I learned something yesterday about FAR Supplements that made me feel kind of stupid. I had always thought that a given chapter (other than Chapter 1) of Title 48 of the CFR contained a given agency FAR supplement in its entirety. However, that is not always true. For example, if you look at the the Army FAR supplement (AFARS) at the Hill AFB FARSite, you will see parts 5101, 5102, 5103, all the way up to 5153. However, most of the AFARS is not actually contained in Title 48, Chapter 51, of the CFR. The only parts in the CFR are 5108, 5119, 5145, and 5152, and only portions of these AFARS parts appear. The same thing goes for the Navy-Marine Corps Acquisition Regulation Supplement (NMCARS)--only portions of it are contained in the CFR. The Air Force FAR Supplement (AFFARS) does not appear in the CFR at all--Chapter 53 of Title 48 is reserved.

Just to be sure, I searched the Federal Register for unique phrases in the AFARS, NMCARS, and AFFARS (but not in the CFR) and, sure enough, they never appeared in the Federal Register.

Just thought I'd share in case you didn't already know this.

Don, have you researched whether the parts that are not in the CFR were published in the Federal Register? If they were not, have you reached any conclusions regarding their validity?

Yes, I did. And, no, they were not. However, I don't necessarily see a problem with this. FAR 1.301( b ) only requires publication of proposed regulations in the Federal Register "when they have a significant effect beyond the internal operating procedures of the agency or have a significant cost or administrative impact on contractors or offerors." The Paperwork Reduction Act adds a requirement for rulemaking if the regulation would require a collection of information from 10 or more members of the public (see FAR 1.106). I assume the parts of the supplements that met these criteria were published in the Federal Register and the parts that didn't were not. The parts that were not would have the same status as the DFARS PGI. Of the FAR supplements I mentioned, I'm most familiar with the NMCARS. I would say that most of the content of the NMCARS does not meet the criteria for rulemaking. It's a lot of delegation of authority and send this document here for approval before sending it there.