Full and Open Acquisition, in practice
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About Warrant · The daily judgment call

One realistic acquisition scenario a day. Classify it, name the controlling authority and pick the defensible contracting officer action, with six tries across all three. Every answer is cited. A new one every day, free, with no sign-in. Scores stay on your device.

This Week

Issue of 9 Nov 2026 · 3 items

New decisions, rules and guidance a contracting officer should know about — with the line that actually matters, not just the link. Published Mondays, and emailed to anyone who .

FAR overhaul tracker As of 2 Nov 2026 Where every part stands
Nov 3

A weakness for a project type your synopsis never asked for is an unstated criterion

GAO sustain

GAO sustained Michael Baker-International Stantec JV's protest of the Army Corps of Engineers' architect-engineer selection under synopsis W9128F25RA029, a Brooks Act / FAR part 36 competition for about five IDIQ contracts in the Northwestern Division, with task orders from $250,000 to $25 million against $200 million of shared capacity. Sixteen firms submitted; MBIS ranked tenth and the top seven went to interviews. The Corps had assigned MBIS a weakness under specialized experience because none of its ten example projects was a traditional design-bid-build new construction vertical facility — a requirement the synopsis's own list of project types never mentioned, and which the Corps had disclaimed in a question and answer stating "[t]here is not a preference" between delivery methods. GAO held the weakness "unreasonable, because it is inconsistent with the synopsis's stated evaluation factors," resolved doubt about prejudice in MBIS's favour given how little separated it from the seventh-ranked firm, and denied the rest — historic preservation, the Section G matrix, past performance and capacity. Decided 16 October 2026; posted by GAO 3 November 2026.

The two documents that sank this evaluation were the synopsis's list of project types and an answer to a vendor question, and both were written months before the board sat down. Before your board evaluates, read the synopsis bullet list and every Q&A answer back against the evaluation sheet, and strike any strength or weakness that turns on something neither document asked for — a delivery method, a facility type, a contract vehicle. An answer saying there is no preference is a commitment, and it binds the board as firmly as the synopsis does. The remedy here was a reevaluation and a new ranking of the most highly qualified firms, plus protest costs and attorneys' fees under 4 C.F.R. 21.8(d)(1), which is the cheapest possible loss and still cost the Corps its selection. Two more things worth taking from it. The firm that ranked tenth won because GAO resolved prejudice in its favour when the gap to seventh was one adjectival rating, so do not assume a lower-ranked protester cannot reach you. And the decision notes DoD's class deviation adopting the overhaul versions took effect 1 February 2026 while this synopsis predated it; nobody argued the difference mattered here, but on anything you issue now, cite the text your agency is actually running.

GAO, B-424641, B-424641.2 →
Nov 6

When the incumbent's schedule contract lapses, most of its protest lapses with it

GAO jurisdiction

GAO denied NDCHealth Corporation's protest, trading as RelayHealth, of a CMS solicitation for Medicare Part D transaction facilitator services — RFQ 75FCMC26Q0067, a fixed-price task order worth about $131.7 million over a base year and four options, competed among Federal Supply Schedule holders under SIN 54151S. RelayHealth was the incumbent, but its own FSS contract expired on 12 April 2026, and GAO held that because the RFQ was restricted to schedule holders it was "not eligible to compete under the RFQ" and so "not an interested party to raise these allegations" — which removed its challenges to how the two competing quotations were priced and evaluated. What survived was its attack on CMS's determination that the services are commercial, and that lost on deference: the determination "will not be disturbed by our Office unless it is shown to be unreasonable," and market research returning twelve responses, most pointing to schedule vehicles, made it reasonable. GAO also rejected the argument that a labour-rate, fixed-price structure departs from customary commercial practice, and found nothing in the GSAR requiring an order-level-materials analysis before the RFQ issued. GAO cited "the RFO as the controlling authority for this procurement," under RFO subpart 8.4. Decided 27 October 2026; posted by GAO 6 November 2026.

