Latest / The FAR is Lava / EP 3: RFO Part 9, DOGE’s DHS “Savings,” FBI Most Wanted & Polish Balloons

Transcript

EP 3: RFO Part 9, DOGE’s DHS “Savings,” FBI Most Wanted & Polish Balloons · The FAR is Lava

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to The Far is Lava, your shortcut to the federal procurement news that we've read so you don't have to.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: In today's episode, DHS went all Dogeball on IT contracts and GAO has questions.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Congress tells the Pentagon to hold on to their lunch money.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: That$1.5 trillion allowance is under review, and the Air Force in Boeing will brainstorming and decided a$131 billion Riny IQ would be fun.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: Stop sitting on the sideline and join us on The Far Is Lava.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm Ben.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: This is Will.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode three.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Will, how are you today?
0:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm great, Ben.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: How are you?
0:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm great.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: It's great to talk procurement.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: It's great to read procurement news and great to share it with our loyal listeners here on episode three.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: If you made it this far, thank you.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful day in the procurement community.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: It is.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of stuff going on.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: The year is ending.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Everything's crazy.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: People are spending money, like it's going out of style, and contractors are begging for money like they always do.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: It's an awesome time to be alive in the procurement world.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Hashtag EOFY.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: We got that.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: We'll leave it in there.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: As usual, we're filming from our studio here in the beautiful Ponta Vidra Beach, Florida.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: And if you're still watching these episodes, this is episode three, and they've been on YouTube.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So find the last two episodes here on YouTube.
1:12
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1:14
SPEAKER_00: And in a couple of weeks, we will then be uploading these to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anywhere you listen to your podcast episodes, but they are not there yet.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: They will be there soon, all the episodes.
1:23
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1:26
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1:29
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we'll probably give up.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: If no one's listening, we we have fun.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Not that much fun.
1:35
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1:36
SPEAKER_00: So if you like it, please let us know.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Please subscribe.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: We'll still make videos, but maybe not the podcast.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's really up to the listeners.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: As usual, we're going to go through the news of in federal procurement.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about a protest.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: We'll get a little bit RFO on you, like always, and we'll get in some listener questions.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Anything, Will, you want to talk about before we get started?
1:55
SPEAKER_02: No, stay for the protest.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Protests are always the fun ones because we talk about fun facts and fun rules.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm zero for two right now.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: All right.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: This day in contract history, if you're watching this near or on September 23rd, this is the return.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: The day of September 23rd is the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1806.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: On this day.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty exciting.
2:20
SPEAKER_02: In 1806, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to St.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Louis after completing the first recorded journey from Mississippi River to Pacific Coast.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Now you may be asking, why is this important for government contracting?
2:34
SPEAKER_02: Or why was government contracting important?
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Let's continue.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: The expedition's logistical foundation started with Lewis's original shopping list of more than 180 items.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: Philadelphia invoices showed more than 260 separate purchases coordinated by everyone's favorite contracting officer of your Israel wheel and the Army's purveyor of public supplies.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Is he still in the public supply division of uh I mean people just oil right now he's resisting the RFO?
3:09
SPEAKER_02: The procurement involved 20 Philadelphia merchants and multiple government arsenals, purchases included.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: So these are the things that were government now.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: Remember, he didn't have Part 8.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: He didn't have GSA schedules, Israel.
3:22
SPEAKER_02: He just had to do this.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: He had to go out and get these.
3:25
SPEAKER_02: These are some of the things he got.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: Mathematical instruments, surveying equipment, trade goods for diplomatic relations with uh Native American tribes.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell 193 pounds of portable soup.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about how heavy that would be if it wasn't portable.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: 193 pounds of portable soup.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: And this is soup, by the way, S-O-U-P not.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: Not NASA soup six.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: NASA soup.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: They were on NASA negative six soup on that point.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: And of course, 176 pounds of uh gunpowder.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how like this is so before the far.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does this look like?
3:57
SPEAKER_00: He just goes to the local store and just starts buying stuff.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And just saves the receipts.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: That's what it was like to be a contracting officer back in 1806.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I mean, much of early contracting in our nation was mail.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: Like there's a lot of post office stuff.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: And then just supplying either soldiers during military or uh Lewis and Clark on these expeditions.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: So if you've ever uh studied Lewis and Clark or watched the very accurate adaptation, what's that movie with Chris Farley and the Captain?
4:24
SPEAKER_02: Almost Heroes.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna bring that up.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's two resources out that we'll the podcast will officially recommend.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: One is a book I was gonna bring it, I forget what it's called, The Trail List.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: It's an awesome book.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just goes over the all the details.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: I read about a half of it.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: I got bored.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: It's a little difficult, but it's really good too.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: It's about Lewis and Clark?
4:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very detailed.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: Is it their journal?
4:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's the journals.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Great.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have time to read the entire book, there's a movie, Almost Heroes, is a very accurate depiction of Lewis and Clark, uh played by Matthew Perry and Chris Farley.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: They make it, they show the whole journey.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: I think that they're the ones who wanted to.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: They were competing with Lewis and Clark.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: So there is some there's a lot of procurement relevance in that movie.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: This may be one situation where the book wasn't better.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: So, but it'd be interesting to read the journal, actually.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: This is a real thing.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: I meant to bring that up.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll show a picture of the book.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: I bet you could read that journal and then uh do an exercise uh and highlight all the areas where government contracting makes its way in.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: It's supplies, getting supplies, and what they needed.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: So they started off with these purchases, which were, I bet you may not have known this, these were uh federally funded and contracted supplies to equip Lewis and Clark on their expedition.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Pretty awesome.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: And that was this day in 1806.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: It just shows how deep federal procurement has gone.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: And contract, the you know, the responsibility and the importance of the contracting workforce in the government, it's just knows no bounds.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh if maybe if you'd like to see a documentary or a video about Lewis and Clark's procurement from their journals, maybe that's a video we can produce.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And so let us know in the comments that's something you're interested in.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll make that.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: That'd be fun.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: But maybe.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: We'll leave uh almost heroes out of it.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: No, we'll leave with almost heroes.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get into the news, Will.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: The news as always brought to you by the Daily Dose.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: The Daily Dose is our Monday to Friday newsletter of all things federal procurement news.
