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OMB and DoD Do Sequestration Two-Step

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 08.13.12

On August 1, 2012, Acting OMB Director Jeffrey Zients and Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter testified before the House Armed Services Committee regarding the potential impacts of sequestration set to begin on January 2, but declined to spell out whether OMB would apply sequestration at the program, project, or activity level – the key to determining whether agencies would have some discretion to pick and choose among contracts. Sec. Carter hinted that DoD would follow that approach, stating that the DoD leadership "will take advantage of any flexibility [they] can find" to reach the target cuts, although any such flexibility is already restricted by the Administration's announcement that payroll accounts for military personnel would be exempt.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 10.30.26

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: GAO Sustains Protest Where Agency Tried to Fix PIA Violation with a Second PIA Violation

Recent sustain decisions by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Fluor Federal Solutions, LLC and Reliance Test & Technology send a clear message: when an agency tries to fix a Procurement Integrity Act (PIA) violation by committing a second one, the cure can be just as fatal as the disease. The cases involved the U.S. Air Force’s $1.8 billion procurement for O&M services at Elgin Air Force Base. During discussions, the Air Force inadvertently released a pricing overview slide with all offerors’ bottom-line evaluated costs to Reliance Test & Technology, which immediately notified the agency of the error. In response, the Air Force decided to level the playing field by providing the same information to all the other offerors in the procurement, stating, “[o]fferors may consider this disclosure in their [final proposal revision].”...