FedGovContracts.com

Barry McVay's FEDERAL CONTRACTS DISPATCH

DATE: October 3, 2000

FROM: Barry McVay, CPCM

SUBJECT: Environmental Protection Agency Acquisition Regulation (EPAAR); Administrative Amendments

SOURCE: Federal Register, October 3, 2000, Vol. 65, No. 192, page 58921

AGENCIES: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

ACTION: Interim Rule

SYNOPSIS: EPA is amending the EPAAR to add clauses which are repeatedly used in EPA solicitations but are not in the EPAAR.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The EPA Acquisition Regulation (EPAAR) is Chapter 15 of Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It is available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/oamrfp12/ptod/epaar.pdf.

DATES: The effective date is October 3, 2000. Comments on the interim rule must be submitted no later than December 4, 2000.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Acquisition Management (3802R), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Attention: Paul Schaffer, Mail Code (3802R), Washington, DC 20460. Comments will also be accepted on disks in WordPerfect or ASCII format, or by e-mail to: Schaffer.Paul@epa.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Schaffer, 202-564-4366.

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION: This interim rule adds to the EPAAR various provisions and clauses which are used in EPA solicitations but have been subject to the formal rulemaking process and are not in the EPAAR. This interim rule incorporates the provisions and clauses into the EPAAR and solicits comments on the added provisions and clauses. However, EPA states in its introductory material that "EPA does not anticipate any adverse comments because...these clauses have been regularly used in EPA solicitations and contracts for some time now without any objections or questions raised by entities responding to EPA procurements and/or contracting with the agency."

The following are the provisions and clauses being added:

Also, the prescriptions for these provisions and clauses are added in the appropriate EPAAR parts.

In addition, the following two clauses are revised:

• In EPAAR 1552.211-79, Compliance with EPA Policies for Information Resources Management, paragraph (a)(5) is removed since it pertains to "services that are subject to the Brooks Act of 1965," but the Brooks Act was repealed by the Clinger-Cohen Act in 1996; in paragraph (b)(3), the parenthetical sentence is revised to add the Internet address where the Enterprise Technology Services Division Operational Directives Manual is (http://epa.gov/docs/etsdop/); and paragraph (d) is revised to update the Internet address for the 2100 Series of EPA's Directive System (http://epa.gov/docs/irmpoli8/).
  
  
• In paragraph (b)(2) of EPAAR 1552.232-73, Payments -- Fixed-Rate Services Contract, the third sentence is revised to remove the "paid cost" rule pertaining the reimbursement of subcontract costs and replace it with a reference to FAR 32.504, Subcontracts Under Prime Contracts Providing Progress Payments. FAR 32.504 was revised by Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 97-16 to remove the "paid cost" rule and to permit contractors to include in progress payment requests the full amount of payments to subcontractors "whether paid or unpaid" (see the March 27, 2000, FEDERAL CONTRACTS DISPATCH "Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 97-16, Small Business Competitiveness Demonstration Program and Progress Payments and Related Financing Policies"). (EDITOR'S NOTE: The "paid cost" rule required large contractors to pay its subcontractors before including the payment in its progress payment billings. This restriction did not apply to small businesses.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Though EPA says in this interim rule that it "has undertaken an extensive review of its procurement regulations" and has "remove(d) from the EPAAR unnecessary coverage that duplicates existing Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) coverage." However, the following provision and clauses added to the EPAAR by this interim rule do not seem to add anything to the coverage currently in the FAR:

Seems EPA's review could have been a bit more "extensive."

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Barry McVay at 703-451-5953 or by e-mail to BarryMcVay@FedGovContracts.com.

Return to the Dispatches Library.

Return to the Main Page.