6:13
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6:18
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6:23
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6:27
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6:32
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6:33
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6:34
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6:38
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6:44
SPEAKER_00: All right, into the news.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: GAO says DHS contract cancellations did not produce the full claimed savings.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of old news.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: People love to talk about how the Doge claimed all kinds of tons of savings, but then in reality, was there actual savings?
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Some of this is hard to prove.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh but GAO is looking to actually kind of uh you know prove it.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh they said from January through September 2025, DAHS fully and partially canceled nearly 440 contracts as part of a cost-cutting effort uh carried out with the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh they said DHS reported about 10.5 billion in potential savings.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, but most of that, roughly 95% of that, was uh IT-related contracts.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And the thing about IT contracts is you can cancel them.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: The IT need doesn't necessarily go away.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: You have to buy them somehow, yeah.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: If you have computers and you say, go away.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: The people still need computers.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to find a way then to maintain that.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: And so they said there was, you know, roughly about 1.7 billion spent on other contracts uh in 2025 alone.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: So they canceled it.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, we actually need to get some of those services back, and it was about another billion just that year.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And so you can imagine now as they go through the rest of these years, that a lot of that 10 billion of savings is going to get spent again on repurposing contracts.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's important to note that you can't just cancel the contract and then just think you just say you're saving money.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is the challenge of trying to put things in in dollars.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it this reminds me of it's really no different than past exercises that the government's gone through.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: The in the Department of Defense went through something called the service requirement review boards, where uh you had to there was a um uh a mandate to cut services, we're just ballooning.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: We we services versus supplies, like the actual airplanes and tanks.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: The amount for services started surpassing what we spend on the big stuff.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: And so there just is like across the board, cut 5% or cut 10% of your services.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: And what ended up happening was this really time consuming and laborious exercise and good storytelling.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And it was a ton of meetings, a ton of spreadsheets to try to tell this story of how you've done what they wanted to with cost.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: So nothing against, of course, the DHS, but I think GAO had a point where if you're reporting 10.5 billion in potential cost avoidance, like you mentioned, that money's gotta go somewhere.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: I think what they ended up doing was you out of those 440 contracts, uh, a lot of them were existing IDIQs for existing systems.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: So uh this is just is my take on this.
9:25
SPEAKER_02: This is why it's it's a little problematic to to measure things in dollars, because another story to this, and again, the doge, that E in the Doge is efficiency, not cost savings.
9:35
SPEAKER_02: So there could be a story here that by cutting those IT, those existing ID uh IDIQ, those IT legacy, there will be an opportunity to now buy these new services.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: The money does have to go somewhere true, but now the money's gonna go uh fulfilling some RFO principles.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: So they're gonna be spent more efficiently, if more efficiently, which could save money.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: So there could be an efficiency story here.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: The problem is efficiency stories don't look good on PowerPoint slides where people are looking for percentages and numbers.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: And when you have to come up with percentages and numbers, you got to tell the story.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the story can get called out on a GAO report.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Now cancellations like these, is this something that you should be thinking about as you're creating the contract?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if we have to cancel this, you know, is there any way to recoup some of the funds, or is it you should always go in with the assumption that you're gonna see the contract through?
10:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, if if you're if you're canceling something, uh I'm sure DHS went through this.
10:29
SPEAKER_02: It's like, what, okay, so what's the replacement then?
10:31
SPEAKER_02: If we're canceling an IDIQ that is a legacy system, a software system, then the story would be, well, we're gonna create another transaction or we're gonna create a new part 12 vehicle that incrementally starts developing things in the modern era with RFO, where we're using a commercial company this time.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: So if there's a story there where if what you're canceling is replacing something new that it maybe is not measured in terms of dollars, but is measured in terms of we're using commercial now, we're going, we're modernizing what we're doing.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh, we're moving into the 21st century, uh, then that actually fits the spirit of the Doge.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh the problem is, you know, like I said, is with if the, and I don't know if the Doge is doing this, is when you're asking for dollars, you don't get the complete story, and you kind of force the agency to start making stories up.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying DHS is making stuff up.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm just saying that it it to me, when I read this article, it reminded me of these huge task order exercises or these tasks, these taskers, these exercises where instead of spending your time on doing something valuable, you're now running around.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm curious, you can comment down below if anyone's living this nightmare right now, where you're running around kind of answering these taskers, spreadsheets on how you're becoming more efficient.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: And that's actually taking your time away from being efficient.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: And the assumption would be a lot of these contracts, maybe they had were a little bloated, there was some waste.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: It's better to cut your losses.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was one instance where you know they canceled it, but then nearly had$167 million already been paid out, and then to spend another 48 million of ongoing work.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: It's still better to cancel the contract.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just not good.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: Instead of like just seeing it through to double down on a bad decision.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: If it's a bad decision, I you know, DHA has probably made a lot of great calls.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just move on from this.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna cost us some in the in the moment, but in the long term, we'll save some money or save some efficiency.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's just things you gotta think about.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: The other, just real quick point on the RFO, which which the administration pushed, which uh through the executive order, common sense and procurement.
12:29
SPEAKER_02: I'll I actually love the wording of that executive order.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: It was a non-political statement, but I like it, it was how it was written.
