DOL Acquisition Regulation: Department of Labor Acquisition Regulation System

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF LABOR <CFR>48 CFR Chapter 29</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. DOL-2023-0007]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1291-AA43</RIN> <SUBJECT>DOL Acquisition Regulation: Department of Labor Acquisition Regulation System</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management, Department of Labor. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> With this final rule, the Department of Labor (DOL) is revising the Department of Labor Acquisition Regulation (DOLAR) to remove provisions from the regulation that were redundant or obsolete. The final rule also codifies the use of certain contractual provisions that DOL has developed and deployed in recent years. Those newly codified contractual provisions address a range of matters, including government property, continuity of operations, system requirements, records management, telework policy for contractor personnel, submission of invoices, mandatory training for contractors, organizational conflicts of interest, and notification of changes to the scope of a contract. The final rule also includes revisions intended for greater clarity. Finally, the final rule removes provisions from the prior regulation that were DOL internal operating procedures. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective September 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Carl Campbell, Senior Procurement Executive, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management, U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue NW, Room N-2445, Washington, DC 20210, Telephone: 1-202-693-7246 (voice) (this is not a toll-free number). </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background—The FAR, the OFPP Act, and the DOLAR</HD> The DOLAR is part of the Federal Acquisition Regulations System, which consists of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), chapter 1 of title 48 of the CFR, and various agency acquisition regulations that implement or supplement the FAR. 48 CFR 1.101. The DOLAR is DOL's acquisition regulation implementing and supplementing the FAR, and addresses matters specific to DOL's procurement of goods and services. This rulemaking is issued under the authority of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Act and implementing regulations which authorize the heads of Federal executive agencies to issue agency acquisition regulations that implement or supplement the FAR. 41 U.S.C. 1707 and FAR 1.301(b), 1.303(b). The DOLAR uses the regulatory structure and arrangement of the FAR, and headings and subject areas are consistent with FAR content. The DOLAR is divided into subchapters, parts (each of which covers a separate aspect of acquisition), subparts, and sections. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Relation of the FAR to the DOLAR</HD> The FAR contains many provisions and clauses applicable to DOL procurements which need not be, and are not, repeated in the new DOLAR. If the DOLAR does not include provisions supplementing the FAR under the corresponding part or subpart, it is because the FAR language is considered sufficient. Where the DOLAR does not address a FAR subject, the FAR guidance is to be followed. The DOLAR is not by itself a complete document, as it must be read in conjunction with the FAR. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Purpose of the Regulatory Action</HD> The DOLAR was last revised effective May 27, 2004, 69 FR 22990 (April 27, 2004). The final rule codifies internal departmental guidance to align with the FAR, removes outdated and duplicative requirements, streamlines sections, and removes information that applies only to DOL's internal operating procedures. With this final rule, DOL adopts a more efficient and straightforward approach to procurement regulations. The final DOLAR supersedes the prior regulation in its entirety. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Summary of Changes From NPRM to Final Rule</HD> On September 5, 2023, DOL published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), including the proposed text of the new DOLAR, in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . 88 FR 60612. After reviewing and considering the comments received, DOL made no changes to the text of the rule as published in the NPRM, except to correct some typographical errors. This final rule is in substance the same as the proposed rule. As DOL explained in the NPRM, DOL is revising the DOLAR in its entirety to update and streamline agency procurement regulations consistent with the Federal Acquisition Reform Act and the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act. The DOLAR final rule removes provisions that are redundant or obsolete and codifies provisions addressing a range of matters, including government property, continuity of operations, system requirements, records management, telework policy for contractor personnel, submission of invoices, mandatory training for