In the recent MicroTechnologies LLC and SMS Data Products Group, Inc. decisions, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained protests challenging the Agency’s failure to perform the required price risk analysis under DFARS 252.204-7024. These cases mark the first time the GAO has addressed the application of the relatively new DFARS provision.
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Sealing GSA’s dominance on the tech news front today was its announcement of action to tighten the Multiple Awards Schedule (MAS) program to prioritize “value and fiscal responsibility” in Federal contracting. MAS is a government-wide procurement program that streamlines purchasing from pre-approved vendors and exceeded $51.5 billion in sales during fiscal year (FY) 2024. Changes to the program announced Monday by Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum include: allowing contracts to expire that fail to meet sales thresholds; addressing contractor non-compliance and performance concerns; reducing redundancies with other Federal procurement channels; simplifying processes, eliminating inefficiencies, and ensuring proper alignment of program management and oversight; and eliminating items with insufficient market demand or high administrative costs. “With these actions, we can put our agency resources where they get the most impactful return on investment – and that means the goods and services that are most in demand by federal customers,” Gruenbaum said.
SBA will restructure to eliminate wasteful spending, restore mission of empowering small businesses
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, pursuant to EO 14210, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced its plans for an agency-wide reorganization. To return to its founding mission of empowering small businesses, and to restore accountability to taxpayers, the agency will reduce its workforce by 43% – ending the expansive social policy agenda of the prior Administration, eliminating non-essential roles, and returning to pre-pandemic staffing levels.
The strategic reorganization will begin a turnaround for the agency by restoring the efficiency of the first Trump Administration, as well as its focus on promoting small businesses. Core services to the public, including the agency’s loan guarantee and disaster assistance programs, as well as its field and veteran operations, will not be impacted.
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On January 15, the Department of Defense, GSA, and NASA published proposed rules that would implement the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act. The Act was enacted on December 27, 2022. It directs the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council to:
The proposed changes implement the Act by moving OCI regulations to a new subpart, FAR part 3, and substantially revising and clarifying current OCI regulations.
The focus of the proposed rule is to update and strengthen policies to prevent OCIs in federal contracting.
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Buyers must default to rapid-acquisition processes long used by DIU, SecDef memo orders.
The Pentagon must default to rapid acquisition processes when buying software, from business systems to weapons components, the defense secretary said in a Thursday memo. The move is a “big deal,” one expert told Defense One, because it will push the Defense Department to stop spending considerable money and time trying to build its own software and instead go to the marketplace for products that might already exist.
“While the commercial industry has rapidly adjusted to a software-defined product reality, DoD has struggled to reframe our acquisition process from a hardware-centric to a software-centric approach,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote in the March 6 memo. “Software is at the core of every weapon and supporting system we field to remain the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”
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The General Services Administration will retire FSRS.gov the evening of March 6, 2025. This means that the system will be unavailable and no new data can be entered into FSRS.gov. Subaward reporting will then become available in SAM.gov on March 8, 2025.
We advise the following actions:
• FSRS.gov users who already have a SAM.gov account should take action now to connect their two accounts.
• FSRS.gov users who do not currently have a SAM.gov account should take action now to create a new account at SAM.gov.
• All users will need to be granted the correct role and permission in SAM.gov by their SAM.gov entity administrator before being able to access the new subaward reporting capabilities after March 8.
To help users prepare for the change, we are holding a live training session on Wednesday at 1:00PM EST to walk through what subaward reporting will look like in SAM.gov. Register now for the March 5 training.
Additionally, GSA just posted two previous trainings and five how-to videos to the IAE playlist on GSA YouTube that users can access and watch now (including a bulk upload training).
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For the latest information about subaward reporting in SAM.gov and links to relevant information, please visit our information page on SAM.gov.
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a review of the department’s fiscal 2026 budget plans in order to shift funds from legacy programs towards President Donald Trump’s priorities, including border security and the Iron Dome for America.
The goal: Find roughly $50 billion, or 8 percent of the FY26 plan, and reprioritize it.
“Secretary Hegseth has directed a review to identify offsets from the Biden Administration’s FY26 budget that could be realigned from low-impact and low-priority Biden-legacy programs to align with President Trump’s America First priorities for our national defense,” acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said in a Wednesday night statement.
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DLA’s Fiscal 2024 Annual Report is here!
Discover how DLA is transforming and closing the gaps in 2025 to continue to deliver the agile, adaptive and resilient support our warfighters expect and deserve.
What’s Inside?
Strategic Plan 2025-2030: A call to action
Key financial and acquisition metrics
Service and CCMD support highlights
With operations in 48 states and 28 countries, DLA managed $52.6B in obligations and $47B in revenue in fiscal year 2024, placing us among the top 350 Fortune 500 companies.
In regards to rebuilding the defense industrial base (DIB) and reforming the acquisition process:
“We will rebuild our military by matching threats to capabilities. This means reviving our defense industrial base, reforming our acquisition process, passing a financial audit, and rapidly fielding emerging technologies. We will remain the strongest and most lethal force in the world.”
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Section 1. Policy. Adversarial countries and criminals continue to conduct cyber campaigns targeting the United States and Americans. These campaigns disrupt the delivery of critical services across the Nation, cost billions of dollars, and undermine Americans’ security and privacy. More must be done to improve the Nation’s cybersecurity against these threats.
Sec. 2. Operationalizing Transparency and Security in Third-Party Software Supply Chains. (a) The Federal Government and our Nation’s critical infrastructure rely on software providers. Yet insecure software remains a challenge for both providers and users and makes Federal Government and critical infrastructure systems vulnerable to malicious cyber incidents. The Federal Government must continue to adopt secure software acquisition practices and take steps so that software providers use secure software development practices to reduce the number and severity of vulnerabilities in software they produce.
Sec. 3. Improving the Cybersecurity of Federal Systems. (a) The Federal Government must adopt proven security practices from industry — to include in identity and access management — in order to improve visibility of security threats across networks and strengthen cloud security.
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