Contractor Barry

When defining who can approve a sole source justification, FAR 6.304(a)(3)(ii) says ?If a civilian, is serving in a position in a grade above GS-15 under the General Schedule (or in a comparable or higher position under another schedule).? I am trying to determine what that means. In the General Schedule, as far as I understand, there have not been grades higher than GS-15 since the creation of the Senior Executive Service (SES). I would doubt that any of the few remaining GS-16 and GS-17 positions grandfathered are for Competition Advocates since Competition Advocates did not exist when they were being created. On the other hand, the FAR has gone to great lengths to not define this as someone in the SES (or comparable in other pay systems). Can someone please explain this choice of language? The Agency in am working at has a GS-15 Competition Advocate and would like to use this area to increase their threshold for approval to $62.5 million. Is a GS-15 step 5, for example, considered ?above a GS-15?, which could be as low as a step 1?