FAR 13.5 Test Program for Certain Commercial Items

It hasn't expired. Congress eliminated the expiration and made it permanent in the 2015 DOD authorization act, sec. 815. The FAR councils just haven't gotten around to making the change yet. FAR Case 2015-010 would make the change. The final rule went to the FAR Secretariat on April 22 for prep of a FAC.

Statute trumps regulation. Go ahead and use it.

DOD and GSA (I think) and maybe some other agencies issued class deviations around the first week of January or so but I didn't see them on the "Rules and Tools" WIFCON Page.

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Joel:

Both the DoD deviation and the CAAC deviation are on the Rules and Tools Page. Here are the names and the date I added them to the Home Page. Civilian Agency Acquisition Council CAAC Letter 2015-01: Class Deviation from FAR Subpart 13.5, Test Program for Certain Commercial Items. (pdf) (January 5, 2015) and Class Deviation 2015-O0004: Permanent Authority for Use of Simplified Acquisition Procedures for Certain Commercial Items. (pdf) (December 29, 2014)

Here's information on class deviations to the FAR until the FAR is changed as follows:

GSA: http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/03/f20/CAACLtr_%202015-01%20CommercialTestPermanentExt%20%283%29.pdf

DOD: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/policy/policyvault/USA007382-14-DPAP.pdf

Part of your policies and procedures should include following the WIFCON.com Home Page every day, plus keeping current with whatever policy guidance is sent out to your agency.

Also, if you are in DOD, the Hill AFB version of the FAR includes a reference to the Class Deviation cited above.

thank you all for your assistance

Vern, I think that you may have meant to post your last comment under another thread. In "this case" this thread was discussing Congress making the "Test Case" permanent.