If you are moving a long-standing requirement onto the schedules, check whether your incumbent still holds a contract on the vehicle you are about to compete — and put the answer in the file, because it decides how much of a protest you have to defend. Where the incumbent's schedule contract has lapsed, its standing to attack the competitive range, the awardee's pricing or the evaluation goes with it, and you are left defending only the decisions it can still reach: the commerciality determination, the solicitation's structure, the scope of the vehicle. That is the other half of the lesson, and it is the half that is yours to earn in advance. The commerciality determination held here because there was market research in the file — an RFI, twelve responses, most of them naming schedule vehicles — and a stated analogue in the commercial market that CMS could modify to the Part D requirement. Deference is not automatic; it attaches to a documented determination. Do the research before you decide the requirement is commercial, not after the protest arrives, and name in the determination which commercial market you are reasoning from.

GAO, B-424672 →
Nov 3

Consolidation survives a protest on the contemporaneous record, not on the declaration you write afterwards

GAO scope

GAO denied Priority 1 Air Rescue Operations (Arizona), LP's pre-award protest of a Coast Guard small business set-aside, RFP 70Z02326R93150001, issued 18 June 2026 under Revolutionary FAR Overhaul parts 12 and 15 for three training devices — an MH-60T level 7 flight training device, a hoist training simulator and a deployable hoist training simulator — all required to be interoperable and to run synchronised with latency no greater than 50 milliseconds. The protester argued that combining the three into one solicitation unduly restricted competition. GAO applied the Competition in Contracting Act standard, 41 U.S.C. 3306(a)(2), under which a solicitation may "contain restrictive provisions only to the extent necessary to satisfy the procuring agency's needs," and found the Coast Guard had shown a reasonable need for pilots and flight mechanics to train together in one synchronised environment and for a single contractor to integrate the pieces. A footnote notes that CICA's reach against total-package or bundled procurements is "broader" than the Small Business Act's bundling restrictions, so the protester's bundling framework was not the test. GAO accepted the air training centre commanding officer's declaration, written during the protest, because it "simply fill[ed] in previously unrecorded details" consistent with the working group reports, the approval memorandum and the RFP's own stated reasons; a brand-name allegation about the hoist simulator was dismissed as academic after the Coast Guard amended the RFP. Decided 29 October 2026; posted by GAO 3 November 2026.

Consolidating requirements is defensible and this agency won — but read what carried it. The declaration was credited only because it matched documents that already existed in the file: a working group's reports, an approval memorandum up the chain and the RFP's own statement of why the devices had to interoperate. If you are combining requirements that the market sells separately, write that reasoning down while you are deciding, not when the protest lands, and be specific about the technical reason one contractor has to own the integration — here, a 50-millisecond synchronisation tolerance across three devices. Note also which test you are being graded against. On a set-aside, a protester will often frame the complaint as bundling under the Small Business Act, but at GAO the controlling standard is CICA's, and it is broader: it is not enough that a consolidation clears the bundling rules if the record does not show the restriction is necessary to meet the need. And if you amend to fix a brand-name or specification problem after a protest is filed, GAO will dismiss that ground as academic — which is the cheapest correction available to you in the whole process.

GAO, B-424708 →

Past issues →

Standing corrections

Things that are still wrong in a lot of desk guides, training decks and bookmark bars. These stay up until they stop being wrong.

Oct 1 2025

The October 2025 figures are still being miscited

Thresholds

Micro-purchase threshold $15,000. Simplified acquisition threshold $350,000. FAR 13.5 commercial test program ceiling $9M. TINA $2.5M. FAR 16.505 enhanced competition $7.5M, with fair-opportunity exception approvals at $900K, $20M and $90M.

Desk guides quoting a $250,000 SAT are still in circulation a year later. A buy between $250,000 and $350,000 that gets routed into FAR Part 15 is the most common unforced error we see.

