NOTE: Full Story access is limited to Government Contracts subscribers.
Trump’s Executive Orders Have Sharp Focus on Government Contracting
President Trump has begun his second administration by issuing a slew of executive orders that focus on federal procurement. E.O. 14151, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs (90 Fed. Reg. 8339), has implications for federal contractors who have provided “diversity, equity inclusion” training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees. E.O. 14151 directs each agency or department head to consult with the Attorney General, the Director of Office of Management and Budget, and the Director of Office of Personnel Management, within 60 days, to “terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all ‘‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’’ and DEI accessibility “performance requirements for … contractors.” Also, each agency or department head must provide the Director of the OMB with a list of all “[f]ederal contractors who have provided DEI training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees.”
Full Story: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS REPORTS No. 2785
E.O. Eliminates Requirement for Contractors to Maintain Affirmative Action Programs
President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” removes the requirement for government contractors to maintain affirmative action programs and halts enforcement activity of race or gender affirmative action plans by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. This order revokes E.O.11246, Equal Employment Opportunity, the primary executive order on federal contractor affirmative action obligations (signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965), as well as other executive orders and presidential memoranda that encompass contractor affirmative action obligations.
Section 3 of the E.O. calls for a contracting process “to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with … civil-rights laws.” The E.O. forbids government contractors from considering race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin in their “employment, procurement or contracting practices” in a manner that violates the “Nation’s civil rights laws.”
The E.O. further prohibits programs or requirements that promote “affirmative action,” “diversity,” “equity,” and related practices. Contractors will be required to agree that they will comply “in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws” as a condition of all future contracts, and compliance will be material to government payments. In addition, the E.O. requires contractors to certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate applicable federal anti-discrimination laws.
Full story: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS REPORTS No. 2784
Executive Order Calls for Termination of Law Firm’s Contracts
Executive Order 14230, Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie LLP, directs executive agencies to terminate contracts entered into with the law firm Perkins Coie LLP. The order follows President Trump’s preceding Executive Order 14222, Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Cost Efficiency Initiative, which called for “a transformation in Federal spending on contracts … to ensure Government spending is transparent and … accountable to the American public.” E.O. 14230 states that to “prevent the transfer of taxpayer dollars to Federal contractors whose earnings subsidize,” among things, racial discrimination, “contracting agencies shall, to the extent permissible by law, require Government contractors to disclose any business they do with Perkins Coie and whether that business is related to the subject of the Government contract.”
Agencies must review “all contracts with Perkins Coie or with entities that disclose doing business with Perkins Coie” and “take appropriate steps to terminate any contract, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, including the Federal Acquisition Regulation, for which Perkins Coie has been hired to perform any service.”
Full story: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS REPORTS No. 2790