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, so much of that common sense and procurement and the RFO was about uh getting better performance, meeting the mission, and there wasn't anything on cost savings, really.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: So if you look at the RFO guiding principles, they actually even changed uh uh uh taxpayer stewardship where price is nowhere on there.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: It's it's making sure you're awarding based on merit, you're satisfying the customer's need.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: So with so much of an emphasis on actually getting better quality stuff and not focusing so much on lowest price, you know, that there's an argument that DHS can make here too.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Say, well, okay, well, it's not dollar for dollar exactly.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: We're getting better in other ways that are fulfilling the principles of the RFO.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's always good to have Elon Musk still in the news, you know.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: That's true with his doge.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how long ago is that?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: It feels like ages ago that you know Elon Musk has got his chainsaw in the White House dozing it up.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: It's I mean, just it's almost like a dream.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: It is, yeah.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, all right, next news story.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: The Congress, Congress funds the government through December 11th and extends key cyber authorities.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is the continuing resolution that was passed.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, here we go again.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: The DOW or DOD, you know, DOW wants uh 2027's budget to be 1.5 trillion.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And apparently the uh Senate says, let's hold off on that, and just says you can continue as is through December uh 11th with your last year's budget of a paltry$838 billion.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: And so that puts things on pause, right?
14:03
SPEAKER_02: You can't start new contracts, you can't start new projects, you can still spend the$838 billion, still spend your money, and then um as long as it's not a new start, is the is the it's the rule of the game and CR when you're in a CR and we had this issue and with the joint AI Center, I was acquisition uh director of the Jake, which is the DOD Pentagon office that started in 2018.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: I think it's the C it's the C D AO now.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: Um but we started uh during a CR and we we had to everything we were doing was technically new, but we worked with lawyers to try to figure out ways of showing that this wasn't a new start so that we could spend money.
14:44
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes we could tell that story, and sometimes the lawyers would be like, no.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: What if you put that on an existing contract?
14:50
SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna continue the existing contract.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's say it's a software contract.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: So we have you know, software, an efficiency software contract, and then all of a sudden you slip AI into this existing software contract, you could do it.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: That would be okay.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then we could start a brand new software contract or brand new AI contract, then would be the issue.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: And you can't be uh and going beyond the scope of that original contract.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: So that's what we ran into as well.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: Isn't it can can we can we add to existing contracts in a way that doesn't violate competition rules and still stay within the scope of that contract?
15:21
SPEAKER_02: So there were there's creative ways of working within a CR and not calling it a new start.
15:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Um but yep, that's the name of the game.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd say this is important news because it is a ton of money and it's the DOW and this does help avoid shutdowns, but it's also not news because I think I read someone put that this has happened 38 times out of the last 50 years.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: So this is far for the course.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: But if it goes to December, that's a lot of money not being spent.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, once December hits, if that budget is then approved, there's a lot of money to spend very quickly.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: They've lost, you know, a third of the year or so.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know what someone told me recently.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: People are using uh people are betting on this now.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The shutdown?
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: That's I mean, polymarkets and and prediction markets, it's all the rave.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Um if you're in the government, I don't think you should be doing that.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: If you have any information on it, that's my little advice to you.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: But if you are on your next lavish Las Vegas trip, government-funded Las Vegas trip, sit on a nice armchair in the Bellagio and put some money down for the CR.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: For the CR.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay, perfect.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, let's talk about uh next news story here.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Again, we'll we'll stay on the theme of lots of money.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Um two groups you might be familiar with, the Air Force and Boeing, uh, they're pretty close friends and they need another$131 billion to sponsor the F-15 IDIQ contract.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: The F-15 is very expensive.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: It's only getting more expensive.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And so now they have a contract or IDIQ with a uh ceiling up to$131 billion.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's just the ceiling, but looks like they can spend money very quickly.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's pretty um, it's kind of unique in in a way.
16:51
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so if if, you know, just as a refresher on big A acquisition versus little A acquisition, so little A acquisition, like the FAR talks about a lot of the rules of procurement.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: But if we're talking about acquisition, acquisition in Department of War or anywhere um in the federal government, we're talking about the program to actually uh like to define the requirement and deliver it uh to uh the customers.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Usually that involves a program manager, it's just this big program.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: And the big program can involve lots of different contracts with different companies.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: And so the what the Air Force is doing is taking potentially a one uh uh a$131.2 billion uh program and fitting it all into an IDIQ contract.
17:36
SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of like the contract itself is pretty much filling the needs of that of that program of the F uh of the F-15.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: So they and they mentioned in the article about how this can uh help respond to the demands that Boeing needs, uh, but also help with the efficiency.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: So now you're just on a task order basis to get these things done.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: It's if it makes sense that Boeing is the prime contractor of this, so you're gonna go to Boeing anyway, probably for this program.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's a good example of the Air Force um maybe innovatively using the FAR.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: Everyone's talking about OTs these days, but the Air Force is using a FAR-based IDIQ to maybe find an efficient a more efficient way to contractually manage a program.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: I didn't look, I was curious how this is affected by the potential CR that we just talked about, uh, but it looks like it's moving forward.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: But uh And now it's not new.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now it's not new.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: So we're all we're okay.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: They can keep uh spending, they can keep knocking out those task orders.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: They snuck it in.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: All right, and this is a great news story.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: GSA highlights alleged defense component, fraud, in supply chain misrepresentation.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh this is GSA highlighting that the FBI's addition of Unar Simsek.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that how that's how you pronounce his name.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Unar.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't really care to pronounce it uh correctly because he's just been added to the FBI's most wanted fraudsters list.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: We'll add an image here.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh I do think we should probably have kind of a an ongoing segment of the fraudster of the week or maybe fraudster of the month.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Where are they now?
19:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes, so where are the where are they now?
19:05
SPEAKER_02: In this case, Turkey.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: So Simsec is a Turkish national who's alleged to be a fugitive co-conspirator in a defense procurement fraud scheme where they were essentially uh claiming that they were an American company, but they're actually Turkish and using Turkish products and putting these into high priority weapons.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: So again, this isn't like And because he's a US, he's saying he's a U.S.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: based company, he's getting access to uh sensitive U.S.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: technical drawings.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: So he's in the supply chain uh as an American company, and he's actually a Turkish company with access to U.S.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: uh sensitive material.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: And again, he's not he's not making uh stapler components.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: These are weapons components, high you know, detailed information.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Abrams tank is one of them.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Like he he's he's providing supplies.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: Did it say what the supplies are?
