Acquisition MythBusters 2025-05: The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul is Streamlining Procurement to Reduce Burden
Since I started down the 1102 career field, the FAR has been a stagnant document in drastic need of revitalization. The goal of reducing the regulatory burden is a good one, something that I fully support. However there are ways to do this in a manner that increases transparency and buy in. Unfortunately, the current approach is not one of those ways.
Myth:
The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO) is simplifying and reducing procurement burden for contracting officers and industry alike.
Reality:
Not yet …. Though the potential is there.
While the stated goal of the RFO is to cut down on complexity, improve agility, and eliminate administrative overhead, the practical result for many in the field has been an increase in uncertainty, workload, and risk. Rather than clearly reducing burden, the overhaul has shifted that burden off of clear rules in the FAR itself and onto individual contracting offices, agency policy shops, legal counsel, and industry. This is unfortunate as the most innovative contracting approaches I’ve seen have come from offices who understand how to operate in the margins, not in creating SOPs for margins.
Why This Myth Persists: Messaging plain and simple, the RFO is a bright and shiny approach and federal procurement has long been rightfully criticized for being cumbersome, paperwork-heavy, and slow. So when an overhaul promises to delete 10,000+ words and simplify 30+ subparts, it sounds like a long-overdue fix. Those behind the overhaul have emphasized how removing non-statutory and duplicative provisions will "free" procurement professionals to act more nimbly. But that framing doesn’t acknowledge the downstream consequences of removing structure and guidance without replacing it with enforceable, reliable alternatives.
Where the Burden is Actually Going:
Interpretation vs. Instruction: Under the legacy FAR structure, even if something was long and complex, at least it was codified and something all 1102s could rely on. Contracting Officers could point to clauses and subparts with clear backing, with the understanding of the flexibility that lied in the margins.. Now, those same decisions require interpreting "strategic acquisition guides," informal FAQs, or deviation memos, which are not legally binding (and certainly subject to change). COs are left making judgment calls that used to be governed by precedent, increasing the chance of inconsistency and protest. Speaking from decades of experience as a CO (and later the supervisor of them) …. Ambiguity leads to COs less willing to take risks/try new things. They go to what they know is safe, versus trying to push the margins.
Legal and Compliance Risk: Agency lawyers are suddenly tasked with interpreting or defending procurement approaches that rely on documents outside of the FAR. Since many of the deleted provisions (e.g., in Parts 11, 10, and 34) were never replaced with enforceable language, legal counsel must now evaluate case-by-case whether the strategic guides or agency-specific interpretations will stand up to scrutiny. Again the higher to risk, the less willingness to innovate.
Training Burden: Procurement shops across government are being forced to retrain staff on what the new rules might mean, for now, while still waiting for the longer-term public rulemaking process. This is being done with only a partial view of the future of the FAR, training is necessarily provisional. And the changes keep coming, it’s an ongoing compliance chase.
Vendor Confusion: Industry partners used to using the FAR (and supplementals like the DFARs) as the single source of truth are now facing a patchwork of agency-specific deviations, multiple class deviation memos, strategic guides, best practice recommendations, and informal public statements. Small businesses in particular lack the legal infrastructure to navigate this ambiguity, which could drive them out of the federal space altogether.
Protest and Review Vulnerability: With less defined procedure comes greater litigation risk. Offerors are more likely to protest awards when they suspect that deviations were misapplied or procedures weren’t transparent. And since the guides replacing deleted FAR sections are not law, they offer little defense in formal reviews. It’s likely to be those protests that eventually establish the guardrails, and no CO wants to risk being the case study.
Examples of 'Streamlining' Gone Sideways:
FAR Part 10 (Market Research) was largely deleted with the justification that it was covered in best practices. But those best practices are not binding, and COs are still required to conduct market research. Without a standard framework, there's confusion about what constitutes sufficient research.
FAR Part 11.1 (Describing Agency Needs) was eliminated, leaving a void where requirements development guidance once lived. Now each agency is developing its own internal approach to defining specs, creating divergence in practices and documentation.
Bottom Line: For many, the RFO has not yet reduced burden, it’s simply moved it into less visible, less accountable places. Until a full, codified rulemaking process restores structure and clarity, procurement teams will be forced to navigate a "lightweight" FAR with heavier lifts than ever before.
Taking Advantage of Positive Change: I don’t want to be entirely negative here though, there’s a lot of people trying to do some good and a chance to create positive results together. Instead of accepting this ambiguity as the new normal, procurement professionals, legal advisors, and industry stakeholders must seize these changes as a unique opportunity to collectively advocate for clarity, accountability, and participatory rulemaking. That means:
Engaging in Public Comment: When proposed rules do emerge, submit detailed, constructive feedback. Agencies rely on informed voices to shape lasting policies. *** And see my last mythbusters, as the deviations are very much subject to change.
Documenting Internal Guidance: If your office has developed interpretations or best practices, document and share them. Institutional memory will be key in this fast-changing landscape and we will be more successful working from clear, shared assumptions.
Training for Context, Not Just Compliance: Focus training efforts on teaching staff the why behind procurement rules, not just what changed. Understanding the policy intent behind old and new structures will help teams adapt with more confidence (especially if the details on the deviations change after public comment).
Building Cross-Agency Communities of Practice: Share lessons learned and challenges in real-time. The best solutions will likely come from collective adaptation, not isolated reinvention. As mentioned in a different Mythbuster, but places like procurement innovation labs are key to navigating this together.
