80_FR_11661 80 FR 11619 - General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR); Transactional Data Reporting

80 FR 11619 - General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR); Transactional Data Reporting

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 42 (March 4, 2015)

Page Range11619-11628
FR Document2015-04349

The General Services Administration (GSA) announces a public meeting and request for comment on its proposal to amend the General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to include clauses that would require vendors to report transactional data from orders and prices paid by ordering activities. This includes orders placed against both Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract vehicles and GSA's non-FSS contract vehicles--Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) and Governmentwide Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quality (IDIQ) contracts. For FSS vehicles, the clause would be introduced in phases, beginning with a pilot for select products and commoditized services. The new clause will be paired with changes to the basis of award monitoring requirement of the existing price reductions clause, resulting in a burden reduction for participating FSS contractors. This rulemaking does not apply to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) FSS contract holders. GSA is interested in conducting a dialogue with industry and interested parties in Government about the proposed change. GSA is seeking feedback on potential impacts to agency customers and contractors alike. Feedback will be used to help inform the revisions to the proposed clauses, provisions, and prescriptions and other guidance to implement the proposed rule.

Federal Register, Volume 80 Issue 42 (Wednesday, March 4, 2015)
[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 42 (Wednesday, March 4, 2015)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 11619-11628]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-04349]


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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

48 CFR Parts 501, 516, 538 and 552

[GSAR Case 2013-G504; Docket 2014-0020; Sequence 1]
RIN 3090-AJ51


General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR); 
Transactional Data Reporting

AGENCY: Office of Acquisition Policy, General Services Administration.

ACTION: Notice of a public meeting and request for comments on proposed 
rule.

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SUMMARY: The General Services Administration (GSA) announces a public 
meeting and request for comment on its proposal to amend the General 
Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to include 
clauses that would require vendors to report transactional data from 
orders and prices paid by ordering activities. This includes orders 
placed against both Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract vehicles and 
GSA's non-FSS contract vehicles--Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts 
(GWACs) and Governmentwide Indefinite-Delivery, Indefinite-Quality 
(IDIQ) contracts. For FSS vehicles, the clause would be introduced in 
phases, beginning with a pilot for select products and commoditized 
services. The new clause will be paired with changes to the basis of 
award monitoring requirement of the existing price reductions clause, 
resulting in a burden reduction for participating FSS contractors. This 
rulemaking does not apply to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 
FSS contract holders.
    GSA is interested in conducting a dialogue with industry and 
interested

[[Page 11620]]

parties in Government about the proposed change. GSA is seeking 
feedback on potential impacts to agency customers and contractors 
alike. Feedback will be used to help inform the revisions to the 
proposed clauses, provisions, and prescriptions and other guidance to 
implement the proposed rule.

DATES: Interested parties may offer oral and/or written comments at a 
public meeting to be held on Friday, April 17, 2015, at 9:00 a.m. 
Eastern Standard Time. Parties are also encouraged to provide all 
written comments, including those to be delivered at the public 
meeting, directly to www.regulations.gov. As explained in this notice, 
other tools will also be used to elicit public input.
    Interested parties should submit written comments to the Regulatory 
Secretariat on or before Monday, May 4, 2015 to be considered in the 
formulation of a final rule.
    The public meeting will be conducted on Friday, April 17, 2015, at 
9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Information for the public meeting may 
be found under the heading SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by GSAR Case 2013-G504, 
Transactional Data Reporting, by any of the following methods:
     Regulations.gov: http://www.regulations.gov.
    Submit comments by searching for ``GSAR Case 2013-G504''. Select 
the link ``Comment Now'' and follow the instructions provided at the 
``You are commenting on'' screen. Please include your name, company 
name (if any), and ``GSAR Case 2013-G504'', on your attached document.
     Fax: 202-501-4067.
     Mail: U.S. General Services Administration, Regulatory 
Secretariat Division (MVCB), 1800 F Street NW., 2nd Floor, ATTN: Hada 
Flowers, Washington, DC 20405-0001.
    Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite GSAR Case 2013-
G504 in all correspondence related to this case. All comments received 
will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including 
any personal and/or business confidential information provided.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Dana Munson, General Services 
Acquisition Policy Division, GSA, 202-357-9652 or Mr. Matthew 
McFarland, General Services Acquisition Policy Division, GSA, 202-690-
9232 or email [email protected], for clarification of content, public 
meeting information and submission of comment. For information 
pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the Regulatory 
Secretariat at 202-501-4755. Please cite GSAR Case 2013-G504.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Public Meeting

    GSA is holding a public meeting on Friday, April 17, 2015. The 
meeting will start at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. The meeting end 
time will depend on the final number of registered oral presentations. 
Attendees can attend the meeting in person at GSA Central Office or 
virtually through GSA's Internet meeting platform, Adobe Connect.
    In-person Attendance: Interested parties may attend the public 
meeting to be held in the GSA Auditorium at GSA Headquarters, located 
at 1800 F St. NW., Washington, DC 20405. The public is asked to pre-
register by Wednesday April 1, 2015, due to security and seating 
limitations. To pre-register, use the following link: https://meet.gsa.gov/e5rpxxbrh14/event/event_info.html. Registration check-in 
will begin at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Friday, April 17, 2015, 
and the meeting will start at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. 
Attendees must be prepared to present a form of government issued photo 
identification.
    Virtual Attendance: Interested parties may also attend virtually 
through GSA's Internet meeting platform, hosted by Adobe Connect. 
Virtual attendees must register in advance at https://meet.gsa.gov/e5rpxxbrh14/event/event_info.html.
    Meeting Accommodations: The public meeting is physically accessible 
to people with disabilities. Request for sign language interpretation 
or other auxiliary aids should be directed to Ms. Munson at 
[email protected] or 202-357-9652 by Wednesday, April 1, 2015.
    The TTY number for further information is: 1-800-877-8339. When the 
operator answers the call, let them know the agency is the General 
Services Administration; the point-of-contact is Dana Munson at 202-
357-9652 or Matthew McFarland 202-690-9232.
    Oral Public Comments: Parties wishing to make formal oral 
presentations at the public meeting should indicate so during the 
registration process. Presentations must be provided to Ms. Dana Munson 
by electronic mail at [email protected] no later than Wednesday, April 8, 
2015. Time allocations for oral presentations will be limited to 
fifteen minutes. All formal oral public comments should also be 
followed-up in writing and submitted to www.regulations.gov no later 
than Monday, May 4, 2015. When submitting your comments, search for 
``GSAR Case 2013-G504'' and reference ``Public Meeting, Public Comments 
on Transactional Data Reporting.'' Note: Requests made after the 
deadline for formal oral presentations will be permitted as time 
permits and assigned based on the order the requests are received.
    Written Comments/Statements: In lieu of, or in addition to, 
participating in the public meeting, interested parties may submit 
written comments to www.regulations.gov by Monday, May 4, 2015. When 
submitting your comments, search for ``GSAR Case 2013-G504'' and 
reference ``Public Comments on Transactional Data Reporting.'' Parties 
wishing to share written statements at the public meeting must submit 
such statements to Ms. Dana Munson at [email protected] by Wednesday, April 
8, 2015.

II. Overview

    The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) recently announced 
a new vision for Federal purchasing, one that fundamentally shifts from 
managing purchases and price individually across thousands of 
procurement units to managing entire categories of purchases across 
Government collaboratively (see Transforming the Marketplace: 
Simplifying Federal Procurement to Improve Performance, Drive 
Innovation and Increase Savings, December 4, 2014, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/procurement/memo/simplifying-federal-procurement-to-improve-performance-drive-innovation-increase-savings.pdf). Category management involves buying 
and managing commonly-purchased goods and services through categories 
like information technology (IT) hardware and IT software. Categories 
will be managed by experts with in-depth market expertise who 
understand buying trends, industry cost drivers, new innovations on the 
horizon and emerging companies. Category managers will also share 
information with agencies across government to support smarter buying 
decisions.
    GSA is creating a Common Acquisition Platform (CAP), an online 
marketplace to identify best-in-class contracts issued by GSA or other 
agencies, best practices, and other information agencies need to reduce 
the proliferation of duplicative contract vehicles and deliver the best 
value possible to federal customers and the American people. A critical 
component of the CAP, and smarter buying in general, is the 
availability of the prices previously paid by other government

[[Page 11621]]

buyers for a similar product or service under similar terms and 
conditions. Government buyers will be able to use that data, in 
combination with other relevant information--such as customer 
satisfaction with the performance of the contractor-furnished 
solution--to determine fair and reasonable pricing as part of a best 
value solution.
    The current lack of transparency on prices paid by government 
customers has led to significant price variation, sometimes 300 percent 
or more, for identical purchases by federal agencies from the same 
commercial vendor as well as the unnecessary duplication of contract 
vehicles. A recent pilot where contractors were required to furnish 
prices paid on GSA's strategically sourced Office Supplies 2 (OS2) 
vehicle demonstrated the power of such a tool in producing market 
driven pricing throughout the life of the contract.
    Accordingly, this proposed rule would create a transactional data 
reporting clause to improve GSA's ability to conduct meaningful price 
analysis and more efficiently and effectively validate fair and 
reasonable pricing on both its non-FSS and FSS vehicles. It would also 
allow GSA's customers to improve their ability to compare prices prior 
to placing orders under its vehicles. Under the transactional data 
reporting clause, contractors would report prices paid for products and 
services delivered during the performance of the contract, including 
under orders and blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) through a user-
friendly, online reporting system. The report would include 
transactional data elements such as unit measure, quantity of item 
sold, universal product code, if applicable, prices paid per unit, and 
total price.
    The transactional data reporting clause would be applied 
immediately to GSA's government-wide non-FSS vehicles, where 
transactional data is not already collected through other methods. For 
FSS vehicles, the clause would be introduced in phases, beginning with 
a pilot for select products and commoditized services. Under the pilot, 
FSS customers would take advantage of prices paid information and the 
more rigorous order level competition it generates to establish 
pricing. To ensure these prices remain competitive with commercial 
pricing, GSA would evaluate prices paid under the pilot to commercial 
benchmarks and other available data on commercial pricing, as well as 
prices previously paid prior to the pilot where such data is available. 
Vendors would not be subject to the ``tracking customer'' provisions of 
the price reductions clause that require them to monitor their pricing, 
and provide the government with the same price reductions that they 
give to the class of the contractor's commercial customers upon which 
the original contract was awarded. However, GSA would maintain the 
right throughout the life of the FSS contract to ask a vendor for 
updates to the disclosures on its commercial sales format--which is 
used to negotiate pricing on FSS vehicles--where commercial benchmarks 
or other available data on commercial pricing is insufficient to 
establish price reasonableness. Price and quality metrics would be 
established, and commercial benchmarks identified, prior to the launch 
of the pilot so that GSA could perform these analyses and measure the 
results and impact of the pilot. GSA would also seek vendor feedback to 
compare experience with the transactional data clause to the tracking 
requirements of the price reductions clause. GSA would use all relevant 
information and analysis to determine, in consultation with OMB, 
whether use of the clause is beneficial. If the results of the pilot 
confirm that using transactional data is an effective pricing model, 
its use would be broadened using the authorities provided by this rule. 
If the results of the pilot reveal that using transactional data is not 
an effective pricing model, contracts would be modified to revert back 
to using the tracking customer provisions of the price reductions 
clause. Additional details regarding the scope of the pilot will be 
announced through an open dialog on GSA's Interact platform at 
interact.gsa.gov. This public input will be considered prior to the 
launch of the pilot.
    GSA recognizes that use of prices paid information must be done 
within the context of seeking to obtain the best value for the 
taxpayer. GSA believes the clause will be especially impactful when 
combined with the insight and expertise of category managers to provide 
agency buyers across government with market intelligence, expertise, 
and deep-dive analysis to improve supply chain management, pricing 
variances, innovation, redundancies, and unnecessary duplication of 
effort. Tools and training deployed in connection with the 
implementation of this rule would emphasize the importance of 
considering total cost (not just unit price) in the context of each 
procurement, taking into account desired terms and conditions, 
performance levels, past customer satisfaction, and other relevant 
information.

III. Background

    In Fiscal Year 2014, government agencies ordered nearly $39 billion 
in goods and services through GSA's FSS contracts GWACs, and 
Governmentwide IDIQs. While GSA has a number of policies in place to 
help its buyers and agency users to secure best value for the taxpayer, 
two limitations in current pricing practices make achievement of this 
goal unnecessarily challenging: (1) Lack of visibility into prices paid 
by other customers; and (2) insufficient attention on ``horizontal 
pricing'' under the FSS program--i.e., the ability to compare one 
vendor's pricing to that of other vendors.

Lack of Transparency in Prices Previously Paid

    The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) has long emphasized the 
need for contracting officers to conduct price analysis as part of 
their responsibility to establish that offered prices are fair and 
reasonable. Price analysis requires contracting officers to obtain and 
analyze data on the prices at which the same or similar items have been 
sold. At GSA, like most agencies, collection of this information has 
rested largely on the shoulders of each contracting officer. Until 
recently, little effort was made to share prices previously paid by 
agencies throughout the government. Over the years, this lack of 
transparency contributed to large price disparities, where one agency 
may pay a significant amount more for the exact same product or 
commoditized service as another agency under the same or substantially 
similar terms and conditions, sometimes even from the same vendor. GSA 
has already seen examples where price variability has decreased through 
the collection of transactional data such as with its Office Supplies 2 
(OS2) government-wide strategic sourcing vehicle, and others, saving 
taxpayers approximately $370 million.
    GSA proposes to address this weakness through the use of a 
transactional data reporting clause. Under the clause contractors would 
be required to report historical information encompassing the products 
and services delivered during the performance of the contract, 
including under orders and BPAs. Contractors would be required to 
electronically report contract sales monthly through a user-friendly 
online reporting system. The report would include transactional data 
elements such as unit measures, quantity of item sold, universal 
product code, if

[[Page 11622]]

applicable, price paid per unit, and total price.
    GSA believes there are multiple benefits to use of the 
transactional data reporting clause, including better pricing, 
administrative savings, increased opportunities for small business 
participation, and standardization of practice.
     Better pricing: The availability of prices paid 
information will lead to better prices for the taxpayer by improving 
the agency's ability to conduct price analysis. It will also improve 
the quality of both contract and order level competition because 
vendors will know that their customers have greater market intelligence 
on what other agencies have paid in similar situations. For example, 
GSA initiated a dynamic pricing model, where prices are adjusted based 
on transactional data, on its Office Supplies 2 vehicle between 
November 2012 and January 2013. Prior to the implementation of dynamic 
pricing, the average OS2 savings were 13.5 percent. However, since 
fully implementing dynamic pricing in June 2013, savings rates have 
averaged approximately 18 percent, or roughly 4.5 percent higher than 
pre-dynamic pricing.
     Administrative savings: GSA expects the added value of 
transactional data to GSA contract vehicles to ultimately reduce 
duplicative contract vehicles as both FSS and non-FSS contracts will 
demonstrably offer best value, reducing transactional costs to both 
agencies and contractors. GSA estimates that more than 600,000 open 
market actions overlap with existing GSA contract vehicles. With better 
pricing on GSA contracts, agencies will have less incentive to 
establish separate contracts. Additionally, GSA believes replacing the 
price reduction clause's tracking customer requirement with 
transactional data reporting could reduce the annual burden on 
contractors by more than 85 percent, or approximately $51 million in 
administrative costs to contractors, when compared to the burden hours 
associated with the tracking customer requirement under the price 
reductions clause in its current configuration.
     Reduction of barriers to small business participation: The 
reduction in duplicative and inefficient procurement transactions 
removes barriers to entry into the Federal marketplace, particularly 
for small businesses. The GAO reports the costs of being on multiple 
contract vehicles ranged from $10,000 to $1,000,000 due to increased 
bid and proposal, and administrative costs (see GAO report # GAO-10-
367, Contracting Strategies, Data and Oversight Problems Hamper 
Opportunities to Leverage Value of Interagency and Enterprisewide 
Contracts).
     Standardization: Significant GSA non-FSS contracts include 
a requirement for transactional data. Though the specifics vary, GSA's 
Alliant, Alliant Small Business, 8(a) Streamlined Technology 
Acquisition Resources for Services (STARS) II, and Veterans Technology 
Services (VETS) GWACs, Connections II, Custom SATCOM Solutions (CS2), 
Custom SATCOM Solutions--Small Business (CS2-SB), Office Supply Third 
Generation (OS3), and One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services 
(OASIS) Govermentwide IDIQs, all have built-in vendor requirements for 
submission of transactional data. Currently, these requirements are 
communicated in solicitations without the benefit of a dedicated GSAR 
clause. The creation of a uniform clause to be used across GSA's non-
FSS programs would facilitate consistency and transparency by allowing 
the public to comment on the proposed new clause.

