement from government service, Tom was the Director of Contracting, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) and Director, 7llth Human Performance Wing, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). He is a recognized contracting subject matter expert who is frequently published in the National Contract Management Association’s (NCMA) CM Magazine. Learn more about Tom here.