The General Services Administration (GSA) announced it is extending its already relaxed policies around economic price adjustment (EPA) contract clauses through September 30.
Under the relaxed EPA clause released on March 6, GSA contracting officers can more easily adjust prices at a vendor’s request. The inflation-related changes only apply to GSA-managed contracts – likes schedules and governmentwide vehicles.
This is the second extension of the temporary moratorium aimed to ease inflation-related and other burdens on contractors since 2022.
GSA’s first extension for these inflation-related measures came last September and was slated to sunset on March 31. But GSA’s most recent March 6 memo extends the policy through the end of fiscal year 2023 which ends on Sept. 30.
“Various factors such as inflation, supply chain shortages, and price volatility continue to significantly impact the global economy,” the most recent memo says. “Therefore, there is a continued need for this temporary moratorium.”
“The temporary moratorium is achieving some of its key objectives, including ensuring GSA continues offering customers a full range of products, services, and solutions through the Federal Supply Schedule program and GSA Global Supply,” the first extension memo says.
“However, this Supplement aims to further streamline the processing of EPA requests through the removal of additional administrative barriers,” it continues.
The memo says that the GSA is removing the requirement for contracting officers to obtain additional approvals for inflation adjustments. This means, the agency says, that all requests for EPA increases can be approved by the contracting officer, whether above or below the ceiling percentage established in the solicitation.
This supplement also extends the temporary moratorium on enforcing ceiling percentages, time-based limitations, and other specific limitations – like the number of requests.
GSA reminded contracting officers that this moratorium does not diminish their responsibility for reviewing EPA requests and asking for additional information to ensure the request is justified.