Use of Vertical Pricing and Movement Toward Both Vertical and 
Horizontal Pricing in the FSS Program

    The FSS program is currently built around a vertical pricing model 
where pricing offered to the government from a potential vendor is 
compared to the pricing that the same vendor offers to its commercial 
customers. When vendors first submit an FSS offer, minimal 
consideration is given to the relative competitiveness of the vendor's 
prices to other vendors (i.e., horizontal pricing). Instead, the FSS 
program primarily collects aggregate sales information, including a 
broad disclosure of discounts vendors offer to commercial customers for 
similar products and services (see the ``Commercial Sales'' disclosure 
guidance at GSAR 515.408). The Government's negotiation objective is to 
achieve a company's best price--i.e., the price given to its most 
favored customer (see GSAR 538.270(a)) who buys in quantities and under 
conditions similar to those of the government. Contractors are then 
required, under the ``price reductions'' clause (PRC), to monitor their 
pricing over the life of the contract and provide the government with 
the same price reductions that they give to the class of the 
contractor's commercial customers upon which the original contract 
award was predicated (see GSAR 552.238-75). In addition to the 
``tracking customer'' requirement, the price reductions clause allows 
vendors to voluntarily reduce prices to the Government and for the 
Government to request a price reduction at any time during the contract 
period such as where market analysis indicates that lower prices are 
being offered or paid for the same items under similar conditions.
    The required disclosure of commercial sales practices and the PRC 
were first introduced into the FSS program in the 1980s as a way to 
ensure fair and reasonable pricing through the life of a contract with 
the goal of achieving most favored customer pricing. For many years, 
the tracking customer feature of the PRC was a critical mechanism for 
enabling GSA and its customers to maintain good pricing from original 
equipment manufacturers who held the vast majority of FSS contracts. 
However, changes in the Federal market have lessened the impact of the 
tracking customer mechanism over time. Of particular note, an 
increasing percentage of FSS contractors are resellers with little or 
no commercial sales. The GSA Inspector General (IG) recently reported 
that resellers represent more than one-third of FSS vendors (See Major 
Issues from Multiple Award Schedules Audits, Audit Memorandum Numbers 
A120050-3, available at http://www.gsaig.gov under Office of Inspector 
General (OIG) Reports and Audit Reports).
    Moreover, due to the various exceptions included in the PRC the 
tracking customer feature ties pricing for reductions to sales of 
single items and plays little role in blanket purchase agreement and 
order purchases reflecting volume sales. Further, many products sold 
under the FSS program are commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products or 
other commercial items for which the government is not a market driver. 
The government, and other customers in the category to which the 
government is most typically aligned under the price reductions clause, 
tend to receive voluntary price reductions from the vendor as a result 
of general market forces (e.g., intense competition and small profit 
margins within the IT hardware arena that cause vendors to lower their 
prices for all customers voluntarily to maintain market share). In 
other words, prices are reduced under the voluntary provisions of the 
price reduction clause as a result of market rate pricing changes, not 
under the mandatory tracking customer provisions. GSA recently analyzed 
modifications issued between October 1, 2013 and August 4, 2014 under 
nine of its FSS contracts, including Schedule 70 (Information 
Technology), Schedule 874 (Mission Oriented Business Integrated

[[Page 11623]]

Solutions (MOBIS)), Schedule 66 (Scientific Equipment and Services), 
Schedule 84 (Total Solutions for Law Enforcement, Security, Facilities 
Management, Fire, Rescue, Clothing, Marine Craft and Emergency/Disaster 
Response), Schedule 899 (Environmental Services), Schedule 738 II 
(Language Services), 874 V (Logistics Worldwide), Schedule 871 
(Professional Engineering Services), and Schedule 00CORP (The 
Consolidated Schedule). GSA found that only about 3 percent of the 
total price reductions received under the price reduction clause were 
tied to the ``tracking customer'' feature. The vast majority 
(approximately 78 percent) came as a result of commercial pricelist 
adjustments and market rate changes, with the balance for other 
reasons. This finding supports attempting a different means of making 
better pricing available.
    Simultaneous with these trends, significant improvements in 
technology now make it possible to collect transactional data and 
display it in a way that government customers can see the prices paid 
by other FSS customers along with other data to determine whether 
prices offered to them represent the best value to the taxpayer. As 
explained above, the required disclosure and sharing of prices paid 
information through the use of a transactional data reporting clause 
and portal under the OS2 pilot led to savings rates averaging 
approximately 18 percent, or about 4.5 percent higher than pre-dynamic 
pricing.
    GSA believes the collection and use of transactional data may be a 
more efficient and effective way for driving price reductions on FSS 
buys than through use of the tracking customer mechanism. In addition 
to avoiding the challenges associated with the tracking customer 
mechanism described above, the transactional data reporting clause 
would allow for greater reliance on horizontal pricing in the FSS 
program so that GSA and its customers can easily evaluate the relative 
competitiveness of prices between FSS vendors. Moreover, the 
transactional data reporting clause, if used as an alternative to 
tracking customer mechanism, could significantly reduce contractor 
burden. The Chief Acquisition Officers Council recently conducted an 
Open Dialogue through an online platform on improving how to do 
business with the Federal Government. Contractors pointed to the price 
reductions clause as one of the most complicated and burdensome 
requirements in Federal contracting, and GSA's own estimates suggest 
FSS contractors spend over 860,000 hours a year (at a cost of 
approximately $58.5 million) on compliance with this clause. Several 
conversations in this dialogue identified the need to reform FSS 
pricing policies, particularly requesting the removal of GSAR clause 
552.238-75, Price Reductions requirements. Over the years, GSA has made 
adjustments to address burdens and improve the use of these tools. In 
particular, on March 4, 1996 (GSAR Change 70), GSA modified the sales 
disclosure form to require only summary information and recognize that 
the terms and conditions of commercial sales vary and there may be 
legitimate reasons why the best price is not achieved. Despite these 
significant adjustments to the FSS pricing model, contractors continue 
to struggle to comply with the sales practice disclosure requirements 
and the price reduction clause. In two separate reports, the GSA IG 
found that over two-thirds of vendors reviewed in fiscal year (FY) 2011 
and 84 percent in FY 2012 provided commercial sales practice 
disclosures that are not current, accurate, and/or complete and nearly 
half of the vendors in FY 2012 had inadequate sales monitoring systems 
and billing systems to ensure proper administration of the price 
reduction and billing provisions. See Major Issues from Multiple Award 
Schedules Audits, Audit Memorandum Numbers A120050-3 and A120050-4, 
available at http://www.gsaig.gov under OIG Reports and Audit Reports.
    As stated above, GSA believes that the transactional data reporting 
clause could reduce the annual burden on contractors by more than 85 
percent, or approximately $51 million in administrative costs to 
contractors, when compared to the burden hours associated with 
monitoring pricing under the price reductions clause in its current 
configuration. GSA further believes that use of the transactional data 
reporting clause as an alternative to the price reduction clause 
addresses recommendations made by independent reviewers of the FSS 
program over the past several years. In particular, the Multiple Award 
Schedule (MAS) Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel, which included 
representatives from the largest buying agencies, the Department of the 
Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, 
Department of the Treasury, and U.S. Department of Education and 
industry, recommended in 2010 that ``the GSA Administrator remove the 
Price Reduction Clause from the MAS program supply contracts for 
products in phases as the GSA Administrator implements recommendations 
for competition and price transparency at the Schedule contract level 
and the order level.'' The same year, the Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) issued a report recommending that GSA collect ``prices 
paid'' data on FSS orders and make this information available to FSS 
contract negotiators and customer agencies. See Data and Oversight 
Problems Hamper Opportunities to Leverage Value of Interagency and 
Enterprisewide Contracts, GAO-10-367 (April 2010), available at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-367.

Transitioning to Transactional Data Reporting

    GSA recognizes that use of prices paid information must be done 
within the context of seeking to obtain the best value for the taxpayer 
and envisions that this information would be used as one information 
point in conjunction with other considerations, such as total cost, 
desired performance levels, delivery schedule, unique terms and 
conditions, time considerations, and customer satisfaction. Training to 
support the implementation of this rule would emphasize that prices 
paid information must be considered within the context of each 
individual procurement. More importantly, related efforts, such as the 
development of category hallways--an online marketplace tool--and the 
appointment of category managers with in-depth market expertise, will 
help agencies gain market intelligence to make smarter and well-
informed buying decisions.
    GSA further recognizes that its government-wide non-FSS and FSS 
contract vehicles require separate implementation strategies taking 
into account differences in the pricing models currently used by these 
vehicles.
    Government-wide Non-FSS contract vehicles. To implement the 
transactional data reporting requirement, this proposed rule would add 
a new GSAR clause for non-FSS contract vehicles, 552.216-75 Sales 
Reporting and Fee Remittance, which would require the submission of 
transactional data from vendors on orders and prices paid by ordering 
activities. Government-wide non-FSS contract vehicles account for 
approximately $3.9 billion in federal contract spending each year. As 
explained above, a significant number of GSA's non-FSS contract 
vehicles, including all GWAC vehicles, already include a requirement 
for transactional data. This proposed rule would standardize this 
practice for non-FSS contract vehicles and allow GSA to collect data on 
fixed-price, time-and-material, labor-hour, and cost-

[[Page 11624]]

reimbursement contracts, consistent with requirements currently in GWAC 
vehicles.
    FSS contract vehicles. GSA proposes a phased-in implementation of 
the transactional data reporting clause to the FSS program, beginning 
with a pilot chosen from FSS product offerings and commoditized 
services where obtaining such data has the greatest potential impact to 
reduce price variability and help agencies secure better value for the 
taxpayer through category management. Application of the transactional 
data reporting clause, including the proposed pilot, would be limited 
to FSS contracts managed by GSA's Federal Acquisition Service. This 
rule would not apply to FSS contracts managed by the Department of 
Veterans Affairs pursuant to a delegation provided by GSA.
    Details regarding the pilot will be provided by separate notice, 
including through social media tools already in place such as GSA 
Interact (https://interact.gsa.gov), as well as updates to GSA's Web 
site where current information is displayed and access and links to 
other sites are provided. Respondents will be invited to provide 
feedback through these mechanisms as well as at the public meeting 
announced in this notice. Respondents are also invited to provide 
written feedback in response to this notice regarding the preliminary 
pilot design features described below:
     Scope. The pilot would focus on commercial-off-the-shelf 
and related commercial products and commoditized services that 
experience high volume of repetitive purchasing under identical or 
substantially similar terms and conditions.
     Participation: Vendor participation in the pilot would be 
mandatory. Covered vendors would not be subject to the tracking 
customer requirements of the price reduction clause.
    However, vendors would still be subject to the commercial sales 
disclosure requirements, including the requirement to disclose 
commercial sales practices when requesting a contract modification for 
additional items or additional Special Item Numbers. In addition, GSA 
would maintain the right throughout the life of the FSS contract to ask 
a vendor for updates to the disclosures made on its commercial sales 
format (which is used to negotiate pricing on FSS vehicles) if and as 
necessary to ensure that prices remain fair and reasonable in light of 
changing market conditions. The government could request price 
reductions and vendors could voluntarily provide price reductions. GSA 
would modify select existing contracts and conduct solicitation 
refreshes under the FSS program to implement the new transactional data 
reporting requirements.
     Evaluation: Similar to best practices used in strategic 
sourcing efforts, GSA would establish clearly defined metrics prior to 
the launch of the pilot, such as savings rates, customer satisfaction, 
small business utilization, and benchmark results against available 
commercial data sources within categories of spend to evaluate the 
impact of the transactional data reporting clause. Pilot results would 
be evaluated before applying the transactional data reporting clause to 
additional FSS contracts and making usage mandatory more broadly. Pilot 
results would also be used to evaluate the comparative efficiency and 
effectiveness of the tracking customer requirement. If GSA determines 
using transactional data is not an effective pricing model within the 
FSS program, contracts would be modified to revert back to using the 
provisions described in the basic GSAR clause 552.238-75, Price 
Reductions.

Software, Tools, and Training

    GSA intends to update its systems in order to collect and analyze 
transactional data. Data submission will be enabled through multiple 
electronic interfaces (e.g., secure data entry, electronic file 
submission, or an application programming interface (API)). The goal is 
to make the reporting process as streamlined, secure and efficient as 
possible for contractors, requiring them to submit only the 
transactional data GSA cannot access via other means (e.g., GSA 
contract management systems or Federal reporting systems such as the 
System for Award Management (SAM) or the Federal Procurement Data 
System (FPDS)).
    GSA also plans to implement an API for buyers to benefit from using 
transactional data. Through the API, GSA will make this information 
accessible online for all Government buyers. This data will help buyers 
better understand the universe of GSA purchases; helping them to drive 
down prices, reduce price variability, and make smarter purchases.
    Prior to implementation of transactional data reporting 
requirements, GSA's Vendor Support Center (https://vsc.gsa.gov) will 
provide instructions and offer training to vendors on how to report 
transactional data for FSS and non-FSS orders.
    Additionally, GSA will update its relevant courseware on the 
Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI) and Defense Acquisition University 
(DAU) portals to educate both customers and GSA contracting officers on 
how to use the data. The Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) has an 
internal training course aimed at GSA contracting officers awarding and 
administering FSS contracts--this course will be updated to educate 
contracting officers on how to conduct analysis on transactional data, 
as well as how to use these analyses to achieve better pricing on the 
contracts. Similarly, the external-facing courseware on how to use the 
FSS program and other non-FSS GWACs and MACs will be updated to educate 
customers on the new requirements and how they can use the data 
collected (to be shared by GSA) to buy smarter. The external courseware 
will also highlight the additional value the collected data offers to 
GSA's FSS and non-FSS contracting programs.

IV. Executive Orders 12866 and 13356

    Executive Orders (E.O.s) 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess 
all costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if 
regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize 
net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public 
health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). E.O. 
13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, 
of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. 
This is not a significant regulatory action and, therefore, was not 
subject to review under section 6(b) of E.O. 12866, Regulatory Planning 
and Review, dated September 30, 1993. This rule is not a major rule 
under 5 U.S.C. 804.

V. Regulatory Flexibility Act

    GSA expects this proposed rule to have a significant economic 
impact on a substantial number of small entities within the meaning of 
the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601, et seq., because the 
proposed rule involves providing transactional data on FSS and non-FSS 
orders and transactional data that may ultimately affect the end 
pricing of products offered through GSA. However, the cost to comply 
with the additional reporting requirement may be offset by the benefits 
provided by the transactional data, such as greater insight and 
visibility into customer buying habits and knowledge of market 
competition.
    An additional benefit to FSS contractors is that the addition of 
the transactional data reporting clause would be coupled with an 
alternate version of GSAR clause 552.238-75

[[Page 11625]]

Price Reductions that does not require customer tracking where the 
vendor monitors and provides price reductions to the Government when 
the customer or category of customer upon which the contract was 
predicated receives a discount. GSAR clause 552.238-75, Price 
Reductions has long been the mechanism through which GSA ensures prices 
on contract remained fair and reasonable. However, with transactional 
data, contracting officers will have a new, potentially more effective 
and less burdensome mechanism through which to ensure contract pricing 
is competitive and fair and reasonable, although vertical pricing 
analysis techniques can still be used.
    Providing the required transactional data will impose significant 
economic impact on all contractors, both small and other than small, 
doing business on GSA-managed contracts. Therefore, an Initial 
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) has been prepared consistent 
with 5 U.S.C. 603, and is summarized as follows:

    The General Services Administration (GSA) is proposing to amend 
General Services Administration Acquisition Regulation (GSAR) to add 
an alternate to clause 552.238-74 Industrial Funding Fee (IFF) and 
Sales Reporting, and new clause 552.216-75 Sales Reporting and Fee 
Remittance to require transactional data reporting in FSS and non-
FSS contract vehicles. The clause will require GSA contractors to 
provide transactional data, which is equivalent to information found 
on an itemized invoice, to GSA. This will further the objective to 
improve category management and negotiate better pricing on all GSA 
acquisition vehicles. Collecting transactional data on orders and 
prices paid will allow customers to analyze spending patterns and 
develop new acquisition strategies to fully leverage the 
Government's spend.
    GSA is undertaking a major modernization initiative aimed at 
enabling customers to drive better value and achieve taxpayer 
savings by setting the stage for pricing reform. A major 
characteristic of modernization is collecting and using 
transactional data for units under most GSA acquisition vehicles to 
serve as a basis for price analysis and category management.
    This rule will apply to all contractors who hold non-FSS 
contract vehicles as well as to all FSS contract holders, contingent 
on beneficial results being demonstrated through a pilot conducted 
on a subset of FSS contracts for products and commoditized services. 
As of Fiscal Year 2013, there are 15,738 vendors holding 18,598 FSS 
and non-FSS contract vehicles. Of the 15,738 vendors, 12,590 are 
small entities to which the rule will apply. Only those contracts 
with sales would have data to report. Department of Veteran Affairs 
FSS holders are not affected.
    During the development of the rule, GSA considered using one of 
its many internal applications that support pre-award and post-award 
actions for GSA contracts to pull the transactional data necessary 
for more robust price analysis. These internal applications 
facilitate data exchanges between GSA and its vendors to provide 
business intelligence, create procurement sources, facilitate 
acquisitions, execute deliveries, and provide customer care. GSA 
uses this information to update systems architecture, to develop new 
applications for contract administration, and to enhance business 
intelligence for suppliers and ordering activities. Unfortunately, 
most of these systems do not collect transactional data at a level 
that would be of benefit for spend analysis and/or do not possess 
the most accurate and timely information regarding purchasing 
activity. Approximately 13 percent of GSA-controlled sales, which 
includes purchases made by GSA's Assisted Acquisition Services 
activity on behalf of customer agencies, can capture transactional 
data; for the remaining majority of purchases (87 percent), the 
customer and supplier are the only sources of detailed transaction-
level data.
    Another option for transactional data sourcing would be to 
enhance or combine existing GSA systems to collect the data. GSA 
would incur significant IT development costs for the effort. Were 
GSA to invest the time and resources into an enterprise-wide system 
that could handle procurement functions and spend analysis, then 
customers and suppliers would need to commit to use electronic 
commercial tools such as eBuy and Advantage![supreg]. Without the 
100 percent commitment of individual customers, the data will be 
incomplete--possibly to a large extent--and may significantly skew 
any subsequent analysis on cost savings and/or purchasing decisions.
    GSA's SmartPay program (the program that manages the 
governmentwide purchase card) is another source where transactional 
data could be collected, and has been on a limited basis following 
commercial standards for the past several years on sub-sets of 
several FSS contracts. However, with less than 1 percent of 
procurements being made through the purchase card, this method would 
not provide a complete set of data to achieve the full benefits of 
capturing transactional data.
    Finally, FPDS could be upgraded to collect transactional data. 
However, this would require Federal Acquisition Regulation 
revisions, tens of millions of dollars in system changes, and years 
to implement. Additionally, ordering activities do not normally 
collect transactional data, so agency financial procedures and 
systems would have to be overhauled in order to accommodate 
transactional data collection.

