Ensuring Federal Purchasing Efficiency Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. FALLON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my bill, H.R. 7283, the Ensuring Federal Purchasing Efficiency Act.

This commonsense, bipartisan legislation is a government procurement reform bill that allows for far more efficient government spending and reduces the burden on small businesses by ensuring they don't have to navigate different procurement policies from year to year.

The Federal Acquisition Council is responsible for making inflation- related adjustments for title 41 purchasing thresholds. Title 41 of the U.S. Code establishes how the Federal Government acquires goods and services.

These dollar thresholds define the applicability of different policies, procedures, and restrictions to the procurement of property or services by Federal agencies.

Currently, the Federal Acquisition Council makes inflation-related adjustments to purchasing thresholds every 5 years. This bill simply amends title 41, U.S. Code, to require the Federal Acquisition Council to make these adjustments every 3 years, instead of 5, as my good friend from Missouri mentioned.

Importantly, this bill does not change the procurement threshold criteria for government agencies.

By allowing these inflation-related adjustments to occur more often, it allows Federal acquisitions to better align with purchasing power. In other words, it allows them to be more--say it with me--efficient, something everyone needs more of at this Federal level.

Adjusting for inflation on a more frequent basis will save tax dollars spent on administrative costs and will help small businesses by freeing them from navigating different procurement policies every single year.

This bill will allow for increased competition to do business with the government and allowing contracting officers to spend more time focusing on larger, more complex procurements.

This bill represents part of a suite of procurement-related legislative requests from the administration, specifically the GSA and OMB.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation to promote more government efficiency.

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