Vern Edwards

Who is Will Roberts? (I don't follow LinkedIn.)

Yes. Plainly so.

In Golden IT, LLc v. United States, COFC 24-1893C, July 14, 2025, a bid protest case, Chief Judge Matthew Solomson opens his decision with the following: Footnote omitted. I had stopped routinely reading bid protest decisions. Pointlessly frustrating. But I think I'll start again.

Let's be careful with use of terminology. REA stands for Request for an Equitable Adjustment. The proper distinction is not between "price adjustment" and REA. The proper distinction, if any, is between "price adjustment" and "equitable adjustment". The FAR does not define either "price adjustment" or "equitable adjustment." However, case law generally provides that an "equitable adjustment" includes an adjustment to both cost and profit. See 2 Government Contract Costs & Pricing § 87:19. The meaning of "price adjustment" depends on the text of the clause that prescribes it. In this case there should be no confusion, because the contract clause, FAR 52.229-6, Taxes-Foreign Fixed-Price Contracts (FEB 2013), clearly states: "the contract price shall be increased by the amount of any after-imposed tax or any tax or duty specification excluded from the contract price...." Italics added.

Thank you, Gentlemen.

Exactly. So why are you so agitated? What are you trying to convince us (or yourself) of? Even if Air Force responds, we still won't know. We'll never have enough info to stop speculation. Did I upset you by saying "Think like a lawyer"? Chill.

Emphasis added. Source?

Emphasis added. @formerfed @joel hoffman Now, what leads you two to the conclusion that the requirement is being eliminated? The fact that "the requirement owner" would like to remove the options? I see nothing in the OP to justify that conclusion. According to the OP, it's part of a "DOGE cut drill." My speculation is that DOGE is insisting on a mod to delete the options so it can "document" a claim that it reduced the contract "price" and thus saved money, thus justifying its existence.. Let's see if Air Force One clears things up.

The contract in question appears to be for long-term services. There is likely no "future planning" advantage (what other kind of planning is there?) to losing the options, because there is no issue of fixed production capacity. The contractor likely hires as needed. But there is a kind of loss, because the government usually exercises service options unless the requirement goes away or performance is poor. The contractor may have considered that to be a reason to lower its first year price, calculating the likely long term pricing advantage. If the options are to be eliminated because the requirement is going away, that's one thing. But if there has not been a determination that the requirement is going away, if DOGE simply wants to report "savings" be eliminating the options, that may be another thing entirely. A board or court might consider that to be a matter of first impression. You ask someone to compete for a requirement that enticingly include options, which provide an advantage in obtaining future business, and with price evaluated including those option prices. What's to prevent a contractor from pricing based on the long term possibility? And then you take that advantage away. Why? Think about it. Think about it like a lawyer.

One thought: If the option prices were evaluated as part of the award of the original contract, would deletion of the options be grounds for a scope of the competition protest? Just asking. Sheer speculation without analysis. 🤔 (Don't confuse deletion of the options with termination for convenience.)

In the mid-1950s government contracting was in crisis because Congress had discovered that 90+ percent of DOD contract awards were being made through contracting by negotiation instead of sealed bidding. The House of Representatives created a special subcommittee to investigate. In its 1957 investigation report, the subcommittee stated the following: Report on Study of Armed Services Procurement Act, Title 10, U.S. Code, Chapter 137, Subcommittee for Special Investigations of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Eighty-Fifth Congress, First Session, June 15, 1957, pp. 642-643. Today, the annual "procurement program" is valued at about $800+ billion and growing.

I don't think any mod is necessary. A letter would do. But it appears that DOGE wants one, and I don't think the government has any contractual authority to unilaterally mod the contract to delete an option. But, I really don't care.

An optionn is an offer with an extended acceptance period. The contractor has no right to the exercise of an option, but the government has the right to exercise that option. The mere existence of an option does not obligate funds. Funds are obligated when the option is exercised. You probably know all this. There is no contractual reason to delete an option, except, perhaps, to let the contractor know you're rejecting their option offer and that they are off the hook. But if DODE insists on a mod and you don't want to say no, write a supplemental agreement.

l agree wholeheartedly. The A-E selection process should be used for contractor selection and contract formation for all major system procurements and procurements for long-term complex services. I first proposed that in an article published in 1997 and in several articles since. Our current competitive negotiation process dates from the 19th Century.

@Guardian Great question! Unfortunately for me I know next to nothing about machine learning and AI and have little interest in it. But I think there are others here, like Don Mansfield, who might engage with you. Thanks for posting.

@Self Employed No offense taken. The quality the information posted here is generally a reflection of the quality of the initial post in a thread. Most initial posts ask elementary questions. The answers are usually elementary. A journeyman contract specialist should not expect to learn much from such Q&As. But this is is supposed to be a discussion board. Unfortunately, there is very little discussion of ideas here. Contracting people do not seem to be idea people. They are task-focused. The just want a quick answer to a question in order to advance a process. WIFCON responses to such questions are generally adequate, but rarely interesting. What would be an interesting question? How about this: QUESTION: Does it make sense to apply the economic concept of "price" and the government concept of "fair and reasonable price" to contracts for major system development acquisitions such as the USAF sixth-generation F-47 fighter program? If not, then should FAR Subpart 15.4 as presently written apply to such acquisitions? If not, then how should we think about the dollar amounts to be stated in such contracts? What are they really? And what should FAR say about them? Where would you "look" for answers to those questions, Self Employed?

I haven't thought much about it. I've been waiting to see what agencies actually do with AI. I do worry that AI will lead many humans to do less thinking than they do now. Too bad if it does, because thinking is a pleasure.

