A rule proposed by the General Services Administration to gather pricing data from contractors is part of the agency’s effort to boost contract efficiencies and agencies’ buying power. But contractors are concerned that it could be costly and compromise their pricing information.

In March, GSA proposed a change to its acquisition regulations that would require vendors to report transactional data from orders and prices paid by ordering activities, including orders under Federal Supply Schedule contracts, non-FSS contract vehicles, governmentwide acquisition contracts, and indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts.

At a daylong public meeting on the proposed rule at GSA’s Washington headquarters on April 17, agency officials said the proposed change would help address several challenges GSA faces with multiplying contracts, price differences among contracting vehicles, general transparency and rules that in some cases were put in place before the Internet took hold.

Kevin Youel-Page, assistant commissioner of GSA’s Integrated Award Environment, said the information gathered under the proposed rule would help give federal customers a system that better fits their needs.

“The federal government is the biggest buyer on planet Earth,” he told the audience of contractors and federal employees gathered to discuss the proposal. “We need to act like it.”

Anne Rung, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, reminded the audience that the federal procurement process “is plagued by complexity and duplication.” The proposed rule would bolster OFPP’s “new vision” for federal buying, including the expansion of data-driven procurement practices and category management programs across the entire federal government, she added.

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