FAR Case 2025-007 final rule →
Mar 13 2026

Trade agreement thresholds reset in March 2026, and construction went down

Thresholds

FAR 25.402 thresholds reset on their own two-year cycle, separate from the October inflation adjustment (FAR Case 2025-007, FAC 2026-01). Effective 13 March 2026: WTO GPA supplies and services $174,000; construction $6,683,000, down from $6,708,000.

A construction acquisition estimated between $6,683,000 and $6,708,000 is now covered when it was not last year. If you set a Buy American determination on the old figure, re-check it.

Final rule, 13 March 2026 →
Sep 18 2026

RFO is in rulemaking, not in effect — check which text your agency is on

FAR overhaul

Eight of the twelve proposed rules have published: four on 23 June 2026, comments closed in July, and four more on 18 September 2026, comments closed 19 October 2026. Model deviation text was conformed to the codified FAR in March 2026. The model text is not self-executing: it reaches an agency only when that agency issues its own class deviation under FAR 1.404, and once one is in force the agency follows the deviation instead of the codified FAR for the parts it covers. The codified FAR stays the government-wide baseline, and it is what still governs every agency and every part not covered by a deviation.

"The FAR says" is no longer a complete answer. Paragraph lettering and some prescriptions differ between the codified FAR and the RFO deviation text, and for an agency that has adopted a deviation the deviation is the operative text. Confirm which one your agency is running, part by part, before you cite a subparagraph in a J&A or a determination.

Model deviation text updates →Where every FAR part stands →
Jan 15 2025

The OCI rewrite is still only proposed

Pending

FAR Case 2023-006 would restructure Subpart 9.5 around defined conflict categories and a standard solicitation provision. The proposed rule published 15 January 2025 and is not final as of this date. FAR part 9 is now in the overhaul rulemaking as well — RFO FAR Case 2026-011, published 18 September 2026, comments closed 19 October 2026 — so there are two pending rewrites of Subpart 9.5 to keep apart from the text in force.

Current Subpart 9.5 governs. Do not build a mitigation plan or a solicitation provision on the proposed framework — including the parts of it industry counsel are already citing in responses.

Proposed rule →
Dec 18 2025

Three DoD figures moved by statute that the FAR still prints at the old numbers

Thresholds

Section 1804 of the FY2026 NDAA (Pub. L. 119-60, enacted 18 December 2025) amended title 10 directly. The statutory justification-and-approval tiers in 10 U.S.C. 3204(e)(1) were raised from $500,000 / $10 million / $75 million to $10 million / $100 million / $500 million. The DoD certified cost or pricing data threshold in 10 U.S.C. 3702(a)(1) was raised from $2 million to $10 million for prime contracts entered into after 30 June 2026. Section 885 of the FY2025 NDAA had already raised the DoD, NASA and Coast Guard task order protest threshold in 10 U.S.C. 3406(f)(1)(B) from $25 million to $35 million. FAR 6.304, FAR 15.403-4 and FAR 16.505(a)(10) still show the earlier figures.

Where Congress has moved a figure and the FAR has not been conformed, a tribunal applies the statute, so the FAR paragraph you are about to cite may be the wrong number. FAR 6.304's inflation-adjusted approval ceilings are not the statutory tiers and should not be described as them; DoD is implementing the data threshold by class deviation, so read the deviation before deciding what to require; and a $30 million DoD task order that FAR 16.505(a)(10) says GAO cannot hear is one GAO will hear.

Pub. L. 119-60, section 1804 →
Oct 29 2026

“You cannot protest an other transaction” is no longer a safe thing to tell anyone

Courts

In Blue Water Autonomy, Inc. v. United States, Nos. 26-936, 26-944, Judge Hadji denied the government's motion to dismiss a consolidated protest by two offerors cut at Phase 1 of the Navy's competition for Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel prototypes under its other transaction authority, 10 U.S.C. 4022. The court held that 28 U.S.C. 1491(b)(1) reaches the competition because it is “in connection with” the Navy's procurement of the vessels: the Navy had identified the need in its 30-year Shipbuilding Plan with an appropriation behind it, then ran the solicitation as what it called “a direct, competitive down-select” in which only successful prototype offerors can reach production. The court was careful about what it did not hold — an OT is still not a procurement contract, and an OT whose principal purpose is funding research or seeding a commercial market stays outside the statute. It also expressly declined to follow Telesto Group, LLC v. United States, 176 Fed. Cl. 711 (2025), which had found an “effective jurisdictional blackout” over the prototyping phase until the agency decides to buy. Filed 29 October 2026; posted to GPO 4 November 2026, after the 2 November issue had closed. A merits opinion is to follow, and this is one trial judge, not the Federal Circuit, which has never decided the question.

