IV. Regulatory Flexibility Act

DoD has prepared a final regulatory flexibility analysis (FRFA) consistent with the Regulatory Flexibility Act, 5 U.S.C. 601, et seq.

The FRFA is summarized as follows:

This rule finalizes a proposed amendment to the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) which was published on January 19, 2012. DFARS subpart 204.70, Uniform Procurement Instrument Identification Numbers, prescribes numbering procedures for contract modifications, and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 43.1, General, prescribes guidelines for determining the effective date.

There are no rules to describe in what order to apply modifications to determine the actual content of a resulting modified contract.

The objective of the rule is to provide a set of rules to the contracting officer to resolve any potential conflicts from multiple modifications with the same effective date.

There were no public comments in response to the initial regulatory flexibility analysis.

DoD received no comments by the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration in response to the proposed rule.

The changes required to the DFARS by this case only affect the internal operating processes of DoD by establishing an order of application for contract modifications. These changes are not expected to have an economic impact on contractors.

This rule does not impose any new reporting or recordkeeping requirements.

The alternative to this rule is to continue relying on DFARS subpart 204.70, which prescribes numbering procedures for contract modifications, and FAR subpart 43.1, which provides guidelines for determining the effective date. However, the cited text does not provide a clear structured path to ensure no ambiguity arises when determining in what order to apply modifications.

There is no significant economic impact on small entities.