Understanding Preferred Federal Procurement

The content of this page is intended for use as reference material ONLY. It is NOT intended for use by procurement agencies or manufacturers in making policy decisions.

Perhaps the most important consideration in understanding preferred Federal Procurement of biobased products is that manufacturer participation is voluntary. By participating in the program, biobased products can quality to get on a Federal Preferred Procurement Product List. This list is intended to give industry incentive to include more biobased materials in their products. However, if a biobased manufacturer is comfortable competing for Federal contracts without the additional support provided by being on this list, that is their own business decision to make. There is a $10,000 limit and other stipulations to consider in deciding whether or not to participate in the program (see below).

The Federal Product Preferred Procurement Program (fb4p) under administration of the USDA is an affirmative action plan to help the biobased industry gain momentum. The positive effects of this effort include four valuable considerations.

1. Biobased products are primarily domestically produced and support the US economy.
2. The program provides incentive to produce products that are more environmentally friendly (with a higher degree of degradability than their petrochemical counterparts)
3. Biobased manufacturing will help reduce US dependence on foreign oil.
4. Biobased manufacturing will help economically stimulate US rural agricultural communities.

Executive Order 13101

On September 14, 1998 President Clinton signed Executive Order 13101 – “Greening the Government through Waste Prevention, Recycling, and Federal Acquisition”. Section 102 of that order stated that “agencies shall comply with executive branch policies for the acquisition and use of environmentally preferable products and services and implement cost-effective procurement programs favoring the purchase of these products and services”. “Environmentally preferable” was defined as “products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose”.

Executive Order 13101 served as a bench mark for the procurement of biobased products by Federal agencies. The Office of the Federal Environmental Executive was established as an oversight agency, the USDA was charged with the responsibility of issuing a Biobased Products List, and government agencies were encouraged to modify their affirmative procurement programs to give consideration to biobased products. A “biobased product” was defined as “commercial or industrial product (other than food or feed) that utilizes biological products or renewable domestic agriculture (plant, animal, and marine) or forestry materials”

Reference/more: http://www.ofee.gov/eo/13101.htm

Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002

On May 13, 2002, President Bush signed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 into law. This law requires Federal agencies to purchase biobased products, unless there is a price, performance, or availability reason not to do so. Section 9002 requires Federal agencies to give preference to procurement items which the highest percentage of biobased content practical, while maintaining a consistent level of competition.

Stipulations within Section 9002 are as follows.

• It only applies to purchases over $10,000.

The $10,000 limit applies to a single purchase or acquisition, or to multiple purchases/acquisitions for items purchased at a total cost of $10,000 in the course of the preceding fiscal year.

• It does not apply to procurement of items where purchase would be inconsistent with regulations under section 6002 of the Solid Waste Disposal Act.

The Solid Waste Disposal Act is also known as RCRA (pronounced Rick-Ra). This is prior regulation (May 1, 1995) requiring Federal procuring agencies to purchase materials with the highest percentage of recovered materials in them. RCRA was a benchmark law for the utilization of recycled materials.
(Reference/ an more: http://www.ornl.gov/adm/ornlp2/sec6002.htm)

• In consideration of other requirements within the law, an agency may decide not to purchase biobased items for the following reasons

They are not reasonably available within a reasonable amount of time
They fail to meet required performance standards.
They are too expensive or unreasonably priced.

• Manufacturers will be required to certify that their biobased products meet contractual requirements and specifications.

This should be expected and is standard procedure for submittal of any proposal. However, new items to include with these certifications will include biobased carbon-14 measurements certifying the biobased content of the product and a Life Cycle Analysis of the product.

• Once final guidelines are put in place by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Federal procurement agencies will have 12 months to implement preferred biobased procurement policies.

On December 19, 2003 the USDA put forth Proposed Rules for Federal procurement of biobased products (open PDF – Proposed Rule, December 19, 2003). As of July 2004, the rule was still under consideration within the USDA. When the USDA is confident it has a working set of rules, they will be passed on to the Office of the Environmental Executive (OFEE) for review. Upon concurrence, the OFEE will forward the rules on to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for assessment and implementation as a Final Rule. This Final Rule will hopefully be in place by December 2004. Once that is done, Federal Agencies will then have 12 months to implement their biobased procurement programs.

• Criteria the agency procurement programs must address will include are:
  • Inclusion of a biobased products preference program.
  • An agency promotion program to promote the preference program.
  • An annual review and monitoring of the effectiveness of the program.
  • Consideration for awarding contracts to venders with products containing the highest biobased content.
  • Consideration of acceptable minimum biobased content
  • Provisions to purchase products containing less than the minimum biobased content when applicable limitations apply.

A USDA Certified Biobased Product Label will be available to producers of biobased products.

Criteria are yet to be established defining who may use this label. Programs will be implemented to assure it is only used for products that meet those criteria.

Reference/more: http://www.ofee.gov/whats/bbfarm.htm