Government Contracts Intelligence Briefing

On August 24, 2026, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the launch of the National Fraud Detection Center (NFDC), a new prosecutor-led, multi-agency unit tasked with investigating the actors it describes as doing the most harm to federal programs, including fraud schemes that reach across multiple programs and jurisdictions. For anyone doing business with the federal government or receiving funding from the federal government (including contractors and grant recipients), this is a development worth understanding in detail.

A memo signed this week by Deputy Secretary of War/Defense Stephen Feinberg signals one of the more potentially consequential shifts in defense pricing policy in years. The directive, addressed to senior Pentagon leadership and the directors of the military services and defense agencies, calls for a “reset” of the Department’s expectations around contractor cost and pricing data and floats a tool that would let the Pentagon reach directly into contractors’ financial systems to get it. This, coupled with the broader push to fixed-price contracts, would push contractors to take all of the financial risk in contracts without a potential upside.

On August 20, 2026, the US Small Business Administration published two linked proposed rules in the Federal Register that, together, represent the most consequential change to small business size standards since SBA began its five-year rolling reviews under the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010.

On July 13, 2026, the Department of War (DoW) announced the immediate suspension of Phase II of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program — the phase that was to require formal third-party (C3PAO) certification of Level 2 compliance beginning November 10, 2026. DoW Chief Information Officer Kirsten A. Davies described the move as consistent with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's Acquisition Transformation System, which prioritizes speed to capability and lower barriers to entry for small, medium, and non-traditional defense contractors. DoW is launching a 60-day CMMC Reform Task Force to recommend a scaled-back, more efficient path forward, informed by industry feedback already gathered through a public Request for Information.

As we noted last week, the FAR Council released proposed rules remaking 19 separate FAR parts. Included in the first tranche of proposed rules under the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul (RFO), the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council has released a significantly revised proposed rule governing the protection of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) by civilian contractors. Published on June 23, 2026, at 91 FR 37550, this version updates and supersedes the standalone proposed rule that the FAR Council issued in January 2025 (90 FR 4278, FAR Case 2017-016). The comment deadline for the new proposed rule is July 23, 2026.

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR Council) issued proposed updates to large portions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation as part of its comprehensive, self-titled “Revolutionary” FAR Overhaul Initiative.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed wide-ranging changes to the regulatory requirements (currently known as the “Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance”) underlying billions of dollars in grant awards annually. The proposed revisions make (and rebrand) the guidance as binding, contain new anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) mandates, give the federal government broader powers to terminate grant awards, and prohibit fixed-price awards, among other things.

Since established by Congress in 1978, the Department of Energy has had a program for loans to minority business enterprises. As stated in the regulations implementing the Department of Energy Implementing Act (the “Act”), the purpose of the loans are to “assist such enterprises in participating fully in research, development, demonstration and contract activities of the Department of Energy.”

When world events move quickly, the government contracting space is one area where impacts are felt immediately. Just within the last few days, the Trump administration launched an effort to remove Anthropic’s AI tools from the federal supply chain and executed extensive strikes against the Iranian regime. Both of these news stories will have a broad impact on the government contracting community.

In a series of releases, the Department of Defense/War announced in writing and on social media that it is reviewing 8(a) and small businesses awarded contracts to ensure compliance with subcontracting requirements and current priorities. Contracts that do not comply will be terminated for convenience.