President Trump has signed several Executive Orders (EO) addressing ways to improve the acquisition process through simplifying the regulations, utilizing competitive marketplace and commercially available products and services, consolidating procurements at General Services Administration (GSA), and now overhauling the Department of Defense acquisition processes.
Four recent Executive Orders follow:
- EO Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement
- EO Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trum Enforces Requirement of Cost-Effective Commercial Solutions in Federal Contracts
- EO Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement
- EO Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base
EO Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement
On April 15, 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order (EO), Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement to streamline the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). The Federal Government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the world but the FAR has become excessive and overly complicated. The “Vision” in FAR 1.102 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”. The intent of the FAR when implemented 40 years ago was to establish uniform procedures across agencies, however it has grown to over 2,000 pages and has become overly complicated.
This EO tasks the Administrator, in coordination with the FAR Council, agency heads and senior acquisition/procurement officials to take actions to amend and simplify the FAR to ensure it only includes provisions required by statute. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is tasked to issue a memorandum to agencies with guidance to ensure consistency and that changes to the FAR and agency supplements are aligned. The EO addresses a regulatory sunset provision that any FAR provisions identified that are not required by statute will expire 4 years after the effective date of the final rule unless renewed by the FAR council.
Although none of us like change, this will be a welcome reform to finally have a document that removes inconsistencies and only includes statutory regulations.
EO Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Enforces Requirement of Cost-Effective Commercial Solutions in Federal Contracts
On April 15, 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order EO Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trum Enforces Requirement of Cost-Effective Commercial Solutions in Federal Contracts. The purpose of the EO is to use the competitive marketplace and prioritize the procurement of commercial products and services rather than non-commercial.
The EO specifically addresses a 2019 Information Technology (IT) procurement where the government could have saved $345 billion over the last 25 years if it purchased commercial off-the-shelf IT solutions.
Contracting Officers have 60 days to review all pending contracts for non-commercial products or services and submit waivers justifying their necessity by including market research and price analysis explaining why commercial solutions cannot be used. These waivers for non-commercial procurements must be reviewed and approved or denied in writing.
We believe this is going to be a big change because it is our experience that most contracting officers and prime contractors prefer certified cost or pricing data even though they have been required to do just what this EO requires for years.
EO Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement
On March 20, 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order EO Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement to have the General Services Administration (GSA) conduct domestic procurement with respect to common goods and services for federal agencies. Within 90 days of the date of the EO the Administrator must submit a plan to the Director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) based on input from Agency heads for GSA to procure common goods and services across the Government, where permitted by law.
The purpose of this EO is to consolidate domestic federal procurements into GSA and eliminate waste especially in IT Government Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACS). GSA was created to provide an economical and efficient system for procurement products and services for agencies rather than multiple agencies carrying out the same function. The EO further indicates that consolidating the domestic procurement in GSA will eliminate waste and duplication.
While the different agencies like to control their procurements, consolidating procurements under GSA will lead to efficiencies.
Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base.
On April 9, 2025, President Trump signed the Executive Order (EO), Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Defense Industrial Base. The purpose of this EO is to make a comprehensive overhaul to the acquisition system to deliver state-of-the-art capabilities to the warfighter quicker. We addressed this in our Blog Executive Order to Overhaul the Defense Acquisition System.
Takeaway
The last several National Defense Authorization Acts (2024 and 2025) have encouraged the purchase of goods using commercial solutions, using non-traditional defense contractors for commercial products, using competition to reduce the acquisition time and costs, reducing barriers to acquisition of commercial products and services, and mandating FAR 12 procedures unless product is not commercial. While there was a timeframe to complete studies under the NDAA, we didn’t really see any real action out of the initiatives. In addition, we see pushback from Contracting Officers and prime contractors when commercial solutions are offered by suppliers. However, President Trump has set some very short deadlines and is really pushing for commercial alternatives and competition to reduce acquisition time and cost. We are hopeful that these EO’s are what it takes to get contracting officers and prime contractors to do what the FAR has been tell them to do for a long time.
Support for Commercial Determinations and Proposal Readiness
Redstone Government Consulting offers support in drafting or reviewing commercial assertions and determinations, reviewing commercial determination policies, providing both live and webinar training on commercial products and services, supporting proposal development, and reviewing proposals to ensure they meet the expectations of contracting officers. Additionally, Redstone assists with preparing documentation to support commercial item justifications, navigating regulatory requirements related to FAR Part 12 acquisitions, responding to contracting officer requests for additional information, and developing internal procedures to strengthen compliance with commercial acquisition standards.