    The Regulatory Secretariat has submitted a copy of the Initial 
Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) to the Chief Counsel for 
Advocacy of the Small Business Administration. A copy of the IRFA may 
be obtained from the Regulatory Secretariat. GSA invites comments from 
small business concerns and other interested parties on the expected 
impact of this rule on small entities.
    GSA will also consider comments from small entities concerning the 
existing regulations in subparts affected by this rule in accordance 
with 5 U.S.C. 610. Interested parties must submit such comments 
separately and should cite 5 U.S.C. 601, et seq. (GSAR Case 2013-G504), 
in correspondence.

VI. Paperwork Reduction Act

    The Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35) applies. The 
proposed rule contains information collection requirements. 
Accordingly, the Regulatory Secretariat will be submitting a request 
for approval of a new information collection requirement concerning 
this rule to the Office of Management and Budget under 44 U.S.C. 3501, 
et seq.
    GSA estimates the proposed rule will result in a net burden 
reduction of approximately 757,000 hours per year based on the 
difference in current reporting requirement (i.e. GSAR clause 552.238-
75) and the proposed reporting requirements (i.e. clause 552.238-74 
Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting (Federal Supply Schedule) 
Alternate I and clause 552.216-75 Sales Reporting and Fee Remittance). 
The analysis of this calculation as well as the assumptions made to 
support this analysis is presented below.

A. New Reporting Requirements

    GSA estimates the public reporting burden for contractors to set-up 
transactional data reporting systems to average a one-time initial set-
up burden of 6 hours. The estimated time includes the time for 
reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and 
maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the 
collection of information. GSA also took into consideration training, 
compliance systems, negotiations, and audit preparation the new clause 
may require, when estimating the one-time initial set-up of 6 hours.
    Thereafter, the monthly burden estimate to report data is 
approximately .52 of an hour or 31 minutes. This number takes into 
consideration the distribution of contract values (i.e. sales) and 
assumes monthly reporting burden rises with vendor sales based on the 
distribution of sales and obligations within FSS contracts and non-FSS 
contracts. There is a wide variation in contract sales, therefore 
monthly reporting burden ranges between 2 minutes (for contractors with 
$0 in sales) and 4 hours (for contractors with greater than $50 million 
in sales). GSA estimates that only the top 0.6 percent of FSS 
contractors and top 4 percent of non-FSS contractors will be affected 
the

[[Page 11626]]

most. The average GSA contractor will see little or no effect of the 
new reporting requirement.
    A weighted average was used, based on distribution of sales, to 
calculate a reporting burden. To arrive at the weighted average, 
vendors were broken up into six categories, based on contract values. 
The characteristics of these categories of contracts in FY 2013 are as 
follows:
    Category 1: Contract value is less than $0. The estimated burden 
for this category per contractor is 0.03 hours (2 minutes) a month, or 
0.36 hours (21.8 minutes) annually. This makes up 37 percent of FSS 
contractors and 8 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden 
for this category is estimated as 2,620 hours.
    Category 2: Contract value is $1-$500,000. The estimated burden for 
this category per contractor is 0.5 hours (30 minutes) a month, or 6 
hours annually. This category makes up 41 percent of FSS contractors 
and 24 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden for this 
category is estimated as 44,884 hours.
    Category 3: Contract value is $500,000-$5,000,000. The estimated 
burden for this category per contractor is 1 hour per month, or 12 
hours annually. This category makes up 17 percent of FSS contractors 
and 43 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden for this 
category is estimated as 38,956 hours.
    Category 4: Contract value is $5,000,000-$20,000,000. The estimated 
burden for this category per contractor is 2 hours per month, or 24 
hours annually. This category makes up 4 percent of FSS contractors and 
17 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden for this 
category is estimated as 17,293 hours.
    Category 5: Contract value is $20,000,000-$50,000,000. The 
estimated burden for this category per contractor is 3 hours per month, 
or 36 hours annually. This category makes up 1 percent of FSS 
contractors and 5 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden 
for this category is estimated as 6,785 hours.
    Category 6: Contract value is greater than $50,000,000. The 
estimated burden for this category per contractor is 4 hours per month, 
or 48 hours annually. This category makes up 1 percent of FSS 
contractors and 4 percent of non-FSS vendors. The total annual burden 
for this category is estimated as 5,094 hours.
    Taking the above into consideration, a weighted average was used to 
calculate an annual burden of 6.3 hours or 0.52 hours per month since 
reporting will be required monthly.
    The cost of reporting was quantified by multiplying the level of 
effort in hours by an assumed fully loaded hourly rate for contractors 
($50 x 136 percent = $68). The annual reporting burden is estimated as 
follows:


552.216-75  Sales Reporting and Fee Remittance (Transactional Data 
Reporting Requirement) and 552.238-74 Industrial Funding Fee and Sales 
Reporting (FEDERAL SUPPLY SCHEDULE) Alternate I

    The total public annual burden hours for setup and reporting are 
223,906.32 based on the following:

    Non-FSS Contracts
    (One-time initial setup)
    Respondents: 477.
    Responses Per Respondent: x 1.
    Total Responses: 477.
    Hours Per Response: x 6.
    Total Burden Hours: 2,862.

    Non-FSS Contracts
    (Reporting)
    Respondents: 477.
    Responses Per Respondent: x 12.
    Total Responses: 5,724.
    Hours Per Response: x 0.52.
    Total Burden Hours: 2,976.48.

    The annual estimated total burden hours for non-FSS contracts are 
5,838.48 for year one and 2,976.48 for every year thereafter.

    FSS Contracts
    (One-time initial setup)
    Respondents: 17,816.
    Responses Per Respondent: x 1.
    Total Responses: 17,816.
    Hours Per Response: x 6.
    Total Burden Hours: 106,896.

    FSS Contracts
    (Reporting)
    Respondents: 17,816.
    Responses Per Respondent: x 12.
    Total Responses: 213,792.
    Hours Per Response: x 0.52.
    Total Burden Hours: 111,171.84.

    The annual estimated total burden hours for FSS contracts are 
218,067.84 for year one and 111,171.84 for every year thereafter.
    The total annual estimated cost to the public for the Transactional 
Data Reporting GSAR clauses (552.216-75 and 552.238-74 Alternate I) and 
is estimated to be $15,225,629.76 based on the following:

    Non-FSS
    (One-time initial setup)
    Respondents: 477.
    Responses per respondent: x 1.
    Total annual responses: 477.
    Preparation hours per response: x 6.
    Total response burden hours: 2,862.
    Average hourly wages ($50.00+36 percent overhead): x 68.
    Estimated cost to the public: $194,616.

    Non-FSS
    (Reporting)
    Respondents: 477.
    Responses per respondent: x 12.
    Total annual responses: 5,724.
    Preparation hours per response: x .52.
    Total response burden hours: 2,976.48
    Average hourly wages ($50.00+36 percent overhead): x 68.
    Estimated cost to the public: $202,400.64.

    Estimated cost to the public for Non-MAS contracts is: $397,016.64 
for year one and $202,400.64 for every year thereafter.

    FSS Contracts
    (One-time initial set up)
    Respondents: 17,816.
    Responses per respondent: x 1.
    Total annual responses: 17,816.
    Preparation hours per response: x 6.
    Total response burden hours: 106,896.00
    Average hourly wages ($50.00+36 percent overhead): x 68.00.
    Estimated cost to the public: $7,268,928.

    FSS
    (Reporting)
    Respondents: 17,816.
    Responses per respondent: x 12.
    Total annual responses: 213,792.
    Preparation hours per response: x .52.
    Total response burden hours: 111,171.84.
    Average hourly wages ($50.00+36 percent overhead): 68.00.
    Estimated cost to the public: $7,559,685.12.


The total estimated cost to the public for FSS contracts is 
$14,828,613.12 for year one and $7,559,687.12 for every year 
thereafter.
    There are 18,293 contracts containing the transactional data 
reporting requirement. Data submitted by respondents is submitted and 
stored electronically. Retrieval of cumulative data requires 
approximately 1 hour each month (1*12) for a total of 12 hours 
annually; and costs the Government $9,015,522.12 annually.

    Requests per year 18,293.
    Reviewing Time (1*12) x 12.
    Total Review Time/year 219,516.
    Average Cost/hr x 41.07.
    Total Government Cost $9,015,522.12.

    The cost of $41.07 per hour is based on GS-12, step 5 salary 
(Salary Table 2014-DCB Washington-Baltimore, DC-MD-VA-WV-PA, Effective 
January 2014).
Difference in Reporting Requirements
    Acceptance of GSAR Alternate I, 552.238-74 Industrial Funding Fee 
and

[[Page 11627]]

Sales Reporting (Federal Supply Schedule), also triggers the inclusion 
of Alternate II, 552.238-75 Price Reductions. Unlike the basic Price 
Reductions GSAR clause, Alternate II of 552.238-75 does not require the 
vendor to monitor and provide price reductions to the Government when 
the customer or category of customer upon which the contract was 
predicated receives a discount. In other words, there will be no 
reporting burden for GSAR Alternate II, 552.238-75 Price Reductions.
    The current total estimated reporting burden hours for GSAR clause 
552.238-75 Price Reductions is 868,150 with annual burden cost of 
approximately $58.5 million (see OMB control number 3090-0235). The 
total annual estimated reporting burden hours for the new Transactional 
Data Reporting clause is 111,171.84 with annual burden cost of 
$7,559,685.12. Therefore, the net annual burden reduction is 756,978.16 
hours with annual burden savings of approximately $51 million.

B. Request for Comments Regarding Paperwork Burden

    Submit comments, including suggestions for reducing this burden, 
not later than Monday, May 4, 2015 to: General Services Administration, 
Regulatory Secretariat Division (MVCB), ATTN: Hada Flowers, 1800 F 
Street NW., 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20405-0001.
    Public comments are particularly invited on: Whether this 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
functions of the GSAR, and will have practical utility; whether our 
estimate of the public burden of this collection of information is 
accurate, and based on valid assumptions and methodology; ways to 
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be 
collected; and ways in which we can minimize the burden of the 
collection of information on those who are to respond, through the use 
of appropriate technological collection techniques or other forms of 
information technology.
    Requesters may obtain a copy of the supporting statement from the 
General Services Administration, Regulatory Secretariat (MVCB), ATTN: 
Hada Flowers, 1800 F Street NW., 2nd Floor, Washington, DC 20407. 
Please cite OMB Control Number 3090-0306, Transactional Data Reporting: 
GSAR Part Affected: 552.238-74, Industrial Funding Fee and Sales in all 
correspondence.

List of Subjects in 48 CFR Parts 501, 516, 538 and 552

    Government procurement.

    Dated: February 25, 2015.
Jeffrey A. Koses,
Senior Procurement Executive, Office of Acquisition Policy, Office of 
Government-wide Policy, General Services Administration.

    Therefore, GSA proposes to amend 48 CFR parts 501, 516, 538, and 
552 as set forth below:

0
1. The authority citation for 48 CFR parts 501, 516, 538, and 552 
continues to read as follows:

    Authority:  40 U.S.C 121(c).

PART 501--GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION ACQUISITION REGULATION 
SYSTEM


501.106  [Amended]

0
2. Amend section 501.106 in the table, by adding in numerical sequence, 
GSAR Reference ``552.216-75'' and its corresponding OMB Control Number 
``3090-XXXX''.

PART 516--TYPES OF CONTRACTS

0
3. Amend section 516.506 by adding paragraph (d) to read as follows:


516.506  Solicitation provisions and contract clauses.

* * * * *
    (d) The contracting officer may insert clause 552.216-75 in 
solicitations and GSA-awarded IDIQ contracts. This clause should be 
included in all GSA-awarded Governmentwide acquisition contracts and 
multi-agency contracts.

PART 538--FEDERAL SUPPLY SCHEDULE CONTRACTING

0
4. Amend section 538.273 by revising paragraphs (b)(1) and (2) to read 
as follows:


538.273  Contract clauses.

* * * * *
    (b) * * *
    (1) 552.238-74, Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting. Use 
Alternate I for Federal Supply Schedules with Transactional Data 
Reporting Requirements. Clause 552.238-75 Alternate II should also be 
used when vendors agree to include clause 552.238-74 Alternate I in the 
contract.
    (2) 552.238-75, Price Reductions (May 2004).
    (i) Except in cases where Alternate II is used, use Alternate I in 
solicitations and contracts for:
    (A) Federal Supply Schedule 70;
    (B) The Consolidated Schedule containing information technology 
Special Item Numbers;
    (C) Federal Supply Schedule 84; and
    (D) Federal Supply Schedules for recovery purchasing (see 
538.7102).
    (ii) Use Alternate II for Federal Supply Schedules with 
Transactional Data Reporting Requirements. This alternate clause is 
used when vendors agree to include clause 552.238-74 Alternate I;
    (iii) Federal Supply Schedule 84; and
    (iv) Federal Supply Schedules for recovery purchasing (see 
538.7102).
* * * * *

PART 552--SOLICITATION PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT CLAUSES

0
5. Amend section 552.212-71 by revising the introductory text to read 
as follows:


552.212-71  Contract Terms and Conditions Applicable to GSA Acquisition 
of Commercial Items.

    As prescribed in 512.301(a)(1), insert the following clause:
* * * * *
0
6. Add section 552.216-75 to read as follows:


552.216-75  Transactional Data Reporting.

