Small Business Know-Before-You-Bid Construction Transparency Act
Last Friday, September 23, 2022, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council released their final rule regarding the Small Business-Know-Before-You-Bid Construction Transparency Act, which ASA, along with the Construction Industry Procurement Coalition (CIPC), supported during the 116th Congress (2019-2021). This regulation applies to any federal solicitation for small business construction contracts. Importantly, it will require agencies to publish their policies and procedures for processing change orders (REAs), begin to track the time it takes the agency to define change orders, and publish this data on those solicitations and on a public website. This is a good procurement rule that will bring transparency to an issue that has long been costing federal contractors time and money. We suspect many agencies will have to, for the first time, focus on creating coherent policies and procedures for processing change orders. While the regulatory wheels turn slowly, this marks the end of the legislative/regulatory process for this important rule.