PSC Council Spotlight

Acquisition and Business Policy Council

The Acquisition and Business Policy Council (ABPC) is the principal body for developing PSC’s policy positions and mobilizing action on major business and buying policy initiatives across the U.S. federal government. ABPC fosters productive dialogue among stakeholders, whether federal civilian, military, industry, or other officials, and strives to improve federal services acquisition outcomes. This Council leverages regular meetings, timely information exchanges, and relevant programming to the benefit of both government officials and PSC members. ABPC also offers substantive feedback on issues highlighted within the federal rukemaking process to underscore the value of the government services contractor and to support policy and process improvements across the government.

Key Accomplishments

Emphasized to federal official real-world issues associated with higher-than-expected inflation, as well with workforce and supply chain challenges.

Assessed impacts of implementing the federal government’s priorities (e.g., climate; diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility) on federal contracting, submitted comments regarding greenhouse gas emissions and cybersecurity incident disclosure requirements, labor law violations, and confidential employee data.

Maintained a Coronavirus Resource Center to keep PSC members apprised of COVID-19- related requirements for federal contractors as the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force and the judicial system considered or instituted changes to previous approaches.

Built and maintained an Inflation Resource Center to keep members apprised of the effects of inflation on federal contractors and government responses to counteract these effects, such as GSA’s response to PSC’s comments on inflation, pricing, and supply chain policies.

Planned and hosted the 8th annual Federal Acquisition Conference at which PSC rolled out its 4th annual Federal Business Forecast Scorecard, an assessment of 62 federal agencies’ and subagencies’ web-based procurement forecasts; Scorecard-related engagements with those entities often lead to improved transparency and information-sharing.

Hosted several executive and legislative branch officials during monthly Contracting Working Group meetings, monthly Government Affairs Committee meetings, and other timely, topical programming; discussion topics included GSA’s Polaris, OASIS+, and Alliant 3 vehicles, updates to SAM.gov, cybersecurity legislation, reducing audit backlogs, and contractor compliance issues.

Communicated with congressional officials on critical legislation and regulations affecting our industry.