Government Contracts Intelligence Briefing

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.”