Contracting Officers (COs) play a critical role to the Department’s response to domestic contingencies, emergencies, and major disasters (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and fires) in locations across the United States and outlying areas. Efficient and effective contracting at the speed of relevance can greatly improve emergency assistance activities and relief operations and potentially save lives. COs must be aware of the emergency acquisition flexibilities available when supporting domestic contingencies, emergencies and major disasters and the requirements that must be met prior to using such flexibilities.
COs are authorized to use emergency acquisition flexibilities (e.g., increased thresholds), as outlined in FAR 18.2 and DFARS 218.2, when supporting domestic contingencies declared by the Secretary of Defense, and/or emergencies and major disasters declared by the President, so long as the Head of the Contracting Activity (HCA) determines that the acquisition is in support of an contingency, emergency, or major disaster.
Contracting officers should contact their HCA or Component or Agency functional representative to determine if emergency acquisition flexibilities can be leveraged and to see if a National Interest Action (NIA) code has been established to track spend. DPC will continue to distribute NIA codes and updates to such codes to designated Service and Agency representatives.
Contracting officers should routinely check these resources for guiding information pertaining to emergencies and major disasters.
For additional information on emergency acquisitions, please contact the DPC Contingency Contracting team at osd.pentagon.ousd-atl.mbx.contingency-contracting@mail.mil.