The General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget will hold a public meeting on Jan. 9 in Washington to discuss with industry a provision in the fiscal 2018 defense policy bill about the use of commercial online platforms for procurement processes.GSA said in a Federal Register notice posted Friday it also wants the public to submit comments on Section 846, Procurement through Commercial e-Commerce Portals, of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act that President Donald Trump signed into law Tuesday.
Section 846 requires the GSA administrator to create a program to purchase commercial products through e-commerce sites and directs the OMB director to collaborate with other agencies to implement the provision in three phases.
GSA and OMB will use the stakeholders’ insights from the meeting and public comments to help draft the first-phase implementation plan within 90 days of NDAA’s enactment.
The agencies also have categorized questions into three areas that include program design, buying practices and implementation.
Program design deals with queries related to e-commerce portal providers and incremental approach to the program’s deployment, while buying practices seek to address competition, pricing and delivery and compliance.
Implementation-related questions aim to address changes to the current procurement framework for commercial off-the-shelf items and proposed rulemaking.
All public comments are due Jan. 16, according to the notice.