    As prescribed in 516.506(d), insert the following provision:

Transactional Data Reporting (Date)

    (a) Definitions:
    (1) Contract sale is the price paid by the ordering activity for 
the product or service on the task or delivery order placed against 
this contract. Contract sales include contract items sold to 
authorized users unless the purchase was conducted pursuant to a 
separate contracting authority, such a separately awarded FAR part 
12, FAR part 13, FAR part 14, or FAR part 15 procurement; or a non-
FAR contract.
    (2) Transactional data is historical information encompassing 
the products and services delivered during the performance of a 
contract.
    (b) Reporting of Contract Sales. The Contractor shall report all 
contract sales under this contract as follows:
    (1) The Contractor shall electronically report contract sales 
monthly, including ``zero'' sales, by utilizing the automated 
reporting system at an Internet Web site designated by the General 
Services Administration (GSA) or by uploading the data according to 
GSA instructions. Each report shall be submitted within 15 calendar 
days of the applicable monthly reporting period. The Web site 
address, as well as registration instructions and reporting 
procedures, will be provided at the time of award.
    (2) The Contractor shall provide, at no cost to the Government, 
the following transactional data elements, as applicable--
    (i) Contract or BPA Number;
    (ii) Order Number/Procurement Instrument Identifier (PIID);
    (iii) Non Federal Entity, if applicable;
    (iv) Description of Deliverable;
    (v) Manufacturer Name;
    (vi) Manufacturer Part Number;
    (vii) Unit Measure (each, hour, case, lot);
    (viii) Quantity of Item Sold;

[[Page 11628]]

    (ix) Universal Product Code (UPC), if applicable;
    (x) Price Paid per Unit; and
    (xi) Total Price.
    (3) GSA will post reporting instructions at https://vsc.gsa.gov/. GSA reserves the unilateral right to change reporting 
instructions, including data submission requirements, following 60 
days advance notification to the Contractor.
    (4) The Contractor shall report contract sales in U.S. dollars.
    (5) The reported contract sales value shall include the 
Contractor Access Fee (CAF).
    (6) The Contractor shall maintain a consistent accounting method 
of contract sales reporting, based on the Contractor's established 
commercial accounting practice.
    (7) The acceptable points at which contract sales may be 
reported include--
    (i) Issuance of an invoice; or
    (ii) Receipt of payment.
    (8) The Contractor shall continue to furnish reports, including 
``zero'' sales, through physical completion of the last outstanding 
task or delivery order of the contract.
    (9) Orders that contain classified information are exempt from 
this reporting requirement (See FAR 4.606(c)).
    (c) Contractor Access Fee (CAF). (1) The CAF represents a 
percentage of the total quarterly sales reported. This percentage is 
set at the discretion of GSA. GSA has the unilateral right to change 
the percentage at any time, but not more than once per year. GSA 
provides reasonable notice prior to the effective date of the 
change. The CAF reimburses GSA for operating costs. Offerors must 
include the CAF in their prices. The fee is included in the awarded 
price(s) and reflected in the total amount charged to ordering 
activities.
    (2) Within 60 days of award, a GSA representative will provide 
the Contractor with specific written procedural instructions on 
remitting the CAF. GSA reserves the unilateral right to change such 
instructions following notification to the Contractor.
    (3) The Contractor shall remit the CAF at the rate set by GSA 
within 15 calendar days after the end of the calendar month. Final 
payment shall be remitted within 30 days after physical completion 
of the last outstanding task order or delivery order of the 
contract.
    (4) The Contractor shall remit the CAF to GSA in U.S. dollars.
    (5) Failure to remit the full amount of the CAF within 15 
calendar days after the end of the applicable reporting period 
constitutes a contract debt to the United States Government under 
the terms of FAR Subpart 32.6. The Government may exercise all 
rights under the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, including 
withholding or setting off payments and interest on the debt (see 
FAR clause 52.232-17, Interest). Should the Contractor fail to 
submit the required sales reports, falsify them, or fail to timely 
pay the CAF, this is sufficient cause for the Government to 
terminate the contract for cause.


(End of Clause)
0
7. Amend section 552.238-74 by revising the date of the clause; and 
adding Alternate I to read as follows:


552.238-74  Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting.

* * * * *

Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting (Date)

* * * * *
    Alternate I (Date): As prescribed in 538.273(b)(1), substitute 
the following paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) for paragraphs (a), (b), 
and (c) of the basic clause:
    (a) Definitions.
    (1) Contract sale is the price paid by the ordering activity for 
the product or service on the task or delivery order placed against 
this contract. Contract sales include contract items sold to 
authorized users unless the purchase was conducted pursuant to a 
separate contracting authority, such as a Governmentwide Acquisition 
Contract (GWAC); a separately awarded FAR part 12, FAR part 13, FAR 
part 14, or FAR part 15 procurement; or a non-FAR contract. Sales 
made to state and local governments under Cooperative Purchasing 
authority shall be counted as reportable sales.
    (2) Transactional data is historical information encompassing 
the products and services delivered during the performance of a 
contract.
    (b) Reporting of Contract Sales. The Contractor shall report all 
contract sales under this contract as follows:
    (1) The Contractor shall electronically report contract sales 
monthly, including ``zero'' sales, by utilizing the automated 
reporting system at an Internet Web site designated by the General 
Services Administration (GSA) or by uploading the data according to 
GSA instructions. Each report shall be submitted within 15 calendar 
days of the applicable monthly reporting period. The Web site 
address, as well as registration instructions and reporting 
procedures, will be provided at the time of award.
    (2) The Contractor shall provide, at no cost to the Government, 
the following transactional data elements, as applicable--
    (i) Contract or BPA Number;
    (ii) Order Number/Procurement Instrument Identifier (PIID);
    (iii) Non Federal Entity, if applicable;
    (iv) Description of Deliverable;
    (v) Manufacturer Name;
    (vi) Manufacturer Part Number;
    (vii) Unit Measure (each, hour, case, lot);
    (viii) Quantity of Item Sold;
    (ix) Universal Product Code (UPC), if applicable;
    (x) Price Paid per Unit; and
    (xi) Total Price.
    (3) GSA will post reporting instructions at vsc.gsa.gov. GSA 
reserves the unilateral right to change reporting instructions, 
including data submission requirements, following 60 days advance 
notification to the Contractor.
    (4) The Contractor shall report contract sales in U.S. dollars.
    (5) The reported contract sales value shall include the 
Industrial Funding Fee (IFF).
    (6) The Contractor shall maintain a consistent accounting method 
of contract sales reporting, based on the Contractor's established 
commercial accounting practice.
    (7) The acceptable points at which contract sales may be 
reported include--
    (i) Issuance of an invoice; or
    (ii) Receipt of payment.
    (8) The Contractor shall continue to furnish reports, including 
``zero'' sales, through physical completion of the last outstanding 
task or delivery order of the contract.
    (9) Orders that contain classified information are exempt from 
this reporting requirement (See FAR 4.606(c)).
    (c) Industrial Funding Fee. The Contractor shall remit the IFF 
at the rate set by GSA's FAS.
    (1) The Contractor shall remit the IFF to FAS in U.S. dollars 
within 30 calendar days after the end of the reporting quarter; 
final payment shall be remitted within 30 days after physical 
completion of the last outstanding task order or delivery order of 
the contract.
    (2) The IFF remittance Web site address, as well as registration 
procedures and remittance instructions, will be provided at the time 
of award or acceptance of this clause. FAS reserves the unilateral 
right to change such instructions from time to time, following 
notification to the Contractor.
    (3) The IFF represents a percentage of the total quarterly sales 
reported. This percentage is set at the discretion of GSA's FAS. 
GSA's FAS has the unilateral right to change the percentage at any 
time, but not more than once per year. FAS will provide reasonable 
notice prior to the effective date of the change. The IFF reimburses 
FAS for the costs of operating the Federal Supply Schedules Program. 
FAS recoups its operating costs from ordering activities as set 
forth in 40 U.S.C. 321: Acquisition Services Fund. Net operating 
revenues generated by the IFF are also applied to fund initiatives 
benefitting other authorized FAS programs, in accordance with 40 
U.S.C. 321. Offerors must include the IFF in their prices. The fee 
is included in the awarded price(s) and reflected in the total 
amount charged to ordering activities. FAS will post notice of the 
current IFF at https://72a.gsa.gov/ or successor Web site as 
appropriate.

0
8. Amend section 552.238-75 by revising the date of the clause; and 
adding Alternate II to read as follows:


552.238-75  Price Reductions.

* * * * *

Price Reductions (Date)

* * * * *
    Alternate II (Date). As prescribed in 538.273(b)(2)(ii), 
substitute the following paragraph (a) for paragraphs (a), (b), (c), 
(d), (f) and (g) of the basic clause, and paragraph (e) of the basic 
clause will become paragraph (b) in Alternate II.
    The Government may request from the contractor a price reduction 
at any time during the contract period.

[FR Doc. 2015-04349 Filed 3-3-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6820-61-P



                                                                                     Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules                                                                                11619

                                                        (d) Up to two of the following 50                                       100 kilohertz bandwidth will not be                                        accordance with emission specifications
                                                      kilohertz segments may be stacked to                                      issued.                                                                    included in the grant of certification and
                                                      form a channel which may be assigned                                      *     *    *     *     *                                                   as prescribed in paragraphs (b), (c), and
                                                      for use by broadcast remote pickup                                        ■ 3. Amend § 74.462 by revising                                            (d) of this section. Any form of
                                                      stations using any emission contained                                     paragraphs (a) and (b) to read as follows:                                 modulation may be used.
                                                      within the resultant channel in                                                                                                                         (b) The maximum authorized
                                                                                                                                § 74.462 Authorized Bandwidth and
                                                      accordance with the provisions of                                         Emissions.                                                                 bandwidth of emissions corresponding
                                                      § 74.462. Users committed to 100                                            (a) Each authorization for a new                                         to the types of emissions specified
                                                      kilohertz bandwidths and transmitting                                     remote pickup broadcast station or                                         below, and the maximum authorized
                                                      program material will have primary use                                    system shall require the use of                                            frequency deviation in the case of
                                                      of these channels. After [insert effective                                certificated equipment and such                                            frequency or phase modulated emission,
                                                      date of rule], initial authorizations with                                equipment shall be operated in                                             shall be as follows:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Maximum              Maximum
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        authorized           frequency
                                                                                                                           Frequencies                                                                                  bandwidth             deviation
                                                                                                                                                                                                                        (kilohertz)         (kilohertz) 1

                                                      MHz:
                                                      25.87 to 26.03 ..............................................................................................................................................                 40                    10
                                                      26.07 to 26.47 ..............................................................................................................................................                 20                     5
                                                      152.8625 to 153.3575 2 ...............................................................................................................................                     30/60                  5/10
                                                      160.860 to 161.400 ......................................................................................................................................                     60                    10
                                                      161.625 to 161.775 ......................................................................................................................................                     30                     5
                                                      166.25 and 170.15 3 ....................................................................................................................................                    12.5                   2.5
                                                      450.00625 to 450.99375 ..............................................................................................................................                         25                     5
                                                      455.00625 to 455.99375 ..............................................................................................................................                         25                     5
                                                      450.03125 to 450.61875 ..............................................................................................................................                         50
                                                      455.03125 to 455.61875 ..............................................................................................................................                         50                      5
                                                      450.6375 to 450.8625.
                                                      455.6375 to 455.8625 ..................................................................................................................................                          50                   10
                                                      450.900, 450.950.
                                                      455.900, 455.950 4 .......................................................................................................................................                      100                   35
                                                          1 Applies where F1A, F1B, F1D, F1E, F2A, F2B, F2D, F2E, F3E, or F9E emissions are used.
                                                          2 New  or modified licenses for use of the frequencies will not be granted to utilize transmitters on board aircraft, or to use a bandwidth in ex-
                                                      cess of 30 kilohertz and maximum deviation exceeding 5 kilohertz.
                                                         3 For stations licensed or applied for before April 16, 2003, the sum of the bandwidth of emission and tolerance on frequencies 166.25 MHz or
                                                      170.15 MHz shall not exceed 25 kilohertz, and such operation may continue until January 1, 2005. For new stations licensed or applied for on or
                                                      after April 16, 2003, the sum of the bandwidth of emission and tolerance on these frequencies shall not exceed 12.5 kilohertz. For all remote
                                                      pickup broadcast stations, the sum of the bandwidth of emission and tolerance on these frequencies shall not exceed 12.5 kilohertz on or after
                                                      January 1, 2005.
                                                         4 After [insert effective date of rule], new authorizations with 100 kilohertz bandwidth will not be issued.




                                                      *     *    *     *     *                                                  decode the digital transmission and                                        on its proposal to amend the General
                                                      ■ 4. Amend § 74.463 by revising                                           ascertain the call sign transmitted.                                       Services Administration Acquisition
                                                      paragraph (c) to read as follows:                                         *     *     *     *     *                                                  Regulation (GSAR) to include clauses
                                                                                                                                [FR Doc. 2015–04155 Filed 3–3–15; 8:45 am]                                 that would require vendors to report
                                                      § 74.463        Modulation Requirements.                                  BILLING CODE 6712–01–P                                                     transactional data from orders and
                                                      *     *      *    *    *                                                                                                                             prices paid by ordering activities. This
                                                                                                                                                                                                           includes orders placed against both
                                                        (c) If frequency modulation or digital                                                                                                             Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract
                                                      modulation is employed, the emission                                      GENERAL SERVICES
                                                                                                                                ADMINISTRATION                                                             vehicles and GSA’s non-FSS contract
                                                      shall conform to the requirements                                                                                                                    vehicles—Governmentwide Acquisition
                                                      specified in § 74.462.                                                    48 CFR Parts 501, 516, 538 and 552                                         Contracts (GWACs) and
                                                      *     *      *    *    *                                                                                                                             Governmentwide Indefinite-Delivery,
                                                                                                                                [GSAR Case 2013–G504; Docket 2014–0020;
                                                      ■ 5. Amend § 74.482 by adding a new
                                                                                                                                                                                                           Indefinite-Quality (IDIQ) contracts. For
                                                                                                                                Sequence 1]
                                                      paragraph (f) to read as follows:                                                                                                                    FSS vehicles, the clause would be
                                                                                                                                RIN 3090–AJ51                                                              introduced in phases, beginning with a
                                                      § 74.482        Station Identification.                                                                                                              pilot for select products and
                                                                                                                                General Services Administration                                            commoditized services. The new clause
                                                      *      *     *     *     *                                                Acquisition Regulation (GSAR);                                             will be paired with changes to the basis
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                                                         (f) Stations that normally employ                                      Transactional Data Reporting                                               of award monitoring requirement of the
                                                      digital signals for the transmission of                                                                                                              existing price reductions clause,
                                                      data, text, control codes, or digitized                                   AGENCY:  Office of Acquisition Policy,
                                                                                                                                General Services Administration.                                           resulting in a burden reduction for
                                                      voice, may also be identified by digital                                                                                                             participating FSS contractors. This
                                                      transmission of the call sign. A licensee                                 ACTION: Notice of a public meeting and
                                                                                                                                                                                                           rulemaking does not apply to the
                                                      that identifies its call sign in this                                     request for comments on proposed rule.                                     Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
                                                      manner must provide the Commission,                                       SUMMARY: The General Services                                              FSS contract holders.
                                                      upon request, information sufficient to                                   Administration (GSA) announces a                                              GSA is interested in conducting a
                                                                                                                                public meeting and request for comment                                     dialogue with industry and interested


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                                                      11620                  Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules

