The Professional Services Council (PSC) has issued recommendations to help NASA, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Defense better maintain competition in technology and services industries amid proposed changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation Buy American Act.
PSC said Thursday it made these recommendations to address possible burdens and challenges associated with the proposed amendment, which would impose new requirements.
The council advises the agencies to implement an alternative to post-award reporting requirements, and provide waivers for commercial off-the-shelf items and exemptions for commercial information technology.
Another one of the recommendations encourages the agencies to recognize that services contracts historically have not followed BAA requirements and therefore are not connected to the proposed rule.
“The FAR rule as proposed could burden both agencies and contractors—for example, complying with BAA component requirements would be immensely challenging, if not impossible, in a services context—and its implementation could undermine U.S. competitiveness in our industry sector,” said Stephanie Kostro, executive vice president for policy at PSC.