19:53
SPEAKER_02: He's just he's he's part of the supply chain.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: He's providing parts to major weapons systems.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it did say, I don't think I put the details here, but they were you know major major weapons systems, um, including Navy aircraft carriers and submarines.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is you know, he's putting big big pieces in big big machines.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he was previously convicted in 2018 in the Southern District of Florida in a similar procurement fraud matter, which makes you wonder, how does a guy do it twice?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm thinking of all the contractors out there, the guys in their garage with great products, American-made, working so hard to get noticed by the DOW.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And here, this Turkish guy has been noticed twice, uh, was caught for fraud, and then now is doing it again and successfully did it again, but now he's on the run.
20:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is this is the challenge with supply chain.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: So this is uh this is a big supply chain uh lesson here.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: So, okay, so he was convicted of a pro procurement fraud matter according to part nine of the FAR, he should have been debarred and prevented from um competing on any future contract.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: I think the issue is that he's snuck into this, he's he's tucked, he's tucked into the supply chain.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: So it does technically say in part nine that if that you're not allowed to have uh subcontractors that are debarred and all the way down, but who's looking at the supply chain at this point?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, he should be looking at the supply chain at this level.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's a good question.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Somebody.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: Somebody should.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those, and this is why part 40 has come about.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: That the part 40 used to be reserved, like blank.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: Now we have a new part 40, and then the responsibility is on the contracting officer to get with the right security people for that supply chain risk management.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: Some responsibilities on the contractors too.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: But uh there's been some um, there's been some research that even some of the big contractors, I won't name them, but big weapons contractors really have no handle or control or visibility on their supply chain.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: So it's a it's a big deal.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: What's funny is that in that part 40, they just straight up say they call companies out and they have clauses.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Like the there's a TikTok clause, like you shall not use TikTok.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: So I wonder if there's going to be a new part forty subpart that is called uh uh contracts awarded to To Onar Simsek.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: If his name is Onar Simsek, watch out.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: No contracts.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: So there should be some work done from the prime contractors to verify lower tier uh suppliers.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I would love to have, I'd love to have Mr.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Onar SimSek on the show as a guest.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: Be like, how'd you do it?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: That'd be great.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Calling in from Turkey.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: He would be it'll be a great guest for contractors too, to be like, how does it, you know, how are you getting in?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do we have to do?
22:25
SPEAKER_00: Like, we're made in America, we're doing it legally, we're honest, and they're getting beat out by this guy twice.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, it looks like with uh owner Simsec, this was a supply chain of weapon system, but you know, the supply chain risk gets even trickier when we're talking about artificial intelligence, where the supply chain itself is kind of software-centric.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Just a lot of um um adversarial actors could come in.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: And the smarter our systems get, the more complicated the things that we're buying, the more players are involved in delivering that, which makes supply chain risk a big uh thing.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: So uh shout out to FBI for highlighting uh Simsec, but how many other Simsecs are out there?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's like 10 or 12 on that list of most wanted fraudsters.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: I didn't look into them.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious you know where they fall into federal procurement, if uh how relevant that is.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: But um, I want to know the least wanted.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: The least wanted.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: We still have to watch out for them, right?
23:21
SPEAKER_00: But it's a good reminder of you know, there's a lot of laws, there's a lot of hoops contractors and agencies have to hop, you know, jump through.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: But there's a reason why.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you're a small company and you have a subcontractor that does some you know little little legal or paperwork for you and they're located in the Philippines, let's just not let's just not mention them.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: We're saving a lot of money.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: There's reasons for this, why these things should be checked, because that person could be Simsec out there looking to fraud the government out of uh a lot of money, but I think the the story is less about the money, more about just the supply chain risk of who knows what products are getting dropped in there.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It could be little robots with eyes watching the government work inside these submarines.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's the news.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Any more news stories, Will, we should cover?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I think that's all the ones we had listed today.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: There's so much.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: If there's news that we're not covering, please let us know.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: We'll jump on it uh in our next episode.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh but we're gonna get into our protest of the week.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: This is by a company called Kinetic IQ.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: It's kinetic with a Q and ends with a Q.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Kinetic.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: And so it's uh versus the Army.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'll I'll read it here a little bit, Will, let you take over.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: The Army was buying four for airspace and service radar reconnaissance ASRR Airstat systems uh and for the Polish uh Army force uh forces through the foreign military sales program.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So again, these are high-dollar, high technical products happening here between uh the army that they're looking to build.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Those are the balloons.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the big balloons.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they put them on a little wire, and I think they put a payload on this.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: So there's there's like friend or foe capabilities, but it's just surveillance.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: They have we still have these big blimps that go up.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I love when technology continues, but there's some some technology that just it still works and it's still relevant.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Balloons are.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: The competition was a task order under an existing multiple award IDIQ contract.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh the evaluation was a two-phase approach.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: The first was a white paper.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: That is not under dispute.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: It's the oral presentations covering the program management, production, etc.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: All of that is under review.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Kinetic made the first.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: They made the first round.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Made the first round.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: They got into the second.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: They both did orals.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And they and they awarded, uh they awarded T COM.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Kinetic protested.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: They went and looked back and reevaluated and still awarded a TCOM, but there is this protest by Kinetic, and they have some decent points to bring up.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh Will, why don't you take over here and walk us through some of the nuances of a good protest?
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: So they had so the uh Army APG, um they had, I guess they had their own multiple award IDIQ balloon contract.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: It's for Aerostat.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: And they had a bunch of balloon contractors.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: So this was part 16.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: And I actually did uh because I noticed in the protest that the Army used 16.505 procedures, which is the procedures you use when you're doing a task order off of a contract in the old FAR.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: So then I was like, hmm, I wonder they did this in July.
26:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh I wonder why they didn't use the, should they have been using the RFO deviations?
26:16
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, the this was in 2025 of July, I believe.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh the RFO council didn't even release the Part 16 RFO until September.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
26:26
SPEAKER_02: And then the Army did their or the DOD did their deviation made effective in March of 2026.