contractors, organizational conflicts of interest, and changing the scope of a contract. The final rule also makes updates to existing language for clarity and streamlining purposes. Finally, the final rule removes provisions in the previous DOLAR that are DOL internal operating procedures, which need not be published in the CFR for them to take effect, per 41 U.S.C. 1707 and FAR 1.301(b), 1.303(b). Additionally, as noted in the NPRM, an appendix included in the NPRM (a table listing sections in the prior regulation and the corresponding section in the NPRM) will not appear in the CFR. Accordingly, that appendix has been removed and does not appear in the final rule. In the NPRM, DOL explained all the revisions being made to the DOLAR from the prior regulation. To reiterate, the final rule removes parts that contain internal DOL policy and operating procedures, as well as parts that duplicate or adopt the FAR by reference; adds parts which codify clauses that are currently prescribed for incorporation in DOL contracts, when appropriate; and renames and renumbers sections to streamline the DOLAR. Additionally, this final rule removes the following parts of the DOLAR because they relate to internal operating procedures of DOL and need not be published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (per 41 U.S.C. 1707 and FAR 1.301(b) and 1.303(b)): Parts 2906 (Competition Requirements); 2908 (Required Sources of Supplies and Services); 2922 (Application of Labor Laws to Government Acquisitions); 2923 (Environment, Energy and Water Efficiency, Renewable Energy Technologies, Occupational Safety, and Drug-Free Workplace); 2929 (Taxes); 2931 (Contract Cost Principles and Procedures); and 2953 (Forms). Further, this final rule removes the following parts of the DOLAR because they are duplicative of the FAR, or merely adopt it by reference: Part 2910 (Market Research) is duplicative of FAR 6.302-1(c) and 10.002(b); part 2912 (Acquisition of Commercial Items) is duplicative of FAR 12.302(c); part 2913 (Simplified Acquisition Procedures) is duplicative of FAR 13.106-3(b) and 13.307; part 2914 (Sealed Bidding) is duplicative of FAR 14.404-1(c) and (f), 14.407-3(e) and (i), and 14.408-1; part 2916 (Contract Types) is duplicative of FAR 16.505(b)(5) and 16.603-2(c); part 2917 (Special Contracting Methods) duplicates and adopts by reference FAR 17.203(g)(2), 17.205(a), 17.207(f), and 17.503; part 2930 (Cost Accounting Standards Administration) adopts by reference FAR 30.201-5; part 2936 (Construction and Architect-Engineer Contracts) adopts by reference FAR 36.201, 36.209, 36.516, 36.602-1(b), 36.602-2, 36.602-3(d), 36.602-1, 36.602-5(b), 36.603, 36.604, and 36.702(c); part 2944 (Subcontracting Policies and Procedures) duplicates FAR 44.201-1(b) or 44.201-2 and adopts by reference FAR 44.202-2(a), 44.203, and 44.302(a). This final rule codifies the following 15 standard contract clauses at part 2952, which are currently used in DOL contracts, when appropriate, but are new additions to the DOLAR: Clause 2952.201-70, Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) Clause; clause 2952.204-70, Records Management Requirements; clause 2952.207-70, Contractor Personnel Telework; clause 2952.209-70, Organizational Conflict of Interest Clause—OCI-1 Exclusion From Future Agency Contracts; clause at 2952.211-70, internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6); clause 2952.224-70, Privacy Breach Notification Requirements; clause 2952.232-70, Limitation of Government's Obligation (LoGO); clause 2952.232-71 Submission of Invoices; clause 2952.237-70, Emergency Continuation of Essential Services; clause 2952.242-70, Access to Contractor Business Systems; clause 2952.242-71, DOL Mandatory Training Requirements; clause 2952.243-70, Contractor's Obligation to Notify the Contracting Officer of a Request to Change the Contract Scope (Contractor's Obligation Clause); clause 2952.245-70, Contractor Responsibility to Report Theft of Government Property; and clause 2952.245-71, Asset Reporting Requirements. In addition to being codified at section 2952.39-70, the clause covering Section 508 Requirements is being revised to avoid duplication with the FAR 508 provisions and to replace a generic “508” reference with the exact CFR reference. This final rule also adds the following two new parts to the DOLAR for the sole purpose of prescribing certain of the contractual clauses described above: parts 2924 (Protection of Privacy and Freedom of Information) and 2939 (Acquisition of Information Technology). Finally, nonsubstantive changes have been made to the final regulatory text to correct numbering and for gender neutrality and plain language. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Public Comments Received on the Proposed Rule</HD> The NPRM invited the public to submit written comments concerning the proposed rule no later than November 6, 2023. No one requested an extension of the comment period. The Department received four comme ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 110k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━