A good deal of OT training and more than one agency playbook still says, flatly, that an OT prototype competition cannot be protested anywhere. That was always too strong, and after Blue Water it is wrong in the forum that matters. Two practical consequences. If you are structuring a prototype OT as a down-select where only the winners can reach production, assume a disappointed offeror can reach the Court of Federal Claims, and run the competition so the record will survive that — the review on offer is narrow, reaching the agency's compliance with section 4022's own conditions, including the requirement at 4022(b)(2) to use competitive procedures to the maximum extent practicable, and the terms of your own solicitation. Write the evaluation criteria so you can show you followed them. Second, note what the court read as the tell: the Navy's own words. “A direct, competitive down-select,” “a direct path to production,” and the statement that it was no longer interested in paying industry to build prototypes are what tied the OT to a procurement. Marketing language in an announcement is evidence of the agency's purpose. OTs remain exempt from the FAR and CICA, and nothing here changes that.

COFC, Nos. 26-936, 26-944 →

Library

62 entries

Curated, not exhaustive — every entry earns its place with a reason. Nothing here is a paid placement, and links are re-checked on the date below.

Primary sources

The text itself. Everything else on this page is commentary on these.

Acquisition.govFAR Council / GSA

The FAR, every agency supplement, and the Federal Acquisition Circulars in one place. If you bookmark one thing, this.

FAR Smart MatrixAcquisition.gov

Which provisions and clauses apply to which acquisition, filtered by type and dollar value. Saves an hour per solicitation.

Acquisition Regulation ComparatorAcquisition.gov

Put FAR text and an agency supplement side by side. The fastest way to see what your agency actually changed.

eCFR Title 48NARA / GPO

The legally authoritative version, with point-in-time comparison. Use it when the answer has to hold up.

DFARS and PGIDoD

Two different animals in one place. The PGI is where DoD puts the guidance that is not regulation, and people miss it constantly.

FAR Overhaul model deviation textFAR Council

The RFO rewrite text agencies are running class deviations against while rulemaking finishes. Check this before you cite a paragraph letter.

Open FAR casesDARS

A live list of every FAR case in the pipeline and where it sits. The single best early warning for what is about to change.

Federal RegisterNARA

Proposed and final rules with the preamble, which is where the Council explains what it was actually trying to do.

Regulations.goveRulemaking Program

Where you comment on a proposed rule. Industry underuses this and then complains about the final rule.

GSAM / GSARGSA

Governs schedule buys, which is a large share of everything. Worth knowing even if you never work at GSA.

Federal Register APINARA

Free JSON API over every proposed and final rule. Filter by the FAR System agency and you have a rule tracker without paying for one.

Acquisition.gov newsFAR Council

Where FAC releases and overhaul announcements are posted first, usually before the trade press picks them up.

Decisions & protests

Where the rules get applied to facts, which is where you actually learn them.

GAO Bid ProtestsGAO

Filing procedures, the docket, and the annual report to Congress with sustain and effectiveness rates.

GAO decisions searchGAO

Full-text search of protest decisions. Reading three in your issue area beats reading the FAR subpart twice.

GAO bid protest reference materialsGAO

The descriptive guide and FAQs. Start here if you have never been through a protest.

Bid Protest Regulations, 4 CFR Part 21GAO

Timeliness rules live here, and timeliness decides more protests than the merits do.

