First published 34 years ago, it replaced the Armed Services Procurement Regulation, GSA's Federal Procurement Regulation and NASA's Procurement Regulation.
What is the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)?
100
Latin for "in good faith", it signifies "honesty" and "the real thing".
What is bona fide?
100
The law that establishes whether a contract or a financial assistance instrument shall be used.
What is the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act (FGCA)?
100
The term for the purchase of supplies or services or giving a contractor an order to start work by someone who lacked the authority to do so.
What is an unauthorized commitment?
100
OAG's term for goods or services that require special approvals, documentation, requisitioning or ordering procedures.
What is Distinctive Items?
200
It consolidates USGS acquisition and financial assistance policy, operational guidance and procedures.
What is the AOP (Acquisition Operating Procedures)?
200
The online portal that serves to increase competition and participation by industry and small businesses in government contracting.
What is FedBizOpps (FBO)?
200
The instrument used to establish/formalize a relationship; cannot be used to commit or exchange funds.
What is a Memorandum of Understanding?
200
The first action that should be taken when an unauthorized commitment is discovered.
What is return the item or cancel the transaction?
200
Distributed at meetings, conferences and job fairs, they must inform/educate on an initiative or an appropriated program; purchases must include a compelling business and mission-related reason to buy them.
What are Promotional Items?
300
Constitution → President → Secretary of the Interior → Bureau Director → Head of the Contracting Activity → Contracting Officers.
What is the flow of contracting authority?
300
The contracting term for a change that differs from the requirements of the original contract.
What is out-of-scope?
300
A "contract" with another federal agency, it must justify transferring funds Congress appropriated to one agency to another.
What is an interagency agreement?
300
The party responsible for paying for an unauthorized commitment.
Who is the person who made it?
300
The USGS Visual Identity is subject to strict controls on its use and application because it is this.
What is a registered trademark®?
400
The first subject the FAR addresses after covering it's structure and terms used.
What is improper business practices and personal conflicts of interest?
400
Rather than micromanaging the details of how contractors
operate, it sets the standards, sets the results and gives the contractor the freedom to achieve it in the best way.
What is Performance-Based Acquisition?
400
Instruments for receiving funds from an outside entity, they cannot be used to obligate or commit USGS funds.
What is a Reimbursable Agreement, Joint Funding Agreement and/or a CRADA (Cooperative R&D Agreement)?
400
The process of approving an unauthorized purchase after-the-fact, it must prove that the purchase was a proper use of appropriated funds.
What is ratification?
400
It's why nonmonetary awards cannot be presented to contractor employees.
What is ineligibility?
500
The present-day name of the government agency that developed the 6-part test for whether a contract is being used to hire employees.
What is the Office of Personnel Management?
500
Work that must be performed by federal government employees and cannot be performed by contractors.
What are inherently governmental functions?
500
Cooperative agreements that provide space for USGS employees lