I am sure this has been discussed on this forum before but I could not get the search engine to provide me the string. We want to award an IDIQ contract with four option years and 5 award term years (10 total). Our agency FAR supplement says our procurement executive must approve going over 5 years. We submitted a D&F for his approval like we have done several times before but this time his staff asked us to provide our authority for exceeding 5 years. The staffer who comes from a DoD background seemed to think that we need specific congressional authority to exceed 5 years I did not know we needed an authority beyond our own agency requirement to get the Procurement executive's approval.

Is there any regulations or statutes that restrict multiple option year contracts to 5 years? Without a rule against it I would cite FAR part 1 that says if not prohibited we can do it?

Am I off base?

There are some limits on the duration of contracts that would effectively limit the number of options you can have. See FAR 16.505( c )(1).

Thanks Vern and I found a copy of your extensive discussion of the issue on a March 2003 blog article. Also these are Aviation services and not Advisory and Assistance as defined in FAR 2.1.

The staffer who comes from a DoD background seemed to think that we need specific congressional authority to exceed 5 years[.]

If she is asking about congressional authority, then she might be thinking of multi-year contracts, instead of multiple year contracts.

10 U.S.C. 2304b provides explicit statutory authority for DoD to accomplish what you are attempting to do, but it only applies to CAAS. I am not aware of any statutory provision that would prohibit you from doing what you propose for aviation services. If there is no prohibition in a statute, executive order or regulation on you doing so, I think your reliance on FAR Part 1 is authority for you to do it.

The authority is at DFARS 217.204(e)(i):

(e)(i) Notwithstanding FAR 17.204(e), the ordering period of a task order or delivery order contract (including a contract for information technology) awarded by DoD pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 2304a—

(A) May be for any period up to 5 years;

( B ) May be subsequently extended for one or more successive periods in accordance with an option provided in the contract or a modification of the contract; and

( C ) Shall not exceed 10 years unless the head of the agency determines in writing that exceptional circumstances require a longer ordering period.

(ii) DoD must submit a report to Congress, annually through fiscal year 2009, when an ordering period is extended beyond 10 years in accordance with paragraph (e)(i)© of this section. Follow the procedures at PGI 217.204(e) (DFARS/PGI view) for reporting requirements.

Thanks everyone.