DOD, NASA, GSA Eye Rule to Cut Climate Risk in Federal Contracting Process

The Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration intend to propose a rule as a potential amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to mitigate the risk of climate change in federal agency procurements.

The agencies are considering introducing the rule in accordance with an executive order released in May that seeks to come up with a whole-of-government approach to minimizing climate-related financial risk, according to a Federal Register notice published Friday.

DOD, GSA and NASA want interested stakeholders to provide feedback on how greenhouse gas emissions can be quantitatively and qualitatively considered in decisions related to federal procurements and how would an organization provide greenhouse gas emission-related data for proposals and contract performance.

They also want to know how program and acquisition officials of federal agency procurements can better minimize climate-related financial risk and how the federal government could help standardize reporting methods for greenhouse gas emissions.

Interested stakeholders could also provide insights on how the federal government could give preference to proposals and bids from suppliers to lessen the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions and potential impacts on small businesses of considering the social cost of greenhouse gases in procurement decisions.

Public comments are due Dec. 14.

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