26:32
SPEAKER_02: So this is old FAR we're we're working in.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned an old episode that there are going to be protests brought up because of the RFO, partly because contractors don't know all the nuances, the timing.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And so here's a good example of look, this is old FAR.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: RFO is not relevant here.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it it it wasn't even effective, uh, even in the deviations, which is why I think it's good to start looking at protests now because we're still looking at old FAR decisions.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: We're going to start seeing a bunch more RFO-based kind of protests coming up.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: The world's about to get more interesting.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, so these guys did uh uh part 16 procedures, which means you don't have to do a full-blown part 15, um which they chose to do strengths and weaknesses, deficiencies and all that, which which they didn't have to do, but they chose to.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: Now, they had reasons, I'm sure, for doing that.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of the challenges of getting into strengths and weaknesses is it's just gonna turn into uh more grounds potentially for protest.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: Well, why did I get a weakness here?
27:31
SPEAKER_02: Why did they get a strength?
27:32
SPEAKER_02: So when you do the strengths and weaknesses, this was a high dollar, I'm sure it was a high dollar balloon contract because there's also protest protections in um it's in the new RFO 16.508, I think.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh up to$35 million, you're protected from protest decisions on uh from protests on your decisions that you make.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: So this had to have been over that threshold.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, so it's a pretty high dollar contract, but it is, they did some pretty creative stuff.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: They did the pass fail, and then they did oral presentations where they asked for you know slides, they encouraged video videos, 30 slides.
28:08
SPEAKER_02: 30 slides, videos.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we would have been great in fact.
28:13
SPEAKER_02: We could have we need to get into balloons.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh so obviously these were high-tech balloons.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: The payloads uh uh, you know, had things like friend or foe, uh, probably maybe even some AI capabilities of detection and the surveillance.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, a big part of this case was um kinetic just uh sort of saying they should have decided this, they shouldn't have decided that, and the court pretty much relying on um the CEO's discretion, which is very encouraging uh that they did that because there's been recent decisions almost overturning Chevron, which is a case I even read in law school, like out even outside of contracting, which basically says that you know uh there's a reliance on in administrative law on the official and their discretion when when they're exercising, unless it's arbitrary, capricious, and all that.
29:03
SPEAKER_02: And so there seemed to be recently some courts were kind of probing into well, you should have decided this and you should have you shouldn't have made that a weakness.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: But they they didn't do that.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Like there was one case where uh I think what they said in their evaluation factors was you needed to your approach needed to be, I'm paraphrasing, like reasonable.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: I what you're presenting, and which probably a lot of this came out in the oral presentations, is your approach is reasonable.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Like it, there's there's there's and then you know they they dinged um uh kinetic because they weren't gonna test their balloons at CONUS in America before pushing them out to Poland, which is I don't know if we talked about that, that this is going out to to Poland, yeah, to support NATO operations, uh, which is uh you know supporting Ukraine.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And that's one reason they put a stay on performance too, by the way.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: They are or they um they lifted the stay on performance.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Usually when protests are done, uh everyone has to stop working.
30:01
SPEAKER_02: Army came up with a rationale that we can't we can't stop this, we need to support the operations going on in Ukraine because of the long lead times and getting this uh aerostat equipment, surveillance equipment over to Poland, we we can't have a stay.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: So that's great.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: I think the Army got that.
30:17
SPEAKER_02: So so work and uh work continued with what are they called?
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Tcom?
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Tcom.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: The the challenge of lifting stays, though, is let's say Tcom starts operating, they get their, they get their uh, they're starting to get their supply chain working and moving over.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: If there is an eventual protest and it's sustained, then gets a little messy.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: What is the Tcom has to pull out, Kinetic comes in, comes in with new balloons, yeah, different color, different color balloons.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, so it'd be important then, you know, as again, we want contracting officers to have the discretion and they have to use that.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh so then in their language, if they're gonna judge based on strengths and weaknesses, they probably need to make sure there's language in the evaluation criteria that allows them to have some of that discretion.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: So that, you know, when these protests come up and they say, look, this was the word reasonable.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Like we added the word reasonable because now we don't have to have every little tiny evaluation criteria and every factor written out.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Um a great example in this case specifically is um it was uh Kinetic was upset because they didn't specifically request the um the Air Force didn't specifically request, or Army, sorry, didn't specifically request to have live testing as an evaluation factor.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: But it's reasonable if you're asking for working balloons that you could say, well, can can you do some live testing for us?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: And kinetic didn't or couldn't, TCOM could.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: And so that was a reasonable request, even though it was not a specific evaluation factor, yeah.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: It was fine.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, of course, live testing is reasonable here.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they they used part nine, uh, which is spoiler alert, I think that's our part of the week, part nine.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's a subpart on first article testing, which is basically, hey, before we do this big production thing, give us a sample first.
31:52
SPEAKER_02: Give us the first article so we can see how you do it.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: And they did that.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: And their first article, I think they they justifiably gave Kinetic a weakness on the fact that their first article wasn't gonna be live live tested CONUS, uh, it was gonna be a simulation.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, so I mean, just this is also just a lesson for all the tech companies out there that are kind of relying on simulated environments.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: There's a point where you're gonna need to show kind of your capability in an operational environment.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: And that's what the Army was asking for.
32:26
SPEAKER_02: And the court said that's completely reasonable.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: That encompasses that's encompassed in your evaluation factors.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: You're fine.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh, another another interesting thing about this was um this comes up a lot too.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: I've I've had companies um talk to me about other companies, and um, they they told uh they one of their protest kinetics grounds was that they didn't look deep enough into some past performance that they criticized their uh uh reliance on some uh assertions that TCOM was making.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: And that just, I mean, I I think the reality is especially maybe in the balloon community, these contractors probably know each other really well, right?