                                                      parties in Government about the                         information pertaining to status or                   your comments, search for ‘‘GSAR Case
                                                      proposed change. GSA is seeking                         publication schedules, contact the                    2013–G504’’ and reference ‘‘Public
                                                      feedback on potential impacts to agency                 Regulatory Secretariat at 202–501–4755.               Meeting, Public Comments on
                                                      customers and contractors alike.                        Please cite GSAR Case 2013–G504.                      Transactional Data Reporting.’’ Note:
                                                      Feedback will be used to help inform                    SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:                            Requests made after the deadline for
                                                      the revisions to the proposed clauses,                                                                        formal oral presentations will be
                                                      provisions, and prescriptions and other                 I. Public Meeting                                     permitted as time permits and assigned
                                                      guidance to implement the proposed                         GSA is holding a public meeting on                 based on the order the requests are
                                                      rule.                                                   Friday, April 17, 2015. The meeting will              received.
                                                                                                              start at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.               Written Comments/Statements: In lieu
                                                      DATES: Interested parties may offer oral
                                                                                                              The meeting end time will depend on                   of, or in addition to, participating in the
                                                      and/or written comments at a public
                                                                                                              the final number of registered oral                   public meeting, interested parties may
                                                      meeting to be held on Friday, April 17,
                                                                                                              presentations. Attendees can attend the               submit written comments to
                                                      2015, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard
                                                                                                              meeting in person at GSA Central Office               www.regulations.gov by Monday, May 4,
                                                      Time. Parties are also encouraged to
                                                                                                              or virtually through GSA’s Internet                   2015. When submitting your comments,
                                                      provide all written comments, including
                                                                                                              meeting platform, Adobe Connect.                      search for ‘‘GSAR Case 2013–G504’’ and
                                                      those to be delivered at the public                        In-person Attendance: Interested                   reference ‘‘Public Comments on
                                                      meeting, directly to                                    parties may attend the public meeting to              Transactional Data Reporting.’’ Parties
                                                      www.regulations.gov. As explained in                    be held in the GSA Auditorium at GSA                  wishing to share written statements at
                                                      this notice, other tools will also be used              Headquarters, located at 1800 F St. NW.,              the public meeting must submit such
                                                      to elicit public input.                                 Washington, DC 20405. The public is                   statements to Ms. Dana Munson at gsar@
                                                         Interested parties should submit                     asked to pre-register by Wednesday                    gsa.gov by Wednesday, April 8, 2015.
                                                      written comments to the Regulatory                      April 1, 2015, due to security and
                                                      Secretariat on or before Monday, May 4,                                                                       II. Overview
                                                                                                              seating limitations. To pre-register, use
                                                      2015 to be considered in the                            the following link: https://meet.gsa.gov/                The Office of Federal Procurement
                                                      formulation of a final rule.                            e5rpxxbrh14/event/event_info.html.                    Policy (OFPP) recently announced a
                                                         The public meeting will be conducted                                                                       new vision for Federal purchasing, one
                                                                                                              Registration check-in will begin at 8:00
                                                      on Friday, April 17, 2015, at 9:00 a.m.                                                                       that fundamentally shifts from
                                                                                                              a.m. Eastern Standard Time Friday,
                                                      Eastern Standard Time. Information for                                                                        managing purchases and price
                                                                                                              April 17, 2015, and the meeting will
                                                      the public meeting may be found under                   start at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.             individually across thousands of
                                                      the heading SUPPLEMENTARY                               Attendees must be prepared to present                 procurement units to managing entire
                                                      INFORMATION.                                                                                                  categories of purchases across
                                                                                                              a form of government issued photo
                                                      ADDRESSES: Submit comments                              identification.                                       Government collaboratively (see
                                                      identified by GSAR Case 2013–G504,                         Virtual Attendance: Interested parties             Transforming the Marketplace:
                                                      Transactional Data Reporting, by any of                 may also attend virtually through GSA’s               Simplifying Federal Procurement to
                                                      the following methods:                                  Internet meeting platform, hosted by                  Improve Performance, Drive Innovation
                                                         • Regulations.gov: http://                           Adobe Connect. Virtual attendees must                 and Increase Savings, December 4,
                                                      www.regulations.gov.                                    register in advance at https://                       2014, available at http://
                                                         Submit comments by searching for                     meet.gsa.gov/e5rpxxbrh14/event/event_                 www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/
                                                      ‘‘GSAR Case 2013–G504’’. Select the                     info.html.                                            omb/procurement/memo/simplifying-
                                                      link ‘‘Comment Now’’ and follow the                        Meeting Accommodations: The public                 federal-procurement-to-improve-
                                                      instructions provided at the ‘‘You are                  meeting is physically accessible to                   performance-drive-innovation-increase-
                                                      commenting on’’ screen. Please include                  people with disabilities. Request for                 savings.pdf). Category management
                                                      your name, company name (if any), and                   sign language interpretation or other                 involves buying and managing
                                                      ‘‘GSAR Case 2013–G504’’, on your                        auxiliary aids should be directed to Ms.              commonly-purchased goods and
                                                      attached document.                                      Munson at dana.munson@gsa.gov or                      services through categories like
                                                         • Fax: 202–501–4067.                                 202–357–9652 by Wednesday, April 1,                   information technology (IT) hardware
                                                         • Mail: U.S. General Services                        2015.                                                 and IT software. Categories will be
                                                      Administration, Regulatory Secretariat                     The TTY number for further                         managed by experts with in-depth
                                                      Division (MVCB), 1800 F Street NW.,                     information is: 1–800–877–8339. When                  market expertise who understand
                                                      2nd Floor, ATTN: Hada Flowers,                          the operator answers the call, let them               buying trends, industry cost drivers,
                                                      Washington, DC 20405–0001.                              know the agency is the General Services               new innovations on the horizon and
                                                         Instructions: Please submit comments                 Administration; the point-of-contact is               emerging companies. Category managers
                                                      only and cite GSAR Case 2013–G504 in                    Dana Munson at 202–357–9652 or                        will also share information with
                                                      all correspondence related to this case.                Matthew McFarland 202–690–9232.                       agencies across government to support
                                                      All comments received will be posted                       Oral Public Comments: Parties                      smarter buying decisions.
                                                      without change to http://                               wishing to make formal oral                              GSA is creating a Common
                                                      www.regulations.gov, including any                      presentations at the public meeting                   Acquisition Platform (CAP), an online
                                                      personal and/or business confidential                   should indicate so during the                         marketplace to identify best-in-class
                                                      information provided.                                   registration process. Presentations must              contracts issued by GSA or other
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                                                      FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms.                    be provided to Ms. Dana Munson by                     agencies, best practices, and other
                                                      Dana Munson, General Services                           electronic mail at gsar@gsa.gov no later              information agencies need to reduce the
                                                      Acquisition Policy Division, GSA, 202–                  than Wednesday, April 8, 2015. Time                   proliferation of duplicative contract
                                                      357–9652 or Mr. Matthew McFarland,                      allocations for oral presentations will be            vehicles and deliver the best value
                                                      General Services Acquisition Policy                     limited to fifteen minutes. All formal                possible to federal customers and the
                                                      Division, GSA, 202–690–9232 or email                    oral public comments should also be                   American people. A critical component
                                                      gsar@gsa.gov, for clarification of                      followed-up in writing and submitted to               of the CAP, and smarter buying in
                                                      content, public meeting information and                 www.regulations.gov no later than                     general, is the availability of the prices
                                                      submission of comment. For                              Monday, May 4, 2015. When submitting                  previously paid by other government


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                                                                             Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules                                            11621

                                                      buyers for a similar product or service                 reductions clause that require them to                satisfaction, and other relevant
                                                      under similar terms and conditions.                     monitor their pricing, and provide the                information.
                                                      Government buyers will be able to use                   government with the same price                        III. Background
                                                      that data, in combination with other                    reductions that they give to the class of
                                                      relevant information—such as customer                   the contractor’s commercial customers                    In Fiscal Year 2014, government
                                                      satisfaction with the performance of the                upon which the original contract was                  agencies ordered nearly $39 billion in
                                                      contractor-furnished solution—to                        awarded. However, GSA would                           goods and services through GSA’s FSS
                                                      determine fair and reasonable pricing as                maintain the right throughout the life of             contracts GWACs, and Governmentwide
                                                      part of a best value solution.                          the FSS contract to ask a vendor for                  IDIQs. While GSA has a number of
                                                         The current lack of transparency on                  updates to the disclosures on its                     policies in place to help its buyers and
                                                      prices paid by government customers                     commercial sales format—which is used                 agency users to secure best value for the
                                                      has led to significant price variation,                 to negotiate pricing on FSS vehicles—                 taxpayer, two limitations in current
                                                      sometimes 300 percent or more, for                      where commercial benchmarks or other                  pricing practices make achievement of
                                                      identical purchases by federal agencies                                                                       this goal unnecessarily challenging: (1)
                                                                                                              available data on commercial pricing is
                                                      from the same commercial vendor as                                                                            Lack of visibility into prices paid by
                                                                                                              insufficient to establish price
                                                      well as the unnecessary duplication of                                                                        other customers; and (2) insufficient
                                                                                                              reasonableness. Price and quality
                                                      contract vehicles. A recent pilot where                                                                       attention on ‘‘horizontal pricing’’ under
                                                      contractors were required to furnish                    metrics would be established, and
                                                                                                              commercial benchmarks identified,                     the FSS program—i.e., the ability to
                                                      prices paid on GSA’s strategically                                                                            compare one vendor’s pricing to that of
                                                      sourced Office Supplies 2 (OS2) vehicle                 prior to the launch of the pilot so that
                                                                                                              GSA could perform these analyses and                  other vendors.
                                                      demonstrated the power of such a tool
                                                      in producing market driven pricing                      measure the results and impact of the                 Lack of Transparency in Prices
                                                      throughout the life of the contract.                    pilot. GSA would also seek vendor                     Previously Paid
                                                         Accordingly, this proposed rule                      feedback to compare experience with
                                                                                                              the transactional data clause to the                     The Federal Acquisition Regulation
                                                      would create a transactional data                                                                             (FAR) has long emphasized the need for
                                                      reporting clause to improve GSA’s                       tracking requirements of the price
                                                                                                              reductions clause. GSA would use all                  contracting officers to conduct price
                                                      ability to conduct meaningful price
                                                                                                              relevant information and analysis to                  analysis as part of their responsibility to
                                                      analysis and more efficiently and
                                                                                                              determine, in consultation with OMB,                  establish that offered prices are fair and
                                                      effectively validate fair and reasonable
                                                                                                              whether use of the clause is beneficial.              reasonable. Price analysis requires
                                                      pricing on both its non-FSS and FSS
                                                                                                                                                                    contracting officers to obtain and
                                                      vehicles. It would also allow GSA’s                     If the results of the pilot confirm that
                                                                                                                                                                    analyze data on the prices at which the
                                                      customers to improve their ability to                   using transactional data is an effective
                                                                                                                                                                    same or similar items have been sold. At
                                                      compare prices prior to placing orders                  pricing model, its use would be
                                                                                                                                                                    GSA, like most agencies, collection of
                                                      under its vehicles. Under the                           broadened using the authorities
                                                                                                                                                                    this information has rested largely on
                                                      transactional data reporting clause,                    provided by this rule. If the results of
                                                                                                                                                                    the shoulders of each contracting
                                                      contractors would report prices paid for                the pilot reveal that using transactional
                                                      products and services delivered during                                                                        officer. Until recently, little effort was
                                                                                                              data is not an effective pricing model,
                                                      the performance of the contract,                                                                              made to share prices previously paid by
                                                                                                              contracts would be modified to revert
                                                      including under orders and blanket                                                                            agencies throughout the government.
                                                                                                              back to using the tracking customer
                                                      purchase agreements (BPAs) through a                                                                          Over the years, this lack of transparency
                                                                                                              provisions of the price reductions
                                                      user-friendly, online reporting system.                                                                       contributed to large price disparities,
                                                                                                              clause. Additional details regarding the              where one agency may pay a significant
                                                      The report would include transactional                  scope of the pilot will be announced
                                                      data elements such as unit measure,                                                                           amount more for the exact same product
                                                                                                              through an open dialog on GSA’s                       or commoditized service as another
                                                      quantity of item sold, universal product                Interact platform at interact.gsa.gov.
                                                      code, if applicable, prices paid per unit,                                                                    agency under the same or substantially
                                                                                                              This public input will be considered                  similar terms and conditions, sometimes
                                                      and total price.                                        prior to the launch of the pilot.
                                                         The transactional data reporting                                                                           even from the same vendor. GSA has
                                                      clause would be applied immediately to                     GSA recognizes that use of prices paid             already seen examples where price
                                                      GSA’s government-wide non-FSS                           information must be done within the                   variability has decreased through the
                                                      vehicles, where transactional data is not               context of seeking to obtain the best                 collection of transactional data such as
                                                      already collected through other                         value for the taxpayer. GSA believes the              with its Office Supplies 2 (OS2)
                                                      methods. For FSS vehicles, the clause                   clause will be especially impactful                   government-wide strategic sourcing
                                                      would be introduced in phases,                          when combined with the insight and                    vehicle, and others, saving taxpayers
                                                      beginning with a pilot for select                       expertise of category managers to                     approximately $370 million.
                                                      products and commoditized services.                     provide agency buyers across                             GSA proposes to address this
                                                      Under the pilot, FSS customers would                    government with market intelligence,                  weakness through the use of a
                                                      take advantage of prices paid                           expertise, and deep-dive analysis to                  transactional data reporting clause.
                                                      information and the more rigorous order                 improve supply chain management,                      Under the clause contractors would be
                                                      level competition it generates to                       pricing variances, innovation,                        required to report historical information
                                                      establish pricing. To ensure these prices               redundancies, and unnecessary                         encompassing the products and services
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                                                      remain competitive with commercial                      duplication of effort. Tools and training             delivered during the performance of the
                                                      pricing, GSA would evaluate prices paid                 deployed in connection with the                       contract, including under orders and
                                                      under the pilot to commercial                           implementation of this rule would                     BPAs. Contractors would be required to
                                                      benchmarks and other available data on                  emphasize the importance of                           electronically report contract sales
                                                      commercial pricing, as well as prices                   considering total cost (not just unit                 monthly through a user-friendly online
                                                      previously paid prior to the pilot where                price) in the context of each                         reporting system. The report would
                                                      such data is available. Vendors would                   procurement, taking into account                      include transactional data elements
                                                      not be subject to the ‘‘tracking                        desired terms and conditions,                         such as unit measures, quantity of item
                                                      customer’’ provisions of the price                      performance levels, past customer                     sold, universal product code, if


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                                                      11622                  Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules

                                                      applicable, price paid per unit, and total              Oversight Problems Hamper                             Government and for the Government to
                                                      price.                                                  Opportunities to Leverage Value of                    request a price reduction at any time
                                                         GSA believes there are multiple                      Interagency and Enterprisewide                        during the contract period such as
                                                      benefits to use of the transactional data               Contracts).                                           where market analysis indicates that
                                                      reporting clause, including better                         • Standardization: Significant GSA                 lower prices are being offered or paid
                                                      pricing, administrative savings,                        non-FSS contracts include a                           for the same items under similar
                                                      increased opportunities for small                       requirement for transactional data.                   conditions.
                                                      business participation, and                             Though the specifics vary, GSA’s                         The required disclosure of
                                                      standardization of practice.                            Alliant, Alliant Small Business, 8(a)                 commercial sales practices and the PRC
                                                         • Better pricing: The availability of                Streamlined Technology Acquisition                    were first introduced into the FSS
                                                      prices paid information will lead to                    Resources for Services (STARS) II, and                program in the 1980s as a way to ensure
                                                      better prices for the taxpayer by                       Veterans Technology Services (VETS)                   fair and reasonable pricing through the
                                                      improving the agency’s ability to                       GWACs, Connections II, Custom                         life of a contract with the goal of
                                                      conduct price analysis. It will also                    SATCOM Solutions (CS2), Custom                        achieving most favored customer
                                                      improve the quality of both contract and                SATCOM Solutions—Small Business                       pricing. For many years, the tracking
                                                      order level competition because vendors                 (CS2–SB), Office Supply Third                         customer feature of the PRC was a
                                                      will know that their customers have                     Generation (OS3), and One Acquisition                 critical mechanism for enabling GSA
                                                      greater market intelligence on what                     Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS)              and its customers to maintain good
                                                      other agencies have paid in similar                     Govermentwide IDIQs, all have built-in                pricing from original equipment
                                                      situations. For example, GSA initiated a                vendor requirements for submission of                 manufacturers who held the vast
                                                      dynamic pricing model, where prices                     transactional data. Currently, these                  majority of FSS contracts. However,
                                                      are adjusted based on transactional data,               requirements are communicated in                      changes in the Federal market have
                                                      on its Office Supplies 2 vehicle between                solicitations without the benefit of a                lessened the impact of the tracking
                                                      November 2012 and January 2013. Prior                   dedicated GSAR clause. The creation of                customer mechanism over time. Of
                                                      to the implementation of dynamic                        a uniform clause to be used across                    particular note, an increasing percentage
                                                      pricing, the average OS2 savings were                   GSA’s non-FSS programs would                          of FSS contractors are resellers with
                                                      13.5 percent. However, since fully                      facilitate consistency and transparency               little or no commercial sales. The GSA
                                                      implementing dynamic pricing in June                    by allowing the public to comment on                  Inspector General (IG) recently reported
                                                      2013, savings rates have averaged                       the proposed new clause.                              that resellers represent more than one-
                                                      approximately 18 percent, or roughly                                                                          third of FSS vendors (See Major Issues
                                                      4.5 percent higher than pre-dynamic                     Use of Vertical Pricing and Movement
                                                                                                                                                                    from Multiple Award Schedules Audits,
                                                      pricing.                                                Toward Both Vertical and Horizontal
                                                                                                                                                                    Audit Memorandum Numbers
                                                         • Administrative savings: GSA                        Pricing in the FSS Program
                                                                                                                                                                    A120050–3, available at http://
                                                      expects the added value of transactional                   The FSS program is currently built                 www.gsaig.gov under Office of Inspector
                                                      data to GSA contract vehicles to                        around a vertical pricing model where                 General (OIG) Reports and Audit
                                                      ultimately reduce duplicative contract                  pricing offered to the government from                Reports).
                                                      vehicles as both FSS and non-FSS                        a potential vendor is compared to the                    Moreover, due to the various
                                                      contracts will demonstrably offer best                  pricing that the same vendor offers to its            exceptions included in the PRC the
                                                      value, reducing transactional costs to                  commercial customers. When vendors                    tracking customer feature ties pricing for
                                                      both agencies and contractors. GSA                      first submit an FSS offer, minimal                    reductions to sales of single items and
                                                      estimates that more than 600,000 open                   consideration is given to the relative                plays little role in blanket purchase
                                                      market actions overlap with existing                    competitiveness of the vendor’s prices                agreement and order purchases
                                                      GSA contract vehicles. With better                      to other vendors (i.e., horizontal                    reflecting volume sales. Further, many
                                                      pricing on GSA contracts, agencies will                 pricing). Instead, the FSS program                    products sold under the FSS program
                                                      have less incentive to establish separate               primarily collects aggregate sales                    are commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)
                                                      contracts. Additionally, GSA believes                   information, including a broad                        products or other commercial items for
                                                      replacing the price reduction clause’s                  disclosure of discounts vendors offer to              which the government is not a market
                                                      tracking customer requirement with                      commercial customers for similar                      driver. The government, and other
                                                      transactional data reporting could                      products and services (see the                        customers in the category to which the
                                                      reduce the annual burden on contractors                 ‘‘Commercial Sales’’ disclosure                       government is most typically aligned
                                                      by more than 85 percent, or                             guidance at GSAR 515.408). The                        under the price reductions clause, tend
                                                      approximately $51 million in                            Government’s negotiation objective is to              to receive voluntary price reductions
                                                      administrative costs to contractors,                    achieve a company’s best price—i.e., the              from the vendor as a result of general
                                                      when compared to the burden hours                       price given to its most favored customer              market forces (e.g., intense competition
                                                      associated with the tracking customer                   (see GSAR 538.270(a)) who buys in                     and small profit margins within the IT
                                                      requirement under the price reductions                  quantities and under conditions similar               hardware arena that cause vendors to
                                                      clause in its current configuration.                    to those of the government. Contractors               lower their prices for all customers
                                                         • Reduction of barriers to small                     are then required, under the ‘‘price                  voluntarily to maintain market share). In
                                                      business participation: The reduction in                reductions’’ clause (PRC), to monitor                 other words, prices are reduced under
                                                      duplicative and inefficient procurement                 their pricing over the life of the contract           the voluntary provisions of the price
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                                                      transactions removes barriers to entry                  and provide the government with the                   reduction clause as a result of market
                                                      into the Federal marketplace,                           same price reductions that they give to               rate pricing changes, not under the
                                                      particularly for small businesses. The                  the class of the contractor’s commercial              mandatory tracking customer
                                                      GAO reports the costs of being on                       customers upon which the original                     provisions. GSA recently analyzed
                                                      multiple contract vehicles ranged from                  contract award was predicated (see                    modifications issued between October 1,
                                                      $10,000 to $1,000,000 due to increased                  GSAR 552.238–75). In addition to the                  2013 and August 4, 2014 under nine of
                                                      bid and proposal, and administrative                    ‘‘tracking customer’’ requirement, the                its FSS contracts, including Schedule 70
                                                      costs (see GAO report # GAO–10–367,                     price reductions clause allows vendors                (Information Technology), Schedule 874
                                                      Contracting Strategies, Data and                        to voluntarily reduce prices to the                   (Mission Oriented Business Integrated


