Part 15 just closed for comment, and it moves price to the back of the line

Good morning. Comments on the FAR overhaul's second batch closed Monday night. The biggest rule in the batch covers seven parts of the FAR, and Part 15 is the one teams will feel, because it picks up a new way to choose a winner. The agency ranks offers on technical merit and only then asks whether the price is fair.

The main docket drew 47 comments before the window shut, which is a quiet docket for rules that will govern most commercial buys for years. The FAR Council writes the final rules from that record, and you can read it on Regulations.gov.

New look. You may have noticed the Brief got a haircut. Every award in Money Moves now carries its ceiling and the amount actually obligated on the same line, because those two numbers are rarely close. The Opportunity Radar is a 14-day table now, built to be forwarded to whoever owns the deadline.

Forecasts moved to Thursday's Call, where each one gets a date and a public grade on the scoreboard.

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Comments on the second batch of Revolutionary FAR Overhaul rules closed Monday, October 19. The batch holds four proposed rules, and the biggest, FAR Case 2026-003, rewrites Parts 8, 12, 13, 15, 38, 44 and 51.

Part 15 is where a capture team will feel it first. The proposed rule adds a source selection method called highest technically rated with a fair and reasonable price. The agency ranks offers on technical merit and then checks whether the top offer's price is fair and reasonable.

A cheaper offer ranked second on technical merit only comes into play if the top offer fails that check. The rule also formalizes phased evaluations, so an agency can thin the field before anyone writes a full proposal.

The negotiation rules loosen up too. A contracting officer could go back to one offeror in the competitive range more than once without reopening talks with the others, and the competitive range would no longer need to hold every highly rated proposal. Exchanges before the competitive range would disappear.

Clarifications could run all the way to award, though you couldn't use one to fix your proposal. Late proposals could also be accepted when that's in the government's interest and doesn't hold up award, which means somebody's courier is going to get a second chance eventually.

Part 12 gets rebuilt around commercial buying. It absorbs the simplified procedures and raises the threshold for using them on commercial products and services to $9 million, or $15 million in certain emergencies. The rule would also delete 52.212-5, the omnibus clause most people scroll through looking for the three paragraphs that apply to them, along with its companion provision, 52.212-3.

Construction could be bought as a commercial service under a companion case, FAR Case 2026-001. Part 38 would go away entirely, leaving schedule rules to GSA's own regulation.

None of this is final. The FAR Council plans 12 proposed rules in all. This batch brings the count to eight, and the last four have no publication date. Paperwork comments on two other rules in the batch, FAR Case 2026-006 and FAR Case 2026-011, stay open until November 23.

FUNDING · Ceiling not disclosed · Obligated none · Framework agreement, multiyear contract in negotiation
BAE Systems · APKWS guidance kits

The Pentagon and BAE signed a framework Monday for up to 25,000 APKWS kits a year for up to seven years, with room to reach 35,000 a year as allies order through Foreign Military Sales. Neither side announced a price, and Congress still has to approve and fund the buy. The kits turn unguided 2.75-inch rockets into laser-guided rounds, which makes them a cheap counter-drone shot. Suppliers to the Hudson, New Hampshire, and Austin lines should plan for volume and wait for the appropriation. Source

PROGRAMS · Ceiling $8 billion · Obligated $800,000 · Cost-plus-fixed-fee IDIQ · sole source
Raytheon · Air Force strategic communications terminals

The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center gave Raytheon a sole-source IDIQ with an $8 billion ceiling for terminal modernization, production restart and technical studies on its strategic communications terminals, running through October 12, 2036. It obligated $800,000 at award from fiscal 2026 RDT&E funds. At that pace it would take another 9,999 awards just like it to reach the ceiling. Subcontractors on nuclear command and control terminals should watch for the first task orders. Source

EMERGING TECH · One-year total $93.6 million across nine firms · Per-company amounts not disclosed
Nine companies · Army NGC2 applications

The Army picked nine companies on October 14 to build applications for Next Generation Command and Control: General Dynamics Mission Systems, Air Space Intelligence Federal, Immersive Wisdom, LMI, Mente Systems, Stilman Advanced Strategies, Onebrief, Rune Technologies and AIR. They split $93.6 million over one year. The apps run on a common data layer from Anduril, Palantir, Raft and Striveworks. Anduril's September 30 award to keep refining that layer was $162.8 million, with a ceiling of $1.8 billion. Source

PROGRAMS · Value $74.3 million · Obligated $74.3 million at award · Firm-fixed-price modification · Foreign Military Sales
Lockheed Martin · SEWIP AN/SLQ-32(V)6

The Navy added $74.3 million to Lockheed's contract for AN/SLQ-32(V)6 shipboard electronic warfare systems, built in Liverpool, New York, with work running to September 2029. Foreign buyers are paying for almost all of it. Canada put in $38.4 million and Japan $35.4 million, with the Coast Guard adding $457,768. Allied navies are keeping a US electronic warfare line busy, and suppliers on that line should track the FMS cases behind each order. Source

This is the first Brief in the new format, which makes you the test audience. Hit reply and tell me which section you'd cut first. I read every answer, and I promise not to sulk.

If your team filed comments on the FAR batch, I'd like to hear what you pushed on. I'll report the themes next week with no names attached.

Semper Fi,
Justin