Agree. But we need to explore the concept of "professional development". You'll notice that Lt. Col. Fleharty made a distinction between education and training. The distinction is important. I would say that education is the process of gaining knowledge and training is the process of learning how to apply knowledge in practice. Education without training is suboptimal. Training without education is useless, even dangerous. Education is something apprentices (interns, trainees) can do for themselves to a great extent, mainly through reading, helpfully with the guidance of a sponsor. I say that an apprentice seeking mastery must read, off duty, 200 - 300 pages of quality material each week. That's not an especially heavy load. You must read to learn key concepts and principles before you start learning government rules. Consider the concept of contract. There is a legal definition and there are practical descriptions and explanations. The legal definition is important, but you won't learn a lot about the practical realities of contracts by reading the Restatement, Second, of Contracts. But you can explore deeply into the concept of contracts by reading "The Many Futures of Contracts," a famous, important, and highly influential 50-page essay by Ian R. Macneil. It was published in the Southern California Law Review in 1974. Look for it online or see if you can get it at a local law library. While you're at it, also look for "A Primer of Contract Planning," also by Macneil, also published in the Southern California Law Review, in 1975. Those two essays alone would put an apprentice far ahead of their peers in terms of a deeper understanding of the nature and challenges of contracting. But they are not easy reads. You won't be assigned those readings by your government DAU or FAI instructors, because most of them don't know about them. Again, the legal definition is important, but it won't teach you much about the kinds of things that a CO needs to know. It won't help you design, plan, create, and sustain effective contracts. And those two essays are less than half of the pages that I think an apprentice must read each week. But I'm talking to the real prospective pros out there. The ones who seek mastery. Apprentices will either read those essays or they won't. But if anyone were a contracting apprentice under my supervision they'd either read them, master them, and asl for more, and thus become ready to set out on the road to advancement, or they'd be available for reassignment. I just attended a U.S. Space Force retirement ceremony for a woman who had started out 40 years ago as a GS-02 clerk typist, went to college, went on to became an Air Force Copper Cap trainee, and ended up as a member of the Senior Executive Service and the Executive Director of the U.S. Space Systems Command, with generals and staff in attendance, a wall full of awards for excellence (maybe two walls), and a large crowd of military and civilian personnel there to say goodbye to a respected and beloved boss. I flew down to attend by invitation with other former (now ancient) space cowboys. Now, THAT is a career.

Whoa! Nietzsche! 😯

Uh... I think you may have it backwards. Ever hear of the the concept of entropy? The second law of thermodynamics? Disorder, randomness, and uncertainty? 😀

According to Acquisition.govL @formerfed The FAR Council isn't going to review anything, because, with the exception of the acting OFPP Administrator, they don't know enough about it to review it. At best some unknown(s) on their staffs are going to review it. Maybe. All the overhaulers are going to accomplish in the short term is to cast the system into chaos while people try to figure out how to do things under the stripped down (Oops! I meant streamlined) FAR. They're going to replace some parts with some used and ready to fail parts. I've been around long enough to remember the chaos after previous "reforms". So have you, formerfed. But this will be good for laughs.

I have to laugh at the interest in the early work of the FAR overhaulers. So far they've taken about a month to publish revisions of low-hanging fruit like Parts 1, 10, and 34. Let's see what they do with Part 7, Subparts 9.4 and 9.5, Part 12, Parts 15, 19, 22, 25, 27, 32, 42, 44, and 45, and, of course, Subpart 52.2. There's a long and winding road ahead. And who are the people working on this? What are they qualifications? How are they organized? What is their process? Who are their consultants? It is said that acquisition personnel are professionals. Well, would any true profession𑁋such as engineering, law, or medicine𑁋go along with unknowns working on something as important as, say, a new edition of the Restatement of Contracts?

That's an exaggeration. It might be truer to say that nobody thinks about procurement/contracting very much until something goes wrong. However, I think congressional interest in procurement/contracting is much less intense today than it was in the past. During the 1950s through the mid-1990s, congressional interest in procurement/contracting was fairly intense. During those years Congress regularly conducted lengthy hearings and published voluminous investigations of various issues in procurement/contracting, especially defense contracting, and especially about competition and contract pricing. But after the "reform" legislation of the 1990s congressional interest seems to have waned. Since the mid-1990s intense partisanship has led to congressional malfunction, which continues in the present day. Today's Congress is not as interested in routine government functions as it was in the past. It's members now fight over issues of what should be the function, focus, size and political orientation and goals of government. But procurement/contracting is still of concern to some. I think a systematic study of mentions of "procurement" and "contracting" in the Congressional Record over time would support my beliefs.

Army, Navy, or Air Force? There's lots of information online about various PEO organizations. Organization depends largely on what kind of service you're buying. See, e.g.: https://www.slideserve.com/brennan-stephenson/january-10-2008 See chart 11. See also: https://www.google.com/search?q=army+peo+organization+chart&sca_esv=36354fdb691823cb&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS809US809&sxsrf=AHTn8zor0bWrPxZYRq9kgd2VxzRUtBcRnA%3A1747760662287&ei=FrYsaL6nEf2v0PEPp8DJiQk&oq=DOD+PEO+organization&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFERPRCBQRU8gb3JnYW5pemF0aW9uKgIIADIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYRzIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR0joHVAAWABwAXgAkAEAmAFMoAFMqgEBMbgBAcgBAJgCAaACB5gDAIgGAZAGCJIHATGgB9wEsgcAuAcA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#imgrc=ge-FZiFPXHV4sM&imgdii=xzPmWcdsnRV6EM

No problem. Can you tell us something about the specific mission?