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                                                                             Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules                                           11623

                                                      Solutions (MOBIS)), Schedule 66                         approximately $58.5 million) on                       price transparency at the Schedule
                                                      (Scientific Equipment and Services),                    compliance with this clause. Several                  contract level and the order level.’’ The
                                                      Schedule 84 (Total Solutions for Law                    conversations in this dialogue identified             same year, the Government
                                                      Enforcement, Security, Facilities                       the need to reform FSS pricing policies,              Accountability Office (GAO) issued a
                                                      Management, Fire, Rescue, Clothing,                     particularly requesting the removal of                report recommending that GSA collect
                                                      Marine Craft and Emergency/Disaster                     GSAR clause 552.238–75, Price                         ‘‘prices paid’’ data on FSS orders and
                                                      Response), Schedule 899                                 Reductions requirements. Over the                     make this information available to FSS
                                                      (Environmental Services), Schedule 738                  years, GSA has made adjustments to                    contract negotiators and customer
                                                      II (Language Services), 874 V (Logistics                address burdens and improve the use of                agencies. See Data and Oversight
                                                      Worldwide), Schedule 871 (Professional                  these tools. In particular, on March 4,               Problems Hamper Opportunities to
                                                      Engineering Services), and Schedule                     1996 (GSAR Change 70), GSA modified                   Leverage Value of Interagency and
                                                      00CORP (The Consolidated Schedule).                     the sales disclosure form to require only             Enterprisewide Contracts, GAO–10–367
                                                      GSA found that only about 3 percent of                  summary information and recognize                     (April 2010), available at http://
                                                      the total price reductions received                     that the terms and conditions of                      www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-367.
                                                      under the price reduction clause were                   commercial sales vary and there may be                Transitioning to Transactional Data
                                                      tied to the ‘‘tracking customer’’ feature.              legitimate reasons why the best price is              Reporting
                                                      The vast majority (approximately 78                     not achieved. Despite these significant
                                                      percent) came as a result of commercial                 adjustments to the FSS pricing model,                    GSA recognizes that use of prices paid
                                                      pricelist adjustments and market rate                   contractors continue to struggle to                   information must be done within the
                                                      changes, with the balance for other                     comply with the sales practice                        context of seeking to obtain the best
                                                      reasons. This finding supports                          disclosure requirements and the price                 value for the taxpayer and envisions
                                                      attempting a different means of making                  reduction clause. In two separate                     that this information would be used as
                                                      better pricing available.                               reports, the GSA IG found that over two-              one information point in conjunction
                                                         Simultaneous with these trends,                      thirds of vendors reviewed in fiscal year             with other considerations, such as total
                                                      significant improvements in technology                  (FY) 2011 and 84 percent in FY 2012                   cost, desired performance levels,
                                                      now make it possible to collect                         provided commercial sales practice                    delivery schedule, unique terms and
                                                      transactional data and display it in a                  disclosures that are not current,                     conditions, time considerations, and
                                                      way that government customers can see                   accurate, and/or complete and nearly                  customer satisfaction. Training to
                                                      the prices paid by other FSS customers                                                                        support the implementation of this rule
                                                                                                              half of the vendors in FY 2012 had
                                                      along with other data to determine                                                                            would emphasize that prices paid
                                                                                                              inadequate sales monitoring systems
                                                      whether prices offered to them represent                                                                      information must be considered within
                                                                                                              and billing systems to ensure proper
                                                      the best value to the taxpayer. As                                                                            the context of each individual
                                                                                                              administration of the price reduction
                                                      explained above, the required disclosure                                                                      procurement. More importantly, related
                                                                                                              and billing provisions. See Major Issues
                                                      and sharing of prices paid information                                                                        efforts, such as the development of
                                                                                                              from Multiple Award Schedules Audits,
                                                      through the use of a transactional data                                                                       category hallways—an online
                                                                                                              Audit Memorandum Numbers
                                                      reporting clause and portal under the                                                                         marketplace tool—and the appointment
                                                                                                              A120050–3 and A120050–4, available at
                                                      OS2 pilot led to savings rates averaging                                                                      of category managers with in-depth
                                                                                                              http://www.gsaig.gov under OIG Reports
                                                      approximately 18 percent, or about 4.5                                                                        market expertise, will help agencies
                                                                                                              and Audit Reports.                                    gain market intelligence to make smarter
                                                      percent higher than pre-dynamic
                                                      pricing.                                                   As stated above, GSA believes that the             and well-informed buying decisions.
                                                         GSA believes the collection and use of               transactional data reporting clause                      GSA further recognizes that its
                                                      transactional data may be a more                        could reduce the annual burden on                     government-wide non-FSS and FSS
                                                      efficient and effective way for driving                 contractors by more than 85 percent, or               contract vehicles require separate
                                                      price reductions on FSS buys than                       approximately $51 million in                          implementation strategies taking into
                                                      through use of the tracking customer                    administrative costs to contractors,                  account differences in the pricing
                                                      mechanism. In addition to avoiding the                  when compared to the burden hours                     models currently used by these vehicles.
                                                      challenges associated with the tracking                 associated with monitoring pricing                       Government-wide Non-FSS contract
                                                      customer mechanism described above,                     under the price reductions clause in its              vehicles. To implement the
                                                      the transactional data reporting clause                 current configuration. GSA further                    transactional data reporting
                                                      would allow for greater reliance on                     believes that use of the transactional                requirement, this proposed rule would
                                                      horizontal pricing in the FSS program                   data reporting clause as an alternative to            add a new GSAR clause for non-FSS
                                                      so that GSA and its customers can easily                the price reduction clause addresses                  contract vehicles, 552.216–75 Sales
                                                      evaluate the relative competitiveness of                recommendations made by independent                   Reporting and Fee Remittance, which
                                                      prices between FSS vendors. Moreover,                   reviewers of the FSS program over the                 would require the submission of
                                                      the transactional data reporting clause,                past several years. In particular, the                transactional data from vendors on
                                                      if used as an alternative to tracking                   Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) Blue                    orders and prices paid by ordering
                                                      customer mechanism, could                               Ribbon Advisory Panel, which included                 activities. Government-wide non-FSS
                                                      significantly reduce contractor burden.                 representatives from the largest buying               contract vehicles account for
                                                      The Chief Acquisition Officers Council                  agencies, the Department of the Defense,              approximately $3.9 billion in federal
                                                      recently conducted an Open Dialogue                     Department of Homeland Security,                      contract spending each year. As
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                                                      through an online platform on                           Department of the Interior, Department                explained above, a significant number of
                                                      improving how to do business with the                   of the Treasury, and U.S. Department of               GSA’s non-FSS contract vehicles,
                                                      Federal Government. Contractors                         Education and industry, recommended                   including all GWAC vehicles, already
                                                      pointed to the price reductions clause as               in 2010 that ‘‘the GSA Administrator                  include a requirement for transactional
                                                      one of the most complicated and                         remove the Price Reduction Clause from                data. This proposed rule would
                                                      burdensome requirements in Federal                      the MAS program supply contracts for                  standardize this practice for non-FSS
                                                      contracting, and GSA’s own estimates                    products in phases as the GSA                         contract vehicles and allow GSA to
                                                      suggest FSS contractors spend over                      Administrator implements                              collect data on fixed-price, time-and-
                                                      860,000 hours a year (at a cost of                      recommendations for competition and                   material, labor-hour, and cost-


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                                                      11624                  Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules

                                                      reimbursement contracts, consistent                     contracts and conduct solicitation                    Acquisition University (DAU) portals to
                                                      with requirements currently in GWAC                     refreshes under the FSS program to                    educate both customers and GSA
                                                      vehicles.                                               implement the new transactional data                  contracting officers on how to use the
                                                         FSS contract vehicles. GSA proposes                  reporting requirements.                               data. The Federal Acquisition Service
                                                      a phased-in implementation of the                          • Evaluation: Similar to best practices            (FAS) has an internal training course
                                                      transactional data reporting clause to                  used in strategic sourcing efforts, GSA               aimed at GSA contracting officers
                                                      the FSS program, beginning with a pilot                 would establish clearly defined metrics               awarding and administering FSS
                                                      chosen from FSS product offerings and                   prior to the launch of the pilot, such as             contracts—this course will be updated
                                                      commoditized services where obtaining                   savings rates, customer satisfaction,                 to educate contracting officers on how
                                                      such data has the greatest potential                    small business utilization, and                       to conduct analysis on transactional
                                                      impact to reduce price variability and                  benchmark results against available                   data, as well as how to use these
                                                      help agencies secure better value for the               commercial data sources within                        analyses to achieve better pricing on the
                                                      taxpayer through category management.                   categories of spend to evaluate the                   contracts. Similarly, the external-facing
                                                      Application of the transactional data                   impact of the transactional data                      courseware on how to use the FSS
                                                      reporting clause, including the proposed                reporting clause. Pilot results would be              program and other non-FSS GWACs and
                                                      pilot, would be limited to FSS contracts                evaluated before applying the                         MACs will be updated to educate
                                                      managed by GSA’s Federal Acquisition                    transactional data reporting clause to                customers on the new requirements and
                                                      Service. This rule would not apply to                   additional FSS contracts and making                   how they can use the data collected (to
                                                      FSS contracts managed by the                            usage mandatory more broadly. Pilot                   be shared by GSA) to buy smarter. The
                                                      Department of Veterans Affairs pursuant                 results would also be used to evaluate                external courseware will also highlight
                                                      to a delegation provided by GSA.                        the comparative efficiency and                        the additional value the collected data
                                                         Details regarding the pilot will be                  effectiveness of the tracking customer                offers to GSA’s FSS and non-FSS
                                                      provided by separate notice, including                  requirement. If GSA determines using                  contracting programs.
                                                      through social media tools already in                   transactional data is not an effective
                                                      place such as GSA Interact (https://                    pricing model within the FSS program,                 IV. Executive Orders 12866 and 13356
                                                      interact.gsa.gov), as well as updates to                contracts would be modified to revert                    Executive Orders (E.O.s) 12866 and
                                                      GSA’s Web site where current                            back to using the provisions described                13563 direct agencies to assess all costs
                                                      information is displayed and access and                 in the basic GSAR clause 552.238–75,                  and benefits of available regulatory
                                                      links to other sites are provided.                      Price Reductions.                                     alternatives and, if regulation is
                                                      Respondents will be invited to provide                                                                        necessary, to select regulatory
                                                      feedback through these mechanisms as                    Software, Tools, and Training                         approaches that maximize net benefits
                                                      well as at the public meeting announced                    GSA intends to update its systems in               (including potential economic,
                                                      in this notice. Respondents are also                    order to collect and analyze                          environmental, public health and safety
                                                      invited to provide written feedback in                  transactional data. Data submission will              effects, distributive impacts, and
                                                      response to this notice regarding the                   be enabled through multiple electronic                equity). E.O. 13563 emphasizes the
                                                      preliminary pilot design features                       interfaces (e.g., secure data entry,                  importance of quantifying both costs
                                                      described below:                                        electronic file submission, or an                     and benefits, of reducing costs, of
                                                         • Scope. The pilot would focus on                    application programming interface                     harmonizing rules, and of promoting
                                                      commercial-off-the-shelf and related                    (API)). The goal is to make the reporting             flexibility. This is not a significant
                                                      commercial products and commoditized                    process as streamlined, secure and                    regulatory action and, therefore, was not
                                                      services that experience high volume of                 efficient as possible for contractors,                subject to review under section 6(b) of
                                                      repetitive purchasing under identical or                requiring them to submit only the                     E.O. 12866, Regulatory Planning and
                                                      substantially similar terms and                         transactional data GSA cannot access                  Review, dated September 30, 1993. This
                                                      conditions.                                             via other means (e.g., GSA contract                   rule is not a major rule under 5 U.S.C.
                                                         • Participation: Vendor participation                management systems or Federal                         804.
                                                      in the pilot would be mandatory.                        reporting systems such as the System for
                                                      Covered vendors would not be subject                                                                          V. Regulatory Flexibility Act
                                                                                                              Award Management (SAM) or the
                                                      to the tracking customer requirements of                Federal Procurement Data System                          GSA expects this proposed rule to
                                                      the price reduction clause.                             (FPDS)).                                              have a significant economic impact on
                                                         However, vendors would still be                         GSA also plans to implement an API                 a substantial number of small entities
                                                      subject to the commercial sales                         for buyers to benefit from using                      within the meaning of the Regulatory
                                                      disclosure requirements, including the                  transactional data. Through the API,                  Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601, et seq.,
                                                      requirement to disclose commercial                      GSA will make this information                        because the proposed rule involves
                                                      sales practices when requesting a                       accessible online for all Government                  providing transactional data on FSS and
                                                      contract modification for additional                    buyers. This data will help buyers better             non-FSS orders and transactional data
                                                      items or additional Special Item                        understand the universe of GSA                        that may ultimately affect the end
                                                      Numbers. In addition, GSA would                         purchases; helping them to drive down                 pricing of products offered through
                                                      maintain the right throughout the life of               prices, reduce price variability, and                 GSA. However, the cost to comply with
                                                      the FSS contract to ask a vendor for                    make smarter purchases.                               the additional reporting requirement
                                                      updates to the disclosures made on its                     Prior to implementation of                         may be offset by the benefits provided
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                                                      commercial sales format (which is used                  transactional data reporting                          by the transactional data, such as greater
                                                      to negotiate pricing on FSS vehicles) if                requirements, GSA’s Vendor Support                    insight and visibility into customer
                                                      and as necessary to ensure that prices                  Center (https://vsc.gsa.gov) will provide             buying habits and knowledge of market
                                                      remain fair and reasonable in light of                  instructions and offer training to                    competition.
                                                      changing market conditions. The                         vendors on how to report transactional                   An additional benefit to FSS
                                                      government could request price                          data for FSS and non-FSS orders.                      contractors is that the addition of the
                                                      reductions and vendors could                               Additionally, GSA will update its                  transactional data reporting clause
                                                      voluntarily provide price reductions.                   relevant courseware on the Federal                    would be coupled with an alternate
                                                      GSA would modify select existing                        Acquisition Institute (FAI) and Defense               version of GSAR clause 552.238–75


