This week’s blog post highlights Thought No. 8 of the Thirteen Thoughts for 2013:  “GSA’s 2012 waiver of the Price Reduction Clause—a statement in favor of competition!”  Last fall, the application of the Price Reduction Clause (PRC) was waived for the purposes of the Air Force’s Enterprise Sourcing Group’s open market solicitation, FA8057-12-R-0001, seeking to establish multiple award [...]

March 1, 2013—Sequestration Day.  This morning our 13 year-old son was reading the Wall Street Journal article on sequestration and asked me a question only a kid could ask:  “So Dad, if I had a penny would I have more money than the government?”  His question led to a long conversation about the budget, how debt works, [...]

Today marks the end of the first full work week of 2013.  Welcome back everybody!  The Coalition hopes all had a wonderful Holiday Season.  This time of year everybody does lists.  This year the Coalition, for the first time, is providing a list that we hope you find interesting and thought provoking.  Here are our “Thirteen [...]

Guest Blogger: Aubrey Woolley, Manager of Policy, The Coalition for Government Procurement The Coalition’s Annual Fall Training Conference provides an opportunity for government and industry leaders to address the latest in Federal procurement and work together towards a more efficient and effective procurement system for the benefit of the American taxpayer.  This year’s conference, Continuing the [...]

As you know, putting “commercial” back into commercial item contracting is one of the Coalition members’ top priorities. Over the last decade the procurement community has seen a significant growth in the imposition of government unique requirements on the procurement of commercial services and products.  This retreat from commercial item contracting increases costs, reduces competition, [...]

On October 19th the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its decision denying the protest of Herman Miller against the Air Force’s solicitation for commercial office furniture.  Unfortunately, the GAO failed to clearly address the solicitation’s consistency with commercial practice as required by FAR Part 12 and essentially punted on significant issues regarding the overall structure of [...]

This week marks the beginning of a new series of blog posts highlighting and debunking “Urban Myths” regarding GSA’s Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program.  Through the Coalition’s “Myth-Busters” conversations with acquisition leadership across the federal government, it has become clear that there are certain “Urban Myths” regarding the MAS program. That’s why we are doing [...]

This week’s blog post was to begin a series on “urban myths” regarding GSA’s multiple award schedule program.  Instead, this week’s blog post focuses on the ongoing reforms of GSA’s operations. On Wednesday, Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini testified before the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs on “Moving from Scandal to Strategy.”  Acting Administrator [...]

Guest Bloggers:  Christopher Loveland and Jonathan Aronie, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP Since 2005, anyone with even a passing familiarity with GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules Program knows that compliance with the Trade Agreements Act is a key enforcement area of the Office of Inspector General, the Department of Justice, and whistleblowers.  It was in [...]

In the wake of last month’s successful Spring Conference, the Coalition again expresses our thanks to our Keystone members, Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics Information Technology, HON and AllSteel, L-3 STRATIS, McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP,  and Northrop Grumman.  Thank you to our luncheon sponsors, CBRE and Deloitte Consulting.  And, of course, thank you to [...]