Federal Acquisition Regulation: Training To Prevent Human Trafficking for Certain Air Carriers

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION <CFR>48 CFR Parts 1, 12, 22, 47, and 52</CFR> <DEPDOC>[FAC 2025-02; FAR Case 2019-017, Item I; Docket No. FAR-2019-0017; Sequence No. 1]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 9000-AO00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Acquisition Regulation: Training To Prevent Human Trafficking for Certain Air Carriers</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of Defense (DoD), General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement a section of the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2018, which requires that domestic carriers who contract with the Federal Government to provide air transportation must submit an annual report with certain information related to prevention of human trafficking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective January 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For clarification of content, contact Ms. Malissa Jones, Procurement Analyst, at 571-882-4687 or by email at <E T="03">malissa.jones@gsa.gov.</E> 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 FAC 2025-02, FAR Case 2019-017. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> DoD, GSA, and NASA published a proposed rule at 88 FR 52102 on August 7, 2023, to implement section 111 of the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-425), enacted January 8, 2019. Section 111 amends 49 U.S.C. 40118 to require that domestic carriers who contract with the Federal Government to provide air transportation submit an annual report to the Administrator of General Services, the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Labor, the Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, and the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Per 41 U.S.C. 40118(g) (as amended through Pub. L. 118-63), the annual report shall include: the number of personnel trained in the detection and reporting of potential severe forms of human trafficking in persons and sex trafficking; the number of notifications of potential human trafficking victims received from staff or other passengers; and, for each notification, whether the air carrier notified the National Human Trafficking Hotline or law enforcement at the relevant airport of the potential human trafficking victim, and if so, when the notification was made. Section 111 does not apply to contracts awarded by the Department of Defense. For further details please see the proposed rule. Four respondents submitted comments on the proposed rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Discussion and Analysis</HD> The Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council (the Councils) reviewed the public comments in the development of the final rule. A discussion of the comments and the changes made to the rule as a result of those comments are provided as follows: <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Summary of Significant Changes</HD> The following significant changes from the proposed rule are made in the final rule at 52.247-69, Reporting Requirement for U.S.-Flag Air Carriers Regarding Training to Prevent Human Trafficking: <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Definitions</HD> The definition of “potential human trafficking” in paragraph (a) of the clause at FAR 52.247-69 has been removed, and definitions of “human trafficking,” “severe forms of trafficking in persons,” and “sex trafficking” have been added in its place. The definitions of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and “sex trafficking” added to FAR 52.247-69 in this final rule are the same as the definitions of these terms as implemented in FAR subpart 22.17, Combating Trafficking in Persons, which come from 22 U.S.C. 7102. “Human trafficking” as used in the clause at FAR 52.247-69, is defined to mean “severe forms of trafficking in persons” or “sex trafficking.” The change in the final rule aligns with 49 U.S.C. 40118(g), which refers to the definitions of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and “sex trafficking” in 22 U.S.C. 7102 when describing “human trafficking.” Section 108 of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 (Pub. L. 114-22) has further amended the definition of “sex trafficking” at 22 U.S.C. 7102. Amendments to the definitions at 22.1702 and 52.222-50 are not included; those changes are being implemented under FAR Case 2024-004, titled “Combating Trafficking in Persons—Definition and Agency Responsibilities.” The proposed rule was published July 18, 2024, at 89 FR 58323. <HD SOURCE="HD3">2. Clarification Regarding “Staff”</HD> Paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of the clause at FAR 52.247-69 has been revised to use the term “staff or other passengers” to align with the statute. The terms “contractor personnel” and “subcontractors” have been removed from the final rule to avoid unintended confusion. <HD SOURCE="HD3">3. Time Period for Reporting</HD> Paragraph (b)(2) of the clause at FAR 52.247-69 has been revised to include the time period for reporting. The proposed rule included the date by which the annual report must be submitted to the five Government agencies, but did not specify the time period in which the contractors are reporting. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Analysis of Public Comments</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Support for the Rule</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One respondent expressed support for the rule. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Councils acknowledge the respondent's support for the rule. <HD SOURCE="HD3">2. Definition of “Potential Human Trafficking”</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One respondent recommended deletion of paragraph (a), Definitions, in the clause at FAR 52.247-69 because the definition of “potential human trafficking” in the proposed rule is overly complicated. The respondent noted that the definition merely refers to a statute and otherwise does not reflect plain language. The respondent further asserted that the definition is “meaningless” because the word “potential” does not appear in the statutory definitions of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and “sex trafficking” that together comprised the definition of “potential human trafficking” as stated in the proposed rule. <E T="03">Response:</E> The Councils acknowledge the respondent's concern and have replaced the definition of “potential human trafficking” in the final rule at FAR 52.247-69(a) with a definition of “human trafficking” that encompasses the definitions of “severe forms of trafficking in persons” and “sex trafficking” at FAR subpart 22.17. See discussion of change in section II.A.1. of this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD3">3. Proposed Regulation Differs From 49 U.S.C. 40118(g)</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">a. Application of the Rule to Contractors and Subcontractors</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One respondent stated that the “proposed regulation differs from 49 U.S.C. 40118(g)(2)”, because it uses the terms “contractor personnel” and “subcontractors,” while the current statute only requires reporting for those notifications “received from staff or other passengers.” <E T="03">Response:</E> Changes have been made in paragraph (b)(2)(ii) of the clause at FAR 52.247-69 to use the term “staff or other passengers” to align with the statute and remove the terms “contractor personnel” and “subcontractors.” <HD SOURCE="HD3">b. Date and Method of Notification of Potential Human Trafficking Instances</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One respondent suggested that the proposed rule expands the reporting requirements under 49 U.S.C. 40118(g) resulting in additional burden not required by the statute. For example, the respondent stated that the rule improperly expands upon statutory requirements by requiring reporting the date and method of notification of potential human trafficking instances. <E T="03">Response:</E> The specific reporting requirements in the rule align with the requirements in 49 U.S.C. 40118(g). In particular, 49 U.S.C. 40118(g)(2) requires reporting of “the number of notifications of potential human trafficking victims received from staff or other passengers.” Further, 49 U.S.C. 40118(g)(3) requires the annual report include “whether the air carrier notified the National Human Trafficking Hotline or law enforcement at the relevant airport of the potential human trafficking victim for each such notification of potential human trafficking, and if so, when the notification was made.” In implementing these reporting requirements, FAR 52.247-69(b)(2)(iii) seeks the number of notifications received by the contractor; the date of any such notification; and the method by which the notification was made. The Government interprets the statutory language “when the notification was made” in 49 U.S.C. 41108(g)(3) as requiring the “date” the notification was made. The Government interprets the statutory language “whether the air carrier notified the National Human Trafficking Hotline or law enforcement at the relevant airport” in 49 U.S.C. 41108(g)(3) as requiring the “method” by which the contractor made the notification, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> whether the Contractor notified the Global Human Trafficking Hotline, another comparable hotline, or law enforcement at the relevant airport. These are reasonable interpretations of the statute and are not viewed as creating burden beyond what is required by 49 U.S.C. 40118(g). <HD SOURCE="HD3">c. Vicarious Liability</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> One respondent r ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 54k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━