33:05
SPEAKER_02: And so if they if they see if if in a protest they're getting information and then they they see what their competitor is saying they can do, like even some of the assertions that T COM was saying about export, then they may say, Oh, that's balloon.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: I know those guys, they can't do that.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: We were honest, we said we, you know, and so that can come up too.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, and the court rightly ruled that it's not, you know, the uh just be, you know, it's it's the the CEO can rely on the information coming in.
33:36
SPEAKER_02: There was some, there was an ambiguity, I think, that was in the contract that where they said they could rely that they're gonna look at historical data, but they didn't say they're doing a past performance evaluation.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: And Kinetic came back and they were like, you didn't do a past performance, you know, you said you were gonna look at historical data.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: Apparently TCOM had some bad contracts.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: They did.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Um now then when they said they're gonna look at historical data, they didn't say it had to be good or bad, maybe.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And so it will be considered we'll consider historical data.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like that's we don't care if it's bad.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: We just want to look at it.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh my favorite detail that came out was on the uh the 30-slide limit.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: So contractors out there know just how horrible it is to make these slides and have to be fall within certain parameters.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a 30-slide limit to the in the oral presentation, and TCOM snuck in extra details by putting embedded material into the presentation.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So Kinetic said that's not look, you're you're exceeding the 30 slides because you're embedding material into the slide.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: And they probably didn't sneak it in even.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: But if you look up Microsoft and their definition of slides, which the Army did.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Which the Army did, embedded information does not count as a slide.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: It's not a slide count.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: So hey, they snuck that worked.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe if you are ever uh ruled out of a competition because you exceeded the slide limit by using embedded material, yeah, that you have a case then to go back and say, look, this is not, you know, if you look back at the precedence set by kinetic versus army, this slide count and embedded material does not hurt against slide count.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And so if they're gonna rule you out because of that, they need to put in there embedded material counts as a slide.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: And if not, as a company, you should do your 30 slides and then do like 15 videos.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: Video seven.
35:21
SPEAKER_02: There's like music in the background.
35:22
SPEAKER_02: Here's another reason why you should pick me.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: A great tactic.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I think you'll probably rub some people the wrong way.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: Nice try.
35:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh here's another point, though, that has like it's got some ramifications for what we're talking about with the RFO.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: This is kind of buried as a buried point at the very bottom of this protest, but it's interesting.
35:42
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so one of so one of Kinetics' accusations is they didn't follow this SAMM, this guidance on export control is that you should have done a certain procedure first.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: And what the court said was listen, the Competition and Contracting Act, our jurisdiction, is that we're looking at cases arising out of law, not guidance.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: We don't rule on guidance.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: If they didn't follow guidance or they did follow guidance, we're not going to ding the contracting officer on that or the government on that.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: So, big uh uh kind of uh lesson here, even though this is export control guidance, we move forward to the guidance in the federal acquisition uh now, this strategic acquisition guidance.
36:24
SPEAKER_02: If you don't follow the far companion, the category management guide and a protester protest, and said, You should have followed the far companion on this.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: The courts are gonna say the same thing they said in this case.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: It's guidance.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: We're only gonna rule on uh laws, which is gonna be the regulations.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: So that's a cool little point that has uh consequences for the RFO, of course, or at least we'll be able to see how the judges will rule on RFO guidance.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: And the Army did uh admit one mistake in terms of requiring some export license uh here on uh kinetic, but they didn't find any competitive prejudice.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And the the I think the important part here is when you start looking through, they fix that error that doesn't really change anything because kinetic still had eight weaknesses, a lower technical rating, and were$71 million more expensive.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: $71 million.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: And so again, it goes back to the reasonable.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a contracting officer or you get found, you're put in a situation where there might be a potential um uh protest, you go back to if you're documenting these things and you still like, well, okay, fine.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah we're not perfect.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: No, you know, no evaluation process is gonna be perfect, or very few be perfect.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: But even if they're not perfect, if you go back to the reasonable reason you made this uh decision, you'll be fine.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, if if reverses happened and they ended up awarding to kinetic and Tcom would come back and say, Well, how come we were rated higher and everything?
37:43
SPEAKER_00: We're way cheaper.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: We proved in person we can do this, but kinetic one?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now you could see where the army might be in trouble.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, uh they did not GAO denied the protest.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: Etta put together a beautiful piece of work here.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: Ed is that it again um on this one.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: We appreciate her efforts.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: It gives us a lot of great content to talk about.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Good job, Edge.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can have Ed on the show.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Would she come?
38:01
SPEAKER_02: One day.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure she's gonna be.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: She's too busy writing opinions.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: She'd have to be writing while she's on the show.
38:06
SPEAKER_02: Hold on.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: There's this protest.
38:08
SPEAKER_02: I so this was a this was clearly a legal decision by uh Army APG.
38:14
SPEAKER_02: I think maybe one, if I could, I'm I'm gonna armchair quarterback APG, which people love always, when someone who's not involved in the process at all.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, actually, um, was there a way?
38:24
SPEAKER_02: This is a high dollar value.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: So maybe strengths and weaknesses were the way to do it.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: But when you when you simplify the source selection procedures like you can with part 16, and you don't do the strengths and weaknesses, you're taking a little of that mathematical formula away and you're taking away grounds for for protest.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: So maybe there was a way APG could have not done strengths and weaknesses, made it a maybe made that oral presentation phase two a little simpler.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: What if they had just simply said what they said on the factors, like we're gonna we're gonna give you uh confidence rating based on your ability to perform, and then boom, that was it.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: No strengths, no weaknesses, and then they they had their rationale document.
39:03
SPEAKER_02: That could have been, I mean, so could have been protested.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: But maybe making things simpler could uh create less reasons to protest.
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Because whatever formula you put up there is the formula that companies are gonna use as a basis for their protest.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, they didn't do things that way.
39:19
SPEAKER_02: Well, they said this factor, but why did this person get this strength?
39:23
SPEAKER_02: And it just gets uh opening up for maybe more grounds for protest.
