General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; SAM Representation for Leases

<RULE> GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION <CFR>48 CFR Parts 501, 552, and 570</CFR> <DEPDOC>[GSAR Case 2020-G512; Docket No. 2024-0010; Sequence No. 1]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 3090-AK22</RIN> <SUBJECT>General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation; SAM Representation for Leases</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Acquisition Policy, General Services Administration (GSA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The General Services Administration is issuing this final rule amending the General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to remove the requirement for lease offerors to have an active System for Award Management registration when submitting offers and instead allow offers up until the time of award to obtain an active registration. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective</E> December 16, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For clarification of content, contact Ms. Michaela Mastroianni, Procurement Analyst, or Ms. Amy Lara, Procurement Analyst, at <E T="03">gsarpolicy@gsa.gov</E> or 816-926-7172. For information pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the Regulatory Secretariat at <E T="03">GSARegSec@gsa.gov</E> or 202-501-4755. Please cite GSAR Case 2020-G512. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> GSA published a proposed rule in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> at 89 FR 21230 on March 27, 2024, to amend the GSAR to create a SAM registration provision specific for the acquisitions of leasehold interests in real property. This provision was prompted by the implementation of FAR Case 2015-005 (see 83 FR 48691), which clarified the timing of registration in the System for Award Management (SAM). Effective October 2018, this FAR case implemented the requirement for an offeror to be registered in SAM prior to the submission of an offer as opposed to the offerer being registered prior to award as was previously followed before the FAR change. While leasing of real property is not subject to the FAR, GSA prescribed FAR clause 52.204-7 in solicitations for the lease of real property. It found this FAR amendment had a significant effect on prospective GSA lessors. On February 12, 2020, GSA established a GSA specific version of the FAR clause to permit the completion of SAM representation for leases prior to award instead of prior to offer for leasing companies. GSA would therefore only require the apparent awardee to complete the SAM registration. This change will codify this provision in the GSAR. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion and Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Analysis of Public Comments</HD> GSA provided the public a 60-day comment period (March 27, 2024, to May 28, 2024). GSA did not receive any comments from the public. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Summary of Changes</HD> Two editorial fixes were made: • GSA corrected the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Control Number referenced in error in the proposed rule and included the OMB Control Number in GSAR 501.106 for this final rule. • The prescribed Alternate I (552.270-35) language was erroneously not included in the proposed rule. This language is now included. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Expected Impact of the Rule</HD> There were no public comments received that are specific to the economic impact statement of the rule. As such, the analysis remains the same as before. This rule is not expected to have a significant impact to Government or industry. This rule will reduce the burden on leasing companies by allowing offerors to complete SAM representation for leases prior to award instead of prior to offer. Completing SAM representations prior to offer for each property is time consuming for a leasing company and burdensome to effective competition. This will streamline the process and encourage competition, which will benefit the Government. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Executive Orders 12866, 13563 and 14904</HD> Executive Orders (E.O.s) 12866 and 13563 direct 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 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 ( <E T="03">https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/04/11/2023-07760/modernizing-regulatory-review</E> ) supplements and reaffirms the principles, structures, and definitions governing contemporary regulatory review established in E.O. 12866 and E.O. 13563. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has determined this rule not to be a significant regulatory action and, therefore, is not subject to review under section 6(b) of E.O. 12866, Regulatory Planning and Review, dated September 30, 1993. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Congressional Review Act</HD> OIRA has determined this rule is not to be a “major rule” under 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> as amended by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, generally provides that before a “major rule” may take effect, the agency promulgating the rule must submit a rule report, which includes a copy of the rule, to each House of the Congress and to the Comptroller General of the United States. The General Services Administration will submit a report containing this rule and other required information to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Comptroller General of the United States. A major rule cannot take effect until 60 days after it is published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">VI. Regulatory Flexibility Act</HD> GSA does not expect this 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. 601, <E T="03">et seq.</E> because it reduces the burden on small business entities by allowing offerors to complete SAM representation for leases prior to award instead of prior to offer, and does not implement new or changed requirements. However, a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) has been prepared consistent with 5 U.S.C. 604. The Regulatory Secretariat will submit a copy of the FRFA to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration. A copy of the FRFA may be obtained from the Regulatory Secretariat Division. The analysis is summarized as follows: <EXTRACT> GSA is amending the GSAR to permit the completion of the SAM representations at award instead of at offer for lease procurements. There were no comments submitted and therefore no significant issues raised by the public in response to the initial regulatory flexibility analysis. Two editorial fixes were made: • GSA corrected the OMB Control Number referenced in error in the proposed rule and included the OMB Control Number in GSAR 501.106 for this final rule. • The prescribed Alternate I (552.270-35) language was erroneously not included in the proposed rule. This language is now included. The objective of the rule is to amend the GSAR to amend Part 552, Solicitation Provisions and Contract Clauses, of the GSAR by creating Subsection 552.270-35, System for Award Management—Leasing. Title 40 of the United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 121 authorizes GSA to issue regulations, including the GSAR, to control the relationship between GSA and contractors. GSA has approximately 8,000 leases in total. Approximately 70 percent of leasing entities were small entities. This information is based on internal inventory data sources. GSA does not expect this rule to have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small business entities within the meaning of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, at 5 U.S.C. 601. This rule reduces the burden on small business entities by allowing offerors to complete SAM representation for leases prior to award instead of prior to offer, and does not implement new or changed requirements. The rule involves reporting and recordkeeping that are currently covered under OMB Control Number 9000-0189, Certain Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 4 Requirements. This rule does not include any new reporting, recordkeeping, or other compliance requirements for small business entities. This rule does not duplicate, overlap, or conflict with any other Federal rules. There are no known alternatives to this rule which would accomplish the stated objectives. This rule does not initiate or impose any new administrative or performance requirements on small business contractors. </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">VII. Paperwork Reduction Act</HD> The Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. chapter 35) does apply; however these changes to the GSAR do not impose additional information collection requirements to the paperwork burden previously approved under the Office of Management and Budget Control Number 9000-0189, <E T="03">Certain Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 4 Requirements.</E> <LSTSUB> <HD SOURCE="HED">List of Subjects in 48 CFR Parts 501, 552, and 570</HD> Government procurement. </LSTSUB> <SIG> <NAME>Jeffrey A. Koses,</NAME> Senior Procurement Executive, Office of Acquisition Policy, Office of Government-wide Policy, General Services Administration. </SIG> Therefore, GSA is amending 48 CFR parts 501, 552, and 570 as set forth below: <REGTEXT TITLE="48" PART="501"> 1. The authority citation for 48 CFR parts 501, 552, and 570 continues to read as follows: <HD SOURCE="HED">Authority:</HD> 40 U.S.C. 121(c). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━