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                                                                             Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules                                             11625

                                                      Price Reductions that does not require                  post-award actions for GSA contracts to pull             GSA will also consider comments
                                                      customer tracking where the vendor                      the transactional data necessary for more             from small entities concerning the
                                                      monitors and provides price reductions                  robust price analysis. These internal                 existing regulations in subparts affected
                                                                                                              applications facilitate data exchanges                by this rule in accordance with 5 U.S.C.
                                                      to the Government when the customer
                                                                                                              between GSA and its vendors to provide
                                                      or category of customer upon which the                  business intelligence, create procurement
                                                                                                                                                                    610. Interested parties must submit such
                                                      contract was predicated receives a                      sources, facilitate acquisitions, execute             comments separately and should cite 5
                                                      discount. GSAR clause 552.238–75,                       deliveries, and provide customer care. GSA            U.S.C. 601, et seq. (GSAR Case 2013–
                                                      Price Reductions has long been the                      uses this information to update systems               G504), in correspondence.
                                                      mechanism through which GSA ensures                     architecture, to develop new applications for
                                                                                                                                                                    VI. Paperwork Reduction Act
                                                      prices on contract remained fair and                    contract administration, and to enhance
                                                      reasonable. However, with transactional                 business intelligence for suppliers and                 The Paperwork Reduction Act (44
                                                      data, contracting officers will have a                  ordering activities. Unfortunately, most of           U.S.C. Chapter 35) applies. The
                                                                                                              these systems do not collect transactional            proposed rule contains information
                                                      new, potentially more effective and less
                                                                                                              data at a level that would be of benefit for          collection requirements. Accordingly,
                                                      burdensome mechanism through which                      spend analysis and/or do not possess the
                                                      to ensure contract pricing is competitive                                                                     the Regulatory Secretariat will be
                                                                                                              most accurate and timely information                  submitting a request for approval of a
                                                      and fair and reasonable, although                       regarding purchasing activity. Approximately
                                                      vertical pricing analysis techniques can                13 percent of GSA-controlled sales, which
                                                                                                                                                                    new information collection requirement
                                                      still be used.                                          includes purchases made by GSA’s Assisted             concerning this rule to the Office of
                                                         Providing the required transactional                 Acquisition Services activity on behalf of            Management and Budget under 44
                                                      data will impose significant economic                   customer agencies, can capture transactional          U.S.C. 3501, et seq.
                                                      impact on all contractors, both small                   data; for the remaining majority of purchases           GSA estimates the proposed rule will
                                                      and other than small, doing business on                 (87 percent), the customer and supplier are           result in a net burden reduction of
                                                      GSA-managed contracts. Therefore, an                    the only sources of detailed transaction-level        approximately 757,000 hours per year
                                                                                                              data.                                                 based on the difference in current
                                                      Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis                    Another option for transactional data
                                                      (IRFA) has been prepared consistent                                                                           reporting requirement (i.e. GSAR clause
                                                                                                              sourcing would be to enhance or combine               552.238–75) and the proposed reporting
                                                      with 5 U.S.C. 603, and is summarized as                 existing GSA systems to collect the data. GSA
                                                      follows:                                                                                                      requirements (i.e. clause 552.238–74
                                                                                                              would incur significant IT development costs
                                                                                                              for the effort. Were GSA to invest the time           Industrial Funding Fee and Sales
                                                         The General Services Administration                                                                        Reporting (Federal Supply Schedule)
                                                      (GSA) is proposing to amend General                     and resources into an enterprise-wide system
                                                                                                              that could handle procurement functions and           Alternate I and clause 552.216–75 Sales
                                                      Services Administration Acquisition
                                                      Regulation (GSAR) to add an alternate to                spend analysis, then customers and suppliers          Reporting and Fee Remittance). The
                                                      clause 552.238–74 Industrial Funding Fee                would need to commit to use electronic                analysis of this calculation as well as
                                                      (IFF) and Sales Reporting, and new clause               commercial tools such as eBuy and                     the assumptions made to support this
                                                      552.216–75 Sales Reporting and Fee                      Advantage!®. Without the 100 percent                  analysis is presented below.
                                                      Remittance to require transactional data                commitment of individual customers, the
                                                      reporting in FSS and non-FSS contract                   data will be incomplete—possibly to a large           A. New Reporting Requirements
                                                      vehicles. The clause will require GSA                   extent—and may significantly skew any                    GSA estimates the public reporting
                                                      contractors to provide transactional data,              subsequent analysis on cost savings and/or            burden for contractors to set-up
                                                      which is equivalent to information found on             purchasing decisions.
                                                                                                                 GSA’s SmartPay program (the program that
                                                                                                                                                                    transactional data reporting systems to
                                                      an itemized invoice, to GSA. This will
                                                      further the objective to improve category               manages the governmentwide purchase card)             average a one-time initial set-up burden
                                                      management and negotiate better pricing on              is another source where transactional data            of 6 hours. The estimated time includes
                                                      all GSA acquisition vehicles. Collecting                could be collected, and has been on a limited         the time for reviewing instructions,
                                                      transactional data on orders and prices paid            basis following commercial standards for the          searching existing data sources,
                                                      will allow customers to analyze spending                past several years on sub-sets of several FSS         gathering and maintaining the data
                                                      patterns and develop new acquisition                    contracts. However, with less than 1 percent          needed, and completing and reviewing
                                                      strategies to fully leverage the Government’s           of procurements being made through the                the collection of information. GSA also
                                                      spend.                                                  purchase card, this method would not                  took into consideration training,
                                                         GSA is undertaking a major modernization             provide a complete set of data to achieve the
                                                      initiative aimed at enabling customers to               full benefits of capturing transactional data.
                                                                                                                                                                    compliance systems, negotiations, and
                                                      drive better value and achieve taxpayer                    Finally, FPDS could be upgraded to collect         audit preparation the new clause may
                                                      savings by setting the stage for pricing                transactional data. However, this would               require, when estimating the one-time
                                                      reform. A major characteristic of                       require Federal Acquisition Regulation                initial set-up of 6 hours.
                                                      modernization is collecting and using                   revisions, tens of millions of dollars in                Thereafter, the monthly burden
                                                      transactional data for units under most GSA             system changes, and years to implement.               estimate to report data is approximately
                                                      acquisition vehicles to serve as a basis for            Additionally, ordering activities do not              .52 of an hour or 31 minutes. This
                                                      price analysis and category management.                 normally collect transactional data, so agency        number takes into consideration the
                                                         This rule will apply to all contractors who          financial procedures and systems would have           distribution of contract values (i.e. sales)
                                                      hold non-FSS contract vehicles as well as to            to be overhauled in order to accommodate
                                                      all FSS contract holders, contingent on
                                                                                                                                                                    and assumes monthly reporting burden
                                                                                                              transactional data collection.
                                                      beneficial results being demonstrated                                                                         rises with vendor sales based on the
                                                      through a pilot conducted on a subset of FSS              The Regulatory Secretariat has                      distribution of sales and obligations
                                                      contracts for products and commoditized                 submitted a copy of the Initial                       within FSS contracts and non-FSS
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                                                      services. As of Fiscal Year 2013, there are             Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA)                contracts. There is a wide variation in
                                                      15,738 vendors holding 18,598 FSS and non-              to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the              contract sales, therefore monthly
                                                      FSS contract vehicles. Of the 15,738 vendors,           Small Business Administration. A copy                 reporting burden ranges between 2
                                                      12,590 are small entities to which the rule             of the IRFA may be obtained from the                  minutes (for contractors with $0 in
                                                      will apply. Only those contracts with sales
                                                      would have data to report. Department of
                                                                                                              Regulatory Secretariat. GSA invites                   sales) and 4 hours (for contractors with
                                                      Veteran Affairs FSS holders are not affected.           comments from small business concerns                 greater than $50 million in sales). GSA
                                                         During the development of the rule, GSA              and other interested parties on the                   estimates that only the top 0.6 percent
                                                      considered using one of its many internal               expected impact of this rule on small                 of FSS contractors and top 4 percent of
                                                      applications that support pre-award and                 entities.                                             non-FSS contractors will be affected the


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                                                      11626                  Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules

                                                      most. The average GSA contractor will                   hours per month since reporting will be                 Estimated cost to the public:
                                                      see little or no effect of the new                      required monthly.                                     $194,616.
                                                      reporting requirement.                                    The cost of reporting was quantified                  Non-FSS
                                                         A weighted average was used, based                   by multiplying the level of effort in                   (Reporting)
                                                      on distribution of sales, to calculate a                hours by an assumed fully loaded                        Respondents: 477.
                                                      reporting burden. To arrive at the                      hourly rate for contractors ($50 × 136                  Responses per respondent: × 12.
                                                      weighted average, vendors were broken                   percent = $68). The annual reporting                    Total annual responses: 5,724.
                                                      up into six categories, based on contract               burden is estimated as follows:                         Preparation hours per response: × .52.
                                                      values. The characteristics of these                                                                            Total response burden hours: 2,976.48
                                                      categories of contracts in FY 2013 are as               552.216–75 Sales Reporting and Fee                      Average hourly wages ($50.00+36
                                                      follows:
                                                                                                              Remittance (Transactional Data Reporting              percent overhead): × 68.
                                                                                                              Requirement) and 552.238–74 Industrial                  Estimated cost to the public:
                                                         Category 1: Contract value is less than              Funding Fee and Sales Reporting                       $202,400.64.
                                                      $0. The estimated burden for this                       (FEDERAL SUPPLY SCHEDULE) Alternate I
                                                      category per contractor is 0.03 hours (2                                                                        Estimated cost to the public for Non-
                                                                                                                The total public annual burden hours                MAS contracts is: $397,016.64 for year
                                                      minutes) a month, or 0.36 hours (21.8                   for setup and reporting are 223,906.32
                                                      minutes) annually. This makes up 37                                                                           one and $202,400.64 for every year
                                                                                                              based on the following:                               thereafter.
                                                      percent of FSS contractors and 8 percent
                                                                                                                Non-FSS Contracts                                     FSS Contracts
                                                      of non-FSS vendors. The total annual
                                                                                                                (One-time initial setup)                              (One-time initial set up)
                                                      burden for this category is estimated as                  Respondents: 477.
                                                      2,620 hours.                                                                                                    Respondents: 17,816.
                                                                                                                Responses Per Respondent: × 1.                        Responses per respondent: × 1.
                                                         Category 2: Contract value is $1–                      Total Responses: 477.                                 Total annual responses: 17,816.
                                                      $500,000. The estimated burden for this                   Hours Per Response: × 6.                              Preparation hours per response: × 6.
                                                      category per contractor is 0.5 hours (30                  Total Burden Hours: 2,862.                            Total response burden hours:
                                                      minutes) a month, or 6 hours annually.                                                                        106,896.00
                                                                                                                Non-FSS Contracts
                                                      This category makes up 41 percent of                                                                            Average hourly wages ($50.00+36
                                                                                                                (Reporting)
                                                      FSS contractors and 24 percent of non-                                                                        percent overhead): × 68.00.
                                                                                                                Respondents: 477.
                                                      FSS vendors. The total annual burden
                                                                                                                Responses Per Respondent: × 12.                       Estimated cost to the public:
                                                      for this category is estimated as 44,884                  Total Responses: 5,724.                             $7,268,928.
                                                      hours.                                                    Hours Per Response: × 0.52.                           FSS
                                                         Category 3: Contract value is                          Total Burden Hours: 2,976.48.                         (Reporting)
                                                      $500,000–$5,000,000. The estimated                                                                              Respondents: 17,816.
                                                                                                                The annual estimated total burden
                                                      burden for this category per contractor
                                                                                                              hours for non-FSS contracts are 5,838.48                Responses per respondent: × 12.
                                                      is 1 hour per month, or 12 hours                                                                                Total annual responses: 213,792.
                                                                                                              for year one and 2,976.48 for every year
                                                      annually. This category makes up 17
                                                                                                              thereafter.                                             Preparation hours per response: × .52.
                                                      percent of FSS contractors and 43                                                                               Total response burden hours:
                                                      percent of non-FSS vendors. The total                     FSS Contracts                                       111,171.84.
                                                      annual burden for this category is                        (One-time initial setup)                              Average hourly wages ($50.00+36
                                                      estimated as 38,956 hours.                                Respondents: 17,816.                                percent overhead): 68.00.
                                                         Category 4: Contract value is                          Responses Per Respondent: × 1.                        Estimated cost to the public:
                                                      $5,000,000–$20,000,000. The estimated                     Total Responses: 17,816.                            $7,559,685.12.
                                                      burden for this category per contractor                   Hours Per Response: × 6.
                                                                                                                Total Burden Hours: 106,896.                        The total estimated cost to the public for
                                                      is 2 hours per month, or 24 hours                                                                             FSS contracts is $14,828,613.12 for year
                                                      annually. This category makes up 4                        FSS Contracts                                       one and $7,559,687.12 for every year
                                                      percent of FSS contractors and 17                         (Reporting)                                         thereafter.
                                                      percent of non-FSS vendors. The total                     Respondents: 17,816.                                  There are 18,293 contracts containing
                                                      annual burden for this category is                        Responses Per Respondent: × 12.                     the transactional data reporting
                                                      estimated as 17,293 hours.                                Total Responses: 213,792.                           requirement. Data submitted by
                                                         Category 5: Contract value is                          Hours Per Response: × 0.52.                         respondents is submitted and stored
                                                      $20,000,000–$50,000,000. The                              Total Burden Hours: 111,171.84.                     electronically. Retrieval of cumulative
                                                      estimated burden for this category per                    The annual estimated total burden                   data requires approximately 1 hour each
                                                      contractor is 3 hours per month, or 36                  hours for FSS contracts are 218,067.84                month (1*12) for a total of 12 hours
                                                      hours annually. This category makes up                  for year one and 111,171.84 for every                 annually; and costs the Government
                                                      1 percent of FSS contractors and 5                      year thereafter.                                      $9,015,522.12 annually.
                                                      percent of non-FSS vendors. The total                     The total annual estimated cost to the                Requests per year 18,293.
                                                      annual burden for this category is                      public for the Transactional Data                       Reviewing Time (1*12) × 12.
                                                      estimated as 6,785 hours.                               Reporting GSAR clauses (552.216–75                      Total Review Time/year 219,516.
                                                         Category 6: Contract value is greater                and 552.238–74 Alternate I) and is                      Average Cost/hr × 41.07.
                                                      than $50,000,000. The estimated burden                  estimated to be $15,225,629.76 based on                 Total Government Cost
                                                      for this category per contractor is 4                   the following:                                        $9,015,522.12.
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                                                      hours per month, or 48 hours annually.                    Non-FSS                                               The cost of $41.07 per hour is based
                                                      This category makes up 1 percent of FSS                   (One-time initial setup)                            on GS–12, step 5 salary (Salary Table
                                                      contractors and 4 percent of non-FSS                      Respondents: 477.                                   2014–DCB Washington-Baltimore, DC–
                                                      vendors. The total annual burden for                      Responses per respondent: × 1.                      MD–VA–WV–PA, Effective January
                                                      this category is estimated as 5,094                       Total annual responses: 477.                        2014).
                                                      hours.                                                    Preparation hours per response: × 6.
                                                         Taking the above into consideration, a                 Total response burden hours: 2,862.                 Difference in Reporting Requirements
                                                      weighted average was used to calculate                    Average hourly wages ($50.00+36                       Acceptance of GSAR Alternate I,
                                                      an annual burden of 6.3 hours or 0.52                   percent overhead): × 68.                              552.238–74 Industrial Funding Fee and


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                                                                             Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules                                               11627

