The Defense Department, NASA and the General Services Administration have proposed an amendment to the Federal Acquisition Regulation in order to change the way agencies identify organizations that receive contracts, grants and other federal awards, FierceGovernmentIT reported Friday.Molly Bernhart Walker writes the proposed rule aims to remove and replace the use of Dun & Bradstreet’s proprietary Data Universal Numbering System with more general terms to uniquely identify award recipients and promote competition.
NASA, DoD and GSA have proposed to add the definitions of “electronic funds transfer indicator” and “unique entity identifier” to FAR under the proposed amendment, according to the report.
The Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget will work with the Award Committee for E-Government and GSA to develop a transparent process to determine possible options to current systems used to identify award recipients, Walker notes.
Comments to the proposed rule are due Jan. 19, 2016, according to a notice on the Federal Register.
