Federal Acquisition Regulation
Based on Wikipedia: Federal Acquisition Regulation
The problem began with the very first federal procurement law in 1792, when Congress first attempted to impose order on the chaotic way the government spent money. Even then, with a government so small that it fit comfortably within the walls of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, centralized purchasing proved unworkable. Alexander Hamilton tried to centralize everything in the Treasury Department in 1798—the logical thing to do—and immediately found that complexity made it impossible. Within a year, authority had to be delegated back to individual departments.
This pattern of trying to bring order to chaos would define American government procurement for over a century. By 1809, Congress recognized something crucial: competition among contractors was the best safeguard against waste and fraud. It was a principle that would guide federal contracting ever since.
The Modern System Emerces
The Federal Acquisition Regulation—FAR, as anyone in government contracting quickly learns to call it—is the backbone of how the executive branch acquires products and services. Think of it as the instruction manual for buying everything from paper clips to fighter jets, from cleaning services to satellite launches.
The FAR Council, composed of three powerful figures—the Secretary of Defense, the GSA Administrator, and the NASA Administrator—meets quarterly or more frequently when needed. The regulation itself is updated multiple times per year, constantly adapting to new realities on the ground.
Today's FAR traces much of its current form to 1984, when the first version became effective after years of development. That same year saw the Competition in Contracting Act passed, which remains the origin of much of what practitioners work with today. The act's purpose was simple: ensure the government gets more value for its money by increasing competition among contractors.
The FAR is codified at Chapter 1 of Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It's divided into Subchapters A through H, encompassing Parts 1 through 53. The document is so vast that it requires two volumes to print—Subchapters A through G occupy Volume 1, while Subchapter H fills Volume 2 entirely.
To cite a specific provision within this maze of regulations, practitioners use a precise format: the rule on legislative lobbying costs, for instance, appears at FAR Part 31, Section 205, Subsection 22. The citation reads simply "FAR 31.205-22"—precise enough to eliminate any ambiguity about which rule applies.
A Century of Reform
The post-World War II era brought specialized challenges that the simple procurement methods of the eighteenth century couldn't handle. The country needed increasingly sophisticated equipment and services, and wartime spending had revealed just how vulnerable the system was to profiteering.
Legislation like the Selective Service Act of 1948, the Renegotiation Act of 1948, and the Defense Production Act of 1950 all attempted to reform procurement and manufacturing practices. The Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947 set the tone for decades to come—it sought to standardize purchasing methods across the Army, Navy, and Air Force, leading directly to the creation of the Armed Services Procurement Regulation, or ASPR.
The ASPR struggled mightily from its inception to find balance between flexibility and standardization. The committee creating it recognized that contracting officers needed flexibility to weigh factors like cost, quality, timeliness, and methodology. President Truman, however, worried about this increased flexibility, writing in a letter to the committee: "It is of great importance in procurement matters to establish standards and definitions to guide all personnel who have authority to place contracts. Otherwise, differences in interpretation and policies may result in imprudent contracts."
The Hoover Commission of 1947 included recommendations about government contracting—specifically, centralizing efforts to improve the federal supply system. The Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 did exactly that by creating the General Services Administration, transferring the Treasury Department's procurement responsibilities to this new agency.
By 1956, a task force composed of the GSA, Department of Defense, and Small Business Administration reviewed government procurement practices and recommended regulations modelled after the military's ASPR. The resulting system, the Federal Procurement Regulations, were announced in March 1959 and applied to the forty-five independent civilian agencies of the executive branch.
But here's where it got complicated: guidance was provided at a high level, with specific implementation left to each agency. In practice, this meant procurement policies varied wildly between executive agencies—and often within each agency's divisions and subdivisions. Contractors seeking to sell to the government had to navigate an almost impossible maze of differing regulations.
The Chaos of Unification
In 1974, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy was created to once again attempt unifying government-wide procurement regulations. A study by James F. Nagle in "A History of Government Contracting" revealed just how bad things had become: an OFPP study of nineteen agencies in 1979 uncovered 877 different sets of procurement regulations, comprising 64,600 pages of regulations, with 29,900 pages promulgated or revised annually. Eighty-three percent of these were issued from levels below agency headquarters.
At the same time, the majority of the Federal Procurement Regulations and NASA's procurement regulations were largely identical to the military's ASPR—but that sameness hadn't solved the fundamental problem: too many variations, too many interpretations, too many ways for contractors to get lost in the bureaucracy.
In 1980, seeking to standardize government procurement, OFPP established the Federal Acquisition Regulation system. It would not be until 1984 that the first version became effective—precisely when the Competition in Contracting Act was released along with findings from the Grace Commission, followed two years later by the Packard Commission of 1986.
What the FAR Actually Requires
The purpose of the FAR is to "deliver on a timely basis the best value product or service to the customer, while maintaining the public's trust and fulfilling public policy objectives"—words from the regulation's own introduction section.
Parts 1 through 4 cover general information about the system: defining the authority and responsibilities of contracting officers, establishing definitions of terms found throughout the regulations. The vision is clear: delivery on a timely basis, best value product or service, while maintaining public trust and fulfilling public policy objectives.
Compliance with the Regulation, along with the use of initiative in the interests of the Government in areas not specifically addressed in the FAR or prohibited by law, are required and expected of all members of the Acquisition Team. This team consists of everyone who participates in government acquisition: the technical, supply, and procurement communities, the customers they serve, and the contractors who provide the products and services.
The role and operation of those involved as a 'team' in government acquisition is precisely what makes the FAR so critical—it's not just a set of rules, but an entire ecosystem of professionals working together to get things done.
Not every U.S. executive branch agency is legally subject to the FAR, though even those not officially subject to it often operate within its framework. Judicial and legislative entities frequently use it as well—this particular set of regulations has become the de facto standard for how government buys what it needs.