                                                      Sales Reporting (Federal Supply                           Dated: February 25, 2015.                           Data Reporting Requirements. This
                                                      Schedule), also triggers the inclusion of               Jeffrey A. Koses,                                     alternate clause is used when vendors
                                                      Alternate II, 552.238–75 Price                          Senior Procurement Executive, Office of               agree to include clause 552.238–74
                                                      Reductions. Unlike the basic Price                      Acquisition Policy, Office of Government-             Alternate I;
                                                      Reductions GSAR clause, Alternate II of                 wide Policy, General Services Administration.            (iii) Federal Supply Schedule 84; and
                                                      552.238–75 does not require the vendor                    Therefore, GSA proposes to amend 48                    (iv) Federal Supply Schedules for
                                                      to monitor and provide price reductions                 CFR parts 501, 516, 538, and 552 as set               recovery purchasing (see 538.7102).
                                                      to the Government when the customer                     forth below:                                          *       *    *     *    *
                                                      or category of customer upon which the                  ■ 1. The authority citation for 48 CFR
                                                      contract was predicated receives a                      parts 501, 516, 538, and 552 continues                PART 552—SOLICITATION
                                                      discount. In other words, there will be                 to read as follows:                                   PROVISIONS AND CONTRACT
                                                      no reporting burden for GSAR Alternate                                                                        CLAUSES
                                                                                                                  Authority: 40 U.S.C 121(c).
                                                      II, 552.238–75 Price Reductions.
                                                                                                                                                                    ■ 5. Amend section 552.212–71 by
                                                         The current total estimated reporting
                                                                                                              PART 501—GENERAL SERVICES                             revising the introductory text to read as
                                                      burden hours for GSAR clause 552.238–
                                                                                                              ADMINISTRATION ACQUISITION                            follows:
                                                      75 Price Reductions is 868,150 with
                                                                                                              REGULATION SYSTEM
                                                      annual burden cost of approximately                                                                           552.212–71 Contract Terms and
                                                      $58.5 million (see OMB control number                   501.106    [Amended]                                  Conditions Applicable to GSA Acquisition
                                                      3090–0235). The total annual estimated                  ■  2. Amend section 501.106 in the table,             of Commercial Items.
                                                      reporting burden hours for the new                      by adding in numerical sequence, GSAR                   As prescribed in 512.301(a)(1), insert
                                                      Transactional Data Reporting clause is                  Reference ‘‘552.216–75’’ and its                      the following clause:
                                                      111,171.84 with annual burden cost of                   corresponding OMB Control Number                      *     *    *     *    *
                                                      $7,559,685.12. Therefore, the net annual                ‘‘3090–XXXX’’.                                        ■ 6. Add section 552.216–75 to read as
                                                      burden reduction is 756,978.16 hours                                                                          follows:
                                                      with annual burden savings of                           PART 516—TYPES OF CONTRACTS
                                                      approximately $51 million.                                                                                    552.216–75    Transactional Data Reporting.
                                                                                                              ■ 3. Amend section 516.506 by adding                    As prescribed in 516.506(d), insert the
                                                      B. Request for Comments Regarding                       paragraph (d) to read as follows:                     following provision:
                                                      Paperwork Burden
                                                                                                              516.506 Solicitation provisions and
                                                        Submit comments, including                            contract clauses.                                     Transactional Data Reporting (Date)
                                                      suggestions for reducing this burden,                   *     *    *    *     *                                  (a) Definitions:
                                                      not later than Monday, May 4, 2015 to:                    (d) The contracting officer may insert                 (1) Contract sale is the price paid by the
                                                      General Services Administration,                                                                              ordering activity for the product or service on
                                                                                                              clause 552.216–75 in solicitations and
                                                      Regulatory Secretariat Division (MVCB),                                                                       the task or delivery order placed against this
                                                                                                              GSA-awarded IDIQ contracts. This                      contract. Contract sales include contract
                                                      ATTN: Hada Flowers, 1800 F Street                       clause should be included in all GSA-                 items sold to authorized users unless the
                                                      NW., 2nd Floor, Washington, DC                          awarded Governmentwide acquisition                    purchase was conducted pursuant to a
                                                      20405–0001.                                             contracts and multi-agency contracts.                 separate contracting authority, such a
                                                        Public comments are particularly                                                                            separately awarded FAR part 12, FAR part
                                                      invited on: Whether this collection of                  PART 538—FEDERAL SUPPLY                               13, FAR part 14, or FAR part 15 procurement;
                                                      information is necessary for the proper                 SCHEDULE CONTRACTING                                  or a non-FAR contract.
                                                      performance of functions of the GSAR,                                                                            (2) Transactional data is historical
                                                      and will have practical utility; whether                ■ 4. Amend section 538.273 by revising                information encompassing the products and
                                                      our estimate of the public burden of this               paragraphs (b)(1) and (2) to read as                  services delivered during the performance of
                                                      collection of information is accurate,                  follows:                                              a contract.
                                                                                                                                                                       (b) Reporting of Contract Sales. The
                                                      and based on valid assumptions and                      538.273    Contract clauses.                          Contractor shall report all contract sales
                                                      methodology; ways to enhance the                        *       *    *    *      *                            under this contract as follows:
                                                      quality, utility, and clarity of the                       (b) * * *                                             (1) The Contractor shall electronically
                                                      information to be collected; and ways in                   (1) 552.238–74, Industrial Funding                 report contract sales monthly, including
                                                      which we can minimize the burden of                     Fee and Sales Reporting. Use Alternate                ‘‘zero’’ sales, by utilizing the automated
                                                      the collection of information on those                                                                        reporting system at an Internet Web site
                                                                                                              I for Federal Supply Schedules with
                                                      who are to respond, through the use of                                                                        designated by the General Services
                                                                                                              Transactional Data Reporting                          Administration (GSA) or by uploading the
                                                      appropriate technological collection                    Requirements. Clause 552.238–75                       data according to GSA instructions. Each
                                                      techniques or other forms of information                Alternate II should also be used when                 report shall be submitted within 15 calendar
                                                      technology.                                             vendors agree to include clause                       days of the applicable monthly reporting
                                                        Requesters may obtain a copy of the                   552.238–74 Alternate I in the contract.               period. The Web site address, as well as
                                                      supporting statement from the General                      (2) 552.238–75, Price Reductions                   registration instructions and reporting
                                                      Services Administration, Regulatory                     (May 2004).                                           procedures, will be provided at the time of
                                                      Secretariat (MVCB), ATTN: Hada                             (i) Except in cases where Alternate II             award.
                                                      Flowers, 1800 F Street NW., 2nd Floor,                  is used, use Alternate I in solicitations                (2) The Contractor shall provide, at no cost
                                                      Washington, DC 20407. Please cite OMB                                                                         to the Government, the following
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                                                                                                              and contracts for:
                                                      Control Number 3090–0306,                                                                                     transactional data elements, as applicable—
                                                                                                                 (A) Federal Supply Schedule 70;
                                                                                                                                                                       (i) Contract or BPA Number;
                                                      Transactional Data Reporting: GSAR                         (B) The Consolidated Schedule
                                                                                                                                                                       (ii) Order Number/Procurement Instrument
                                                      Part Affected: 552.238–74, Industrial                   containing information technology                     Identifier (PIID);
                                                      Funding Fee and Sales in all                            Special Item Numbers;                                    (iii) Non Federal Entity, if applicable;
                                                      correspondence.                                            (C) Federal Supply Schedule 84; and                   (iv) Description of Deliverable;
                                                                                                                 (D) Federal Supply Schedules for                      (v) Manufacturer Name;
                                                      List of Subjects in 48 CFR Parts 501,                   recovery purchasing (see 538.7102).                      (vi) Manufacturer Part Number;
                                                      516, 538 and 552                                           (ii) Use Alternate II for Federal                     (vii) Unit Measure (each, hour, case, lot);
                                                        Government procurement.                               Supply Schedules with Transactional                      (viii) Quantity of Item Sold;



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                                                      11628                  Federal Register / Vol. 80, No. 42 / Wednesday, March 4, 2015 / Proposed Rules

                                                         (ix) Universal Product Code (UPC), if                552.238–74 Industrial Funding Fee and                    (7) The acceptable points at which contract
                                                      applicable;                                             Sales Reporting.                                      sales may be reported include—
                                                         (x) Price Paid per Unit; and                         *      *      *      *       *                           (i) Issuance of an invoice; or
                                                         (xi) Total Price.                                                                                             (ii) Receipt of payment.
                                                         (3) GSA will post reporting instructions at                                                                   (8) The Contractor shall continue to furnish
                                                                                                              Industrial Funding Fee and Sales Reporting
                                                      https://vsc.gsa.gov/. GSA reserves the                                                                        reports, including ‘‘zero’’ sales, through
                                                                                                              (Date)
                                                      unilateral right to change reporting
                                                                                                              *      *      *      *       *                        physical completion of the last outstanding
                                                      instructions, including data submission
                                                      requirements, following 60 days advance                    Alternate I (Date): As prescribed in               task or delivery order of the contract.
                                                      notification to the Contractor.                         538.273(b)(1), substitute the following                  (9) Orders that contain classified
                                                         (4) The Contractor shall report contract             paragraphs (a), (b), and (c) for paragraphs (a),      information are exempt from this reporting
                                                      sales in U.S. dollars.                                  (b), and (c) of the basic clause:                     requirement (See FAR 4.606(c)).
                                                         (5) The reported contract sales value shall             (a) Definitions.                                      (c) Industrial Funding Fee. The Contractor
                                                      include the Contractor Access Fee (CAF).                   (1) Contract sale is the price paid by the         shall remit the IFF at the rate set by GSA’s
                                                         (6) The Contractor shall maintain a                  ordering activity for the product or service on       FAS.
                                                      consistent accounting method of contract                the task or delivery order placed against this           (1) The Contractor shall remit the IFF to
                                                      sales reporting, based on the Contractor’s              contract. Contract sales include contract             FAS in U.S. dollars within 30 calendar days
                                                      established commercial accounting practice.             items sold to authorized users unless the             after the end of the reporting quarter; final
                                                         (7) The acceptable points at which contract          purchase was conducted pursuant to a                  payment shall be remitted within 30 days
                                                      sales may be reported include—                          separate contracting authority, such as a             after physical completion of the last
                                                         (i) Issuance of an invoice; or                       Governmentwide Acquisition Contract                   outstanding task order or delivery order of
                                                         (ii) Receipt of payment.                             (GWAC); a separately awarded FAR part 12,
                                                         (8) The Contractor shall continue to furnish                                                               the contract.
                                                                                                              FAR part 13, FAR part 14, or FAR part 15                 (2) The IFF remittance Web site address, as
                                                      reports, including ‘‘zero’’ sales, through              procurement; or a non-FAR contract. Sales
                                                      physical completion of the last outstanding                                                                   well as registration procedures and
                                                                                                              made to state and local governments under
                                                      task or delivery order of the contract.                                                                       remittance instructions, will be provided at
                                                                                                              Cooperative Purchasing authority shall be
                                                         (9) Orders that contain classified                   counted as reportable sales.                          the time of award or acceptance of this
                                                      information are exempt from this reporting                 (2) Transactional data is historical               clause. FAS reserves the unilateral right to
                                                      requirement (See FAR 4.606(c)).                         information encompassing the products and             change such instructions from time to time,
                                                         (c) Contractor Access Fee (CAF). (1) The             services delivered during the performance of          following notification to the Contractor.
                                                      CAF represents a percentage of the total                a contract.                                              (3) The IFF represents a percentage of the
                                                      quarterly sales reported. This percentage is                                                                  total quarterly sales reported. This percentage
                                                                                                                 (b) Reporting of Contract Sales. The
                                                      set at the discretion of GSA. GSA has the                                                                     is set at the discretion of GSA’s FAS. GSA’s
                                                                                                              Contractor shall report all contract sales
                                                      unilateral right to change the percentage at
                                                                                                              under this contract as follows:                       FAS has the unilateral right to change the
                                                      any time, but not more than once per year.
                                                                                                                 (1) The Contractor shall electronically            percentage at any time, but not more than
                                                      GSA provides reasonable notice prior to the
                                                                                                              report contract sales monthly, including              once per year. FAS will provide reasonable
                                                      effective date of the change. The CAF
                                                                                                              ‘‘zero’’ sales, by utilizing the automated            notice prior to the effective date of the
                                                      reimburses GSA for operating costs. Offerors
                                                      must include the CAF in their prices. The fee           reporting system at an Internet Web site              change. The IFF reimburses FAS for the costs
                                                      is included in the awarded price(s) and                 designated by the General Services                    of operating the Federal Supply Schedules
                                                      reflected in the total amount charged to                Administration (GSA) or by uploading the              Program. FAS recoups its operating costs
                                                      ordering activities.                                    data according to GSA instructions. Each              from ordering activities as set forth in 40
                                                         (2) Within 60 days of award, a GSA                   report shall be submitted within 15 calendar          U.S.C. 321: Acquisition Services Fund. Net
                                                      representative will provide the Contractor              days of the applicable monthly reporting
                                                                                                                                                                    operating revenues generated by the IFF are
                                                      with specific written procedural instructions           period. The Web site address, as well as
                                                                                                                                                                    also applied to fund initiatives benefitting
                                                      on remitting the CAF. GSA reserves the                  registration instructions and reporting
                                                                                                              procedures, will be provided at the time of           other authorized FAS programs, in
                                                      unilateral right to change such instructions                                                                  accordance with 40 U.S.C. 321. Offerors must
                                                      following notification to the Contractor.               award.
                                                                                                                 (2) The Contractor shall provide, at no cost       include the IFF in their prices. The fee is
                                                         (3) The Contractor shall remit the CAF at                                                                  included in the awarded price(s) and
                                                      the rate set by GSA within 15 calendar days             to the Government, the following
                                                                                                              transactional data elements, as applicable—           reflected in the total amount charged to
                                                      after the end of the calendar month. Final
                                                      payment shall be remitted within 30 days                   (i) Contract or BPA Number;                        ordering activities. FAS will post notice of
                                                      after physical completion of the last                      (ii) Order Number/Procurement Instrument           the current IFF at https://72a.gsa.gov/ or
                                                      outstanding task order or delivery order of             Identifier (PIID);                                    successor Web site as appropriate.
                                                      the contract.                                              (iii) Non Federal Entity, if applicable;
                                                         (4) The Contractor shall remit the CAF to               (iv) Description of Deliverable;                   ■ 8. Amend section 552.238–75 by
                                                      GSA in U.S. dollars.                                       (v) Manufacturer Name;                             revising the date of the clause; and
                                                         (5) Failure to remit the full amount of the             (vi) Manufacturer Part Number;                     adding Alternate II to read as follows:
                                                      CAF within 15 calendar days after the end of               (vii) Unit Measure (each, hour, case, lot);
                                                      the applicable reporting period constitutes a              (viii) Quantity of Item Sold;                      552.238–75    Price Reductions.
                                                      contract debt to the United States                         (ix) Universal Product Code (UPC), if              *        *   *     *      *
                                                      Government under the terms of FAR Subpart               applicable;
                                                      32.6. The Government may exercise all rights               (x) Price Paid per Unit; and                       Price Reductions (Date)
                                                      under the Debt Collection Improvement Act                  (xi) Total Price.
                                                      of 1996, including withholding or setting off              (3) GSA will post reporting instructions at        *        *   *     *      *
                                                      payments and interest on the debt (see FAR              vsc.gsa.gov. GSA reserves the unilateral right           Alternate II (Date). As prescribed in
                                                      clause 52.232–17, Interest). Should the                 to change reporting instructions, including           538.273(b)(2)(ii), substitute the following
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                                                      Contractor fail to submit the required sales            data submission requirements, following 60            paragraph (a) for paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d),
                                                      reports, falsify them, or fail to timely pay the        days advance notification to the Contractor.          (f) and (g) of the basic clause, and paragraph
                                                      CAF, this is sufficient cause for the                      (4) The Contractor shall report contract           (e) of the basic clause will become paragraph
                                                      Government to terminate the contract for                sales in U.S. dollars.                                (b) in Alternate II.
                                                      cause.                                                     (5) The reported contract sales value shall           The Government may request from the
                                                                                                              include the Industrial Funding Fee (IFF).             contractor a price reduction at any time
                                                      (End of Clause)                                            (6) The Contractor shall maintain a                during the contract period.
                                                      ■ 7. Amend section 552.238–74 by                        consistent accounting method of contract
                                                      revising the date of the clause; and                    sales reporting, based on the Contractor’s            [FR Doc. 2015–04349 Filed 3–3–15; 8:45 am]
                                                      adding Alternate I to read as follows:                  established commercial accounting practice.           BILLING CODE 6820–61–P




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Document Created: 2018-02-21 09:31:58
Document Modified: 2018-02-21 09:31:58
CategoryRegulatory Information
CollectionFederal Register
sudoc ClassAE 2.7:
GS 4.107:
AE 2.106:
PublisherOffice of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration
SectionProposed Rules
ActionNotice of a public meeting and request for comments on proposed rule.
DatesInterested parties may offer oral and/or written comments at a public meeting to be held on Friday, April 17, 2015, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Parties are also encouraged to provide all written comments, including those to be delivered at the public meeting, directly to www.regulations.gov. As explained in this notice, other tools will also be used to elicit public input.
ContactMs. Dana Munson, General Services Acquisition Policy Division, GSA, 202-357-9652 or Mr. Matthew McFarland, General Services Acquisition Policy Division, GSA, 202-690- 9232 or email [email protected], for clarification of content, public meeting information and submission of comment. For information pertaining to status or publication schedules, contact the Regulatory Secretariat at 202-501-4755. Please cite GSAR Case 2013-G504.
FR Citation80 FR 11619 
RIN Number3090-AJ51
CFR Citation48 CFR 501
48 CFR 516
48 CFR 538
48 CFR 552

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