Armed Services Board of Contract AppealsASBCA

Searchable decisions back to 2010. This is where claims and disputes doctrine gets made for DoD.

Civilian Board of Contract AppealsCBCA

The civilian-side counterpart, plus ADR services most people do not know they can ask for.

U.S. Court of Federal ClaimsCOFC

The other protest forum and the appeal path for claims. Different standard of review than GAO, and it matters.

Principles of Federal Appropriations LawGAO

The Red Book. Bona fide needs, purpose, time and amount — the fiscal law that quietly governs half your decisions.

GAO recent bid protest decisionsGAO

The running list with docket numbers and outcomes — sustain, deny, dismiss. Skim it weekly and you will see patterns before they reach the blogs.

GAO legal products feedGAO

RSS for Comptroller General decisions including bid protests. The machine-readable version of the page above.

CourtListenerFree Law Project

Free full-text search and alerts across COFC and Federal Circuit opinions. Set an alert on a doctrine and it emails you.

Data & market research

What the Government has bought, from whom, at what price.

SAM.govGSA

Registration, exclusions, contract opportunities, wage determinations. The system of record for most of it.

FPDSGSA

Every reported contract action. Slow, ugly, and the only place some questions can be answered.

USAspending.govTreasury

FPDS data with a usable interface and an API. Start here, fall back to FPDS when you need the raw record.

GSA eLibraryGSA

Which vendors hold which SINs. The first stop before you assume a schedule buy will not work.

GSA eBuyGSA

RFQs against schedules. On the industry side, the opportunities that never hit SAM.gov.

GSA AdvantageGSA

Published schedule pricing. A defensible price reasonableness comparison is often sitting right here.

Agency procurement forecastsAcquisition.gov

What agencies say they intend to buy. Uneven quality, but it is the only forward-looking source that is official.

Product and Service Code ManualAcquisition.gov

Get the PSC wrong and your spend analysis is wrong. Also drives a surprising amount of downstream policy.

Training & certification

Warrant paths, DAWIA and FAC-C, and the certifications people actually sit for.

Warfighting Acquisition University (WarU)DoD

Formerly Defense Acquisition University — dau.edu now redirects here. Courses, credentials, and a large free knowledge base open to industry.

Adaptive Acquisition FrameworkWarU

The pathway map — including the contracting cone and the OT branch. The clearest picture of how the pieces fit.

Federal Acquisition InstituteOFPP / GSA

The civilian-side counterpart to WarU. FAC-C and FAC-COR live here, and much of the training is open to anyone.

Contracting Professional's Career RoadmapFAI

What a 1102 is expected to know at each grade. Useful for your own plan and for developing the people under you.

NCMA certificationsNCMA

CFCM, CPCM and CCCM. The credentials that travel between government and industry rather than stopping at the door.

CFCM candidate handbookNCMA

Eligibility, exam content outline and domain weights. Read it before you buy any study material.

VA Acquisition AcademyVA

Some of the better-regarded practitioner training in the civilian agencies, and a lot of it is shared beyond VA.

Other transactions

The instrument everyone claims to want and few files justify correctly.

DoD Other Transactions GuideOUSD(A&S) DPC

The controlling how-to for prototype and production OTs. Read the eligibility conditions section twice.

MITRE AiDA — Other Transaction AuthorityMITRE

The clearest plain-English explainer of when an OT fits and when it does not. Good to hand a program office.

CRS — Defense Primer: Other TransactionsCongressional Research Service

Two pages, neutral, and current on the statutory authorities. The best thing to send someone senior.

DPC contract policy — other policy areasOUSD(A&S) DPC

Where OT policy memos and class deviations actually get posted, rather than where you would expect them.

DARPA Guide to Research Other TransactionsDARPA

The 10 U.S.C. 4021 research OT lane, which gets far less attention than prototypes and is often the better fit.

Small business

Set-asides, size standards, and the people who help firms navigate them.

SBA federal contractingSBA

Program rules for 8(a), HUBZone, WOSB and SDVOSB, straight from the agency that administers them.

