The FAR Council recently published its proposed rule to implement a part of President Biden’s January 28, 2021 Executive Order No. 14005 (EO 14005), which dictated certain revisions to the Buy American Act (BAA) regulations. As discussed in our previous blog post, Section 8 of EO 14005 directed the FAR Council to consider the following:
- Replacing the “component test” at FAR Part 25.
- Increasing the threshold for domestic content.
- Increasing price preferences for domestic end products.
The proposed rule addresses Section 8 of EO 14005 by proposing to do the following:
- Increase the domestic content threshold instead of replacing the domestic content test (at least for the time being), with scheduled increases.
- Permit a limited period during which U.S.-made end products meeting the current domestic content threshold (greater than 55%) will be considered “domestic end products” under certain circumstances.
- Establish a list of critical products and critical components subject to additional price preferences and post-award reporting requirements.