FAR Council targets eight FAR parts under EO 14275

The FAR Council is moving the Federal Acquisition Regulation in an unusual direction: less text, not more. OFPP, DoD, GSA and NASA proposed revisions to FAR parts 1, 2, 4, 33, 39, 40, 52 and 53 as part of a broader set of 12 proposed rules implementing Executive Order 14275, which directs the elimination of excessive acquisition regulations.

That matters for contractors because the affected parts include the plumbing of federal procurement: definitions, administrative and information matters, protests and disputes, acquisition of information and communication technology, information security and supply chain security, clauses and forms. The notice says the project is aimed at streamlining the FAR. It does not yet answer the question CMMC-side readers actually need answered, which is whether any maturity level thresholds, cybersecurity flowdowns or security-related clause obligations are being eliminated, relaxed or simply moved.

The official FAR overhaul page frames the governmentwide effort as a comprehensive rewrite intended to return the FAR to statutory roots, use plainer language and remove most non-statutory rules, with non-regulatory buying guides sitting outside the FAR (https://www.acquisition.gov/far-overhaul). That is a real policy shift for a procurement system that usually adds compliance requirements by accretion. But until the clause-level changes are tied to awards, solicitations and subcontract flowdowns, the Monday-morning instruction is boring and important: do not treat the overhaul as CMMC relief. Track the proposed text, watch for the final rule and keep existing contract obligations intact until the government says otherwise.