SBA table of size standardsSBA

The NAICS-by-NAICS thresholds. Check the version date — these move, and a stale copy creates real problems.

APEX AcceleratorsDoD OSBP

Formerly PTACs. Free, local, and the single best answer when a small firm asks how to get started.

News & analysis

A short list. Read these and you are not behind.

Federal News Network — AcquisitionFederal News Network

Daily reporting that is actually about procurement rather than about politics adjacent to procurement.

SmallGovConKoprince McCall Pottroff

Plain-English writeups of size protests, set-aside rules and new decisions. Consistently the fastest to post.

Inside Government ContractsCovington & Burling

Deeper legal analysis on proposed rules and enforcement trends. Slower, more thorough, worth the wait.

Government Contracts Legal ForumCrowell & Moring

Strong on protests and claims. Good complement to Covington rather than a duplicate of it.

GW Law Library — Government Contracts guideGeorge Washington University

A librarian-maintained map of the whole research landscape. When you need a source you have never used, start here.

PilieroMazza Weekly UpdatePilieroMazza

An actual weekly roundup of legislative and regulatory movement. The fastest way to check you have not missed a rule.

Podcasts

For the commute, the treadmill, and the hour before a source selection.

Contracting Officer PodcastSkyway

Two former COs walking through how the government side actually thinks. The rare show useful on both sides of the table.

Beyond the FARGW Law Government Procurement Law Program

Jessica Tillipman on procurement at the intersection of law, policy and practice. The most serious show on FAR reform right now, and it is still publishing.

Off the ShelfFederal News Network

Roger Waldron on acquisition policy and the schedules program. Check the date before you rely on it — the public archive has looked thin lately.

Game ChangersRSM Federal

Squarely for firms selling to government — pricing, capture, schedules. Useful to a KO mainly for understanding how the other side is being coached.

Building the BaseHondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula

A former Navy and SOCOM acquisition executive interviewing the people building the industrial base. The closest you get to hearing how senior acquisition leadership actually reasons, rather than what it says in a memo.

The Drone UltimatumThe Drone Ultimatum

Narrow and current on UAS, autonomy and the scaling problem. Worth the time if you are buying drones — and increasingly you are, whether or not your position description says so.

Breaking the StandardBreaking the Standard

Small-business GovCon from the industry side, including size standards and protest practice. Publishes in bursts rather than to a schedule, so check the date.

Community

Where practitioners argue with each other in public, which is underrated.

WIFCONWhere in Federal Contracting

Twenty-seven years of protest tracking and a forum where experienced 1102s argue hard questions in public. Nothing else like it.

WIFCON blogsWIFCON

Vern Edwards and others working through the FAR overhaul part by part. Opinionated, and usually right.

GovLoop Acquisition groupGovLoop

Lower intensity than WIFCON and friendlier to people early in the career field.

Curated, not exhaustive. Links verified 2026-11-02. Nothing here is a paid placement.

Tools

Desk reference · not legal advice

Four things you look up mid-task, and a tracker for the FAR overhaul. Every answer shows its citation and when the number last moved.

Dollar check

Enter the estimated value of a buy and describe it. Dollar check returns the procedure lane, every threshold the buy crosses with the rule it triggers, the next lines above it, the justification approver and the socioeconomic sole-source ceilings, each with its citation.

Protest clock

GAO, CICA stay and agency-level protest deadlines worked out from the award, debriefing and DoD follow-up dates, with federal holidays and weekend roll-forward counted the way 4 CFR 21.0(d) counts them.

Colors of money

Enter the fiscal year of the funds and see where a fixed-period appropriation sits in its life cycle: available for new obligations, expired, or closed.

PTA calculator

The point of total assumption for a fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract under FAR 16.403-1, from the targets, the ceiling price and the share line.

FAR overhaul tracker

Where every FAR part stands in the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul.

Every FAR dollar threshold

The current figure, the one before it, the date it moved and the citation.

Privacy

Updated 11 November 2026

Terms

Updated 15 September 2026

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