Chasing The FAR: DOD's Buy American Act Final Rule

Recently, the Department of Defense (DOD) issued a final rule that immediately implements President Trump's Executive Order (E.O.) 13881 to maximize the government's procurement of American-made goods, products, and materials under the Buy American Act (BAA) statute. The final rule conforms the DOD's pre-existing BAA supplemental regulations, found in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), to match the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) current requirements, which we commented on previously. The FAR Council, however, promulgated a more stringent rule in March to implement President Biden's subsequent E.O., as we noted previously. Thus, while now in sync, the FAR and DFARS requirements will be once more out-of-sync in October, when the March FAR rule goes into effect, unless the DOD promulgates a matching DFARS rule by then.