Executive Order 14158 of January 20, 2025 (Establishing and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency”)

[Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders]

Sounding the alarm. Every contractors should be alarmed by this executive orders. Especially large businesses that will be completing fairly for government contracts—DOGE or Elon Musk may see your proprietary information. This is a major conflict of interest. Please share this information the public’s need to see this. 

Please Read and Share:
Executive Order 14158 of January 20, 2025 (Establishing and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency”).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-cost-efficiency-initiative/

(b)  Review of Covered Contracts and Grants.  Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall review all existing covered contracts and grants and, where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration.  This process shall commence immediately and shall prioritize the review of funds disbursed under covered contracts and grants to educational institutions and foreign entities for waste, fraud, and abuse.  Each Agency Head shall complete this review within 30 days of the date of this order.

(c)  Contract and Grant Process Review.  Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall conduct a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel.  Each Agency Head shall complete this process within 30 days of the date of this order and shall not issue or approve new contracting officer warrants during the review period, unless the Agency Head determines such approval is necessary. 

[joel hoffman]

Although this post was originally dated last Thursday, it just showed up on my feed today, Monday.  

With all due respect to @Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders: Do you think that most contracts are not available to the public to review? 
 

On 2/27/2025 at 11:37 PM, Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders said:

orders. Especially large businesses that will be completing fairly for government contracts—DOGE or Elon Musk may see your proprietary information. This is a major conflict of interest. Please share this information the public’s need to see this. 

@Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders, where does the reference state that contractor proprietary business information is available for DOGE review? I didn’t read where it does. The FAR doesn’t make it available either. 

[joel hoffman]

@Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders, do you think that most contracts are not available to the public to review? 

This came from a Google search for:  “Are US government contracts public records?

“Federal contracts are considered public records, with a few exceptions.

“Given how the resources used to fund the government contracts are from the taxpayers, the public has the right to know the details of the contract. But, not all kinds of information can be disclosed to the public, especially if it can adversely affect one party involved in the contract. According to Exemption 4 of the FOIA, the United States government will keep the commercial and financial details of the government contractor strictly confidential.”

See also: https://www.govconwire.com/articles/government-contracts-10-questions-you-need-to-know/#2_Are_government_contracts_public_record

“2. Are government contracts public record?

Yes! According to the rules and regulations set by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the public has the right to request federal contracting records since the resources used for funding came from the citizen’s tax.

But, just because federal solicitation are public records, does it mean that all the contractors’ sensitive information is given to the public too? No. Based on FOIA Exemption No. 4, releasing information to the public comes with a few exceptions, whereas the trade secrets, commercial and financial details of contractors or businesses will not be disclosed to the public.”

And:

https://www.quora.com/Are-federal-contracts-public-information

“Much information about unclassified federal contracts is public. For example, you can do searches by company name, DUNS number, CAGE code, or another keyword on fpds.gov. Type in “Lockheed Martin” and you will see they have had more than 900,000 contract actions since these records have been started.

The data you can get will be summary information such as Contract ID, Modification Number, Transaction Number, Award/IDV Type, Action Obligation ($), Date Signed, Contracting Agency, NAICS, etc. In most cases, if you want the entire contract, you would have to go through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and if there is anything sensitive or company proprietary in the contract, it will be redacted before provided.

Some classified contracts will be unavailable to the public. I know of contracts so sensitive that even the invoices were considered classified and had to be packaged and shipped using the same procedures as for the handling of a classified, technical report. You won’t get public information about those kinds of contracts.”

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The original poster, @Sounding Alarm on Executive Orders last visited the site on the past Thursday. This might be because the thread first appeared in the Forum either late Sunday or on Monday morning when I received an email, notifying me of the new topic posting.

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**Although this information doesn’t specifically state that it isn’t available to Elon Musk and DOGE, I do not see any indication in the Exxecutive Order or reference in the original post that indicates that DOGE has access to “sensitive or proprietary company information”.

** i personally think that the records of public contract payments made to a company under the terms of a contract should be available to the public under FOIA and also available to the DOGE. 

Edited March 4 by joel hoffman
Bold emphasis added and Added last two paragraphs **

[C Culham]

It is murky I agree. 

But then there is this.   

The Federal workforce has something like 2 million employees that look at all kinds of stuff every day.  DOGE folks are either Federal employees or special Federal employees by my read.   So from my chair the issue is not FOIA or not it is what access should a Federal employee be granted when it comes acquisition information.  Contracts awarded - are not FPDS.gov and USASpending.gov public facing databases that anyone can access that provide the 30,000 view?    Contract/solicitation files - Does not in varous places (say FAR part 3 and 15)  provide guidance and indicate potential ramifications regarding improper access and disclosure?   There is no doubt that the policing the access to ensure prudence has ramped up, so goes the roller coaster of a new administration!