25.604 Preaward determination concerning the inapplicability of section 1605 of the Recovery Act or the Buy American statute
Source: FAR 25.604 on acquisition.gov
Offerors can request a preaward determination to waive Buy American or Recovery Act requirements for specific construction materials if domestic options are unreasonably costly, based on defined thresholds.
Overview
FAR 25.604 outlines the process for determining, before contract award, whether section 1605 of the Recovery Act or the Buy American statute does not apply to specific construction materials in a federal acquisition. Offerors may request such a determination by submitting required information and supporting data as specified in the solicitation. The contracting officer must evaluate these requests using the provided data and any other readily available information. The regulation establishes specific cost comparison thresholds: for manufactured construction materials, if using domestic materials increases the contract price by more than 25%, the cost is deemed unreasonable; for unmanufactured materials, the threshold is 20%. If these thresholds are met, the contracting officer may determine that the domestic material requirement is inapplicable for those items.
(a) For any acquisition, an offeror may request from the contracting officer a determination concerning the inapplicability of section 1605 of the Recovery Act or the Buy American statute for specifically identified construction materials. The time for submitting the request is specified in the solicitation in paragraph (b) of either 52.225-22 or 52.225-24, whichever applies. The information and supporting data that must be included in the request are also specified in the solicitation in paragraphs (c) and (d) of either 52.225-21 or 52.225-23, whichever applies.
(b) Before award, the contracting officer must evaluate all requests based on the information provided and may supplement this information with other readily available information.
(c) Determination based on unreasonable cost of domestic construction material.
(1) Manufactured construction material. The contracting officer must compare the offered price of the contract using foreign manufactured construction material (i.e., any construction material not manufactured in the United States, or construction material consisting predominantly of iron or steel and the iron or steel is not produced in the United States) to the estimated price if all domestic manufactured construction material were used. If use of domestic manufactured construction material would increase the overall offered price of the contract by more than 25 percent, then the contracting officer shall determine that the cost of the domestic manufactured construction material is unreasonable
(2) Unmanufactured construction material. The contracting officer must compare the cost of each foreign unmanufactured construction material to the cost of domestic unmanufactured construction material. If the cost of the domestic unmanufactured construction material exceeds the cost of the foreign unmanufactured construction material by more than 20 percent, then the contracting officer shall determine that the cost of the domestic unmanufactured construction material is unreasonable.