Federal Management Regulation; Transportation Payment and Audit Regulations

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION <CFR>41 CFR Part 102-118</CFR> <DEPDOC>[FMR Case 2023-02; Docket No. GSA-FMR-2023-0014; Sequence No. 1]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 3090-AK73</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Management Regulation; Transportation Payment and Audit Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Government-wide Policy (OGP), General Services Administration (GSA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The United States General Services Administration (GSA) proposes to amend the Federal Management Regulation (FMR) to effectuate fundamental changes including removing, adding, and modifying definitions, eliminating gender pronouns, streamlining requirements, and revising statutory references. These changes are needed to provide accurate information for agencies to properly manage and comply with transportation invoice payment and audit requirements. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Interested parties should submit written comments to the Regulatory Secretariat Division at the address shown below on or before April 16, 2024 to be considered in the formation of the proposed rule. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Submit comments in response to FMR Case 2023-02 to <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> via the Federal eRulemaking portal by searching for “FMR Case 2023-02”. Select the link “Comment Now” that corresponds with FMR Case 2023-02. Follow the instructions provided at the “Comment Now” screen. Please include your name, company name (if any), and “FMR Case 2023-02” on your attached document. If your comment cannot be submitted using <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> call or email the points of contact in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section of this document for alternate instructions. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> Please submit comments only and cite FMR Case 2023-02, in all correspondence related to this case. Comments received generally will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal and/or business confidential information provided. To confirm receipt of your comment(s), please check <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> approximately two to three days after submission to verify posting. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. Ron Siegel, Policy Analyst, at 202-702-0840 for clarification of content. For information pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the Regulatory Secretariat Division at 202-501-4755 or <E T="03">GSARegSec@gsa.gov.</E> Please cite FMR Case 2023-02. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The Travel and Transportation Reform Act of 1998 (Pub. L. 105-264) established the statutory requirement for agencies to perform an audit of transportation expenses prior to payment, granted the Administrator of GSA the authority to prescribe regulations for the audit of transportation invoices prior to payment, and the statutory authority for audit oversight to protect the financial interests of the Government (31 U.S.C. 3726). GSA has codified these requirements in 41 CFR 102-118, Transportation Payment and Audit (Federal Management Regulation (FMR) part 102-118). GSA last amended FMR part 102-118 on May 31, 2022 (87 FR 32320), to perform editorial and technical changes. That direct final rule introduced the GSA Transportation Audit Management System (TAMS), corrected inaccurate and outdated information, and removed obsolete references to programs, legal citations, and forms. It revised general contact information, corrected hyperlinks, clarified conditions for using certain forms and revised outdated and inaccurate administrative procedures. GSA is proposing amendments to FMR part 102-118. These amendments include modifying definitions that apply to this part, which include the incorporation of previously undefined terms such as Civilian Board of Contract Appeals (CBCA), refund, and Transportation Audits Management System (TAMS). Furthermore, definitions of forms used exclusively by the GSA Transportation Audits Division will be removed from individual sections and added to the definitions, while terms such as EDI signature, reparation, statement of difference rebuttal, and virtual Government Bill of Lading (GBL), which are defined but not referenced in this part, will be removed. Additionally, certain definitions will be modified to enhance clarity, including for the terms cash, Government contractor issued charge card, and offset. This proposed rule will standardize the terminology used to reference Government contractor issued charge cards and will include definitions for the two types of charge cards that the Government may use to procure transportation: individually billed travel cards and agency purchase cards. This proposed rule provides further clarification on the role of TAMS and its benefit to transportation service providers (TSPs), specifically when filing certain claims. It also outlines the circumstances under which Federal agencies use TAMS. Additionally, when agencies submit their paid transportation invoices and other documentation through TAMS, it allows the GSA Transportation Audits Division to maintain and store these transportation records in accordance with the General Records Schedule. Thanks to the convenience of email and the efficiency of TAMS, GSA no longer requires physical documents to be sent via the United States Postal Service mail monthly. Consequently, physical mailing addresses are being removed from this FMR part. This change is expected to reduce costs for agencies, streamline the reporting process, and eliminate the need for mailing documents to the GSA Transportation Audits Division. It will also simplify the claims filing process for TSPs that want to file a claim with the GSA Transportation Audits Division. GSA is proposing to grant agencies some discretion in the use of a GBL for domestic shipping. Currently, the regulation restricts GBL usage to international or domestic overseas shipments. The changes outlined in this rulemaking would permit agencies to execute a GBL when the agency considers it necessary. Furthermore, this rulemaking clarifies that a bill of lading can be utilized to procure both transportation and transportation services. This proposed rule builds upon the changes introduced in the direct final rule that was published on May 31, 2022 at 87 FR 32320. That rule eliminated unnecessary procedures for agencies to request Government Bill of Lading (GBL) and Government Transportation Request (GTR) forms, along with their corresponding control numbers. GSA is proposing amendments to this FMR part that will provide agencies with additional information regarding the requirement to assign numbers to these forms and to manage and track each issued GBL and GTR transportation document. This proposed rule updates the requirement for agencies to provide a copy of each quotation, tender, or contract of special rates, fares, charges, or concessions with TSPs to the GSA Transportation Audits Division. The proposed revision adds the requirement for agencies to send copies of rates provided by pipeline carriers as well. Furthermore, this rulemaking clarifies that the Director of the GSA Transportation Audits Division has the authority to conduct postpayment audits on any agency paid transportation invoice, oversee agency prepayment audit programs, settle accounts, and initiate collection activities. Finally, GSA is also updating information, including correcting legal references related to actions by and against the Government. The revised information corrects authorities that apply to time limits for filing freight charges, loss and damage claims, and filing claims against a TSP for the collection of overcharges. It is also important to note that this proposed rule would also remove gender pronouns from this FMR part. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14094</HD> Executive Order (E.O.) 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) directs agencies to assess all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). E.O. 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. E.O. 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review) amends section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866 and supplements and reaffirms the principles, structures, and definitions governing contemporary regulatory review established in E.O. 12866 and E.O. 13563. The Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has determined that this rulemaking is not a significant regulatory action and, therefore, it is not subject to review under section 6(b) of E.O. 12866. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> GSA does not expect this proposed rule to have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities within the meaning of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601, <E T="03">et seq.</E> This proposed rule is also exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 553(a)(2) because it applies to agency management or personnel. Therefore, an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis has not been performed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> The Paperwork Reduction Act does not apply because the changes to the FMR do not impose recordkeeping or information collection requirements, or the collection of information from offerors, contractors, or ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 35k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━