39:27
SPEAKER_02: But these guys did it okay.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Um, and Edda said dismissed.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dismissed.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: Congrats, Army.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh, another successful protest victory.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: And sorry, kinetic.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: Better just just inflate yourself up again, get back up there in the air.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: All right, well, great.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I think uh we have not talked too much RFO, so have a little RFO segment.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: The RFO segment is always brought to you by ASI Education Pro, our online learning platform.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: You can earn CLPs by watching entertainment comment content that you see on our YouTube channel.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have cheat sheets and one pagers and lives and a ton of curriculum on there.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: So if you're trying to gain CLPs and you're tired of the boring stuff, come to us for the non-boring way to earn CLPs, watching videos like you see on our YouTube channel.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's ASIEducation Pro.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: There is a link in the description.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Talk to your office about getting some licenses.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Come join us.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: They're not free, but they're not too expensive either.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: But our YouTube channel's free.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Our YouTube channel's free.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: But you do not earn CLPs.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: You're not you are not earning a CLP for watching this.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: I hope everyone's aware of that.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: You're just earning a little bit of internal satisfaction.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: And a couple best friends.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, all right.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: So we just part of the week is part six.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: We talked competition.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Part nine, right?
40:35
SPEAKER_00: It's part nine.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: It's just six upside down.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Hold on.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: All right, part nine.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh what makes you want to talk about part nine?
40:44
SPEAKER_02: Uh well, I kind of we talked about first article testing, which is not the first thing you think of.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: So part nine is contract responsibility.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: And I think that when I was reading this kinetic case with the Aerostat um uh in Poland, it it just it oh there were a lot of contract responsibility issues that came up.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, kinetic was arguing a lot of uh uh responsibility issues with TCOM, with the company that won, say that they weren't responsible.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: In a subpart of part nine, they talk about something called first article uh testing, which is like if you have like a big production contract, um, one way to just ensure responsibility of even the contractor as the first phase of the contract um is to ask for that first article to check it out.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: Like send me your send me your first thing, let me look at it, let me see how and that's what the army kind of relied on with this.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: They did implement first article testing, they wanted the balloon's conus to be kind of tested first before going out there.
41:41
SPEAKER_02: Like we don't want to embarrass ourselves with the Polish military, you know?
41:44
SPEAKER_02: Look like fools.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, look like fools in front of the polls.
41:49
SPEAKER_02: So so they said no, it's got to be like and then what what kinetic wanted was a simulated kind of environment.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: That's not really first article testing.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a just a way of response contractor responsibility comes in in many forms.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: It's not only financial responsibility, it's not only whether you're um like Unar Simsek and D.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Bard, our Turkish friend, our number our most wanted fraudster of the week.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't paying attention.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: I was busy thinking of a Polish balloon joke.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Did you think of it?
42:19
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't think of one.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: How many contractors or CEOs does it take to screw in a Polish balloon army?
42:25
SPEAKER_00: See, it's not there.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: We make the balloons look like Polish sausages.
42:30
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so responsibility comes in many, many ways.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh, did the RFO really change the way part nine operated to begin with?
42:38
SPEAKER_02: Not really.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: OCIs are still there.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: Oh, we're initiative conflicts.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: We talked that about uh last week.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh OCIs are in part nine.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: We even have a little page in our our my first far on OCIs.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, hold on.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's letter O.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: My first far.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't seen this, this is a book.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: This is how we make all of our money.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can support the channel by buying this book.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll have a link in the description.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: You can purchase your own my first far.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: It's a children's book.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: O is for organizational conflict of interest.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: And you see here, he's like, he's he's he's he's got one foot in one contract.
43:07
SPEAKER_02: One, this is Miss X.
43:09
SPEAKER_02: All right, she's got one foot over here.
43:11
SPEAKER_02: This is from last week, the protest, one foot over here, and then one foot over here, and then this this little middle part's a little stinky.
43:18
SPEAKER_02: We've got some conflict.
43:20
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, teach your kids.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm too far.
43:22
SPEAKER_02: So there's not a lot that part um nine, there's not a lot of changes to part nine with the RFO, but it is a good refresher to just uh look at con the one of the things that did change, maybe if it's something changed at all with with part nine, is this uh ability to look at contract responsibility in a whole bunch of different ways, not just checking and seeing if they're debarred, but checking CPARs.
43:44
SPEAKER_02: So um the new RFO part 42 mentions that you can look at CPARs, past performance, um even in your market research.
43:52
SPEAKER_02: So you can look at CPARs as a way of even determining contractor responsibility.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: No, why weren't people looking at CPARs during Market research originally.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Like why is that a new introduction of an idea?
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Were they not allowed to look at CPARs before?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Because you would think that would be I mean, if I'm if I'm gonna go to a restaurant, you should look at Yelp reviews.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: You don't just walk in and say, all right, I'm gonna eat here.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: And then before ordering, then you start looking at CPARs or during the contact, look at CPARs.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Why is that something that's uh you're talking about something new with the R.
44:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, reviews are always a part of our market research.
44:22
SPEAKER_02: I I it's always been there.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: So you you were always able to do it.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh as a practice, the workforce generally only used it for past performance evaluations in a source selection.
44:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, CPARs is available.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: Now it's, I think it's on um sam.gov or FAPIS is the acronym.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh CEOs are encouraged more to to check out those Yelp reviews of contractors.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: Anything else on the RFO there, part nine?
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's so much about part nine.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well for now we can save it.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: We'll save another episode.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh questions from our listeners.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Again, if you have questions you'd like to have answered on this show live, and I say live, I mean recorded and posted a week later.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: But answered on this on this show live, please leave a comment or question below on this video, on any of our other videos.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: We will find it.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: We will answer it, and you'll get a real honest answer from us.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Question from listener Knar.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is a regular name.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: Kana Richards.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: Kana Richards 7450 at Kana Richards 7450.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Will, what is your favorite cologne and why?
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
45:26
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the questions.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, answer it then.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: It's not a real question.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: Uh why do definitions in FAR subsections trump definitions in FAR part two?
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a good question.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: And the Trump isn't quotation, so I'm not sure if that's like a callback to the executive orders that Trump kind of put all this into practice, or they just wanted to say Trump.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: I think it's because of the joke I had in the video.
45:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: I think uh maybe.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: I said at one point that Trump doesn't trump statutes.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's why then, probably.
45:53
SPEAKER_02: All right.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: Uh so the answer to the first question uh Dior Fahrenheit.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: That's the best cologne ever.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, what season?
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh anytime.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Any season, okay.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: Any season, even in the hot, sticky Florida September.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: Nice, excellent.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: So so what was the question again?
46:07
SPEAKER_00: They're why do definitions in FAR subsections trump definitions in FAR Part Two?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: So far part two has all the definitions, but then uh subsections trump them.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's a that's a rule of convention in FAR Part One.
46:19
SPEAKER_02: Far Part One has these rules of convention that explain how to read the FAR.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: And one of those um one of those rules of conventions is there there's the definitions in part two.
46:30
SPEAKER_02: That's just the the main definitions.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: But if you look in a in a part of the FAR, they may have another definition for that same uh word.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: And and if you're in that part of the FAR, it trumps part two.
46:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the one of the best examples is the word day.
46:47
SPEAKER_02: I think day.
46:48
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna oversimplify this.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: But if you look at maybe the definition of of day in uh part two, that may mean calendar days.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: If you look at um uh protests and how long you have to do something, uh like you have 10 days to do this, or they it may mean calendar days, so the weekends included.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes when we're talking about a certain number of days, it means business day, like a weekday, not a weekend.
47:17
SPEAKER_02: So depending on where you are in the far, terms can have different meanings and and they can change.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: So great question.
47:23
SPEAKER_02: If there's no definition at all in the part you're in, refer to part two.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: But if you're working in a particular part of the far, part 12, part uh 16, and they're uh defining something differently than part two, you're definitely gonna want to look at that definition because it's it's gonna it could be it could be different and um it could kill you if you're not careful.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Use the wrong definition.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: Knowledge is life saving.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: All right.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh last question.
47:46
SPEAKER_00: This is less of a question, more of a request to make a video.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh so maybe we'll have to find a way to answer it here, but at shrimp 30 up.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: At shrimp 30 UP, can you make a video about how a Prime can use a can use subcontractors on simplified acquisitions?
48:03
SPEAKER_00: I think the hardest part for me, I I I think the hardest part for me, since I'll be using subs, is getting the price low enough that it's a win-win for everyone.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: So this is a contractor uh using subs, struggling with price here.
48:15
SPEAKER_00: And they want a video about how a Prime can use subcontractors on simplified acquisitions.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think we answered this question way back in an acquisition for dummies on our YouTube channel.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: So to check out that, I think it's one of the second or third, this is a, I think it's an older question.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe it is.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's we but we in that video, I'll just summarize that.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: We briefly talked about the challenge, and now I'm I'm talking probably to industry because it's something the government is an industry question, but something the government doesn't have to worry about.
48:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's when you're in a teaming arrangement, or not a teaming arrangement, when you're trying to get companies together to submit a proposal uh to the government, if you're the prime, you're kind of like the belly button.
48:56
SPEAKER_02: You're the one who's coordinating that.
48:58
SPEAKER_02: If you're in a source selection where uh the government comes back and says, give me your best and final offer or and try and give me maybe lower prices, or they're asking, can you lower your prices?
49:09
SPEAKER_02: You've got to go back to those subs and say, All right, you got to figure that out.
49:13
SPEAKER_02: Um you gotta say, can we uh I've been in we've we've been subs on projects where the prime uh proposing came back to us and said, Can we all just cut by 10%?
49:22
SPEAKER_02: All right, can we all just cut by uh 10%?
49:26
SPEAKER_02: And and sometimes we could, but sometimes we we had to a sub say, hey, we're out.
49:31
SPEAKER_02: If it's this low, we're not gonna race to the bottom on this.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a challenge to get to a win-win with the subs when I've I've also been as a government person in conversations with um with primes or especially in a sole source where I know you know they're gonna get it, where they come to me honestly and they say, Listen, you're not gonna get these guys.
49:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm not gonna be able to get these guys if if you if it's gonna go down any lower.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: I can find somebody else, but we're gonna have to talk about the quality then because if you want the best, yeah, so they can have that honest conversation.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: But that's a challenge working with subs.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh they just, especially in a competition where you're not sure and they're and price is a big piece of it.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: Primes have to talk to their subs and and help help them understand.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: Listen, we may have to decide whether or not we want to lower our prices across the board.
50:19
SPEAKER_02: Primes also don't get the cost breakdown of subs, right?
50:21
SPEAKER_02: No one's not everyone's cracking open their books with each other.
50:25
SPEAKER_02: So it's very kind of arm's length when you have these and you're asking the subs to give prices, but you can't probe too much because every, you know, they they've got proprietary information.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:34
SPEAKER_00: So build build strong relationships with primes early and often.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: So when you get in these situations, you can be adaptable and choose the right ones, choose them quickly.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, all right.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Anything else, Will, before we close?
50:45
SPEAKER_00: Happy um Lewis and Clark Day.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: Please celebrate uh the 23rd uh responsibly.
50:50
SPEAKER_02: And watch Almost Heroes.
50:51
SPEAKER_02: Watch Almost Heroes.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do some exploring.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: If if you can't get out, then explore the RFO.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: If you can't get out, why can't people get out?
51:02
SPEAKER_00: You're just stuck in the apartment.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: If you're stuck in the stuck in the apartment or end of the fiscal year.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: If you're busy with stuff, there's other ways to explore, and there's other uh new territories.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: And one of those new territories is cracking open a new RFO part 12.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: All right.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us on the Far Is Lava, where we dissect the news stories so you don't have to.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, leave a comment or question below, and share this episode with a friend, even a best friend or a spouse.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: The Far Is Lava is sponsored by ASI Government, editorial work by Anne Borent, produced in collaboration with Studio Podcast Suite.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with another round of stories, The Lens of the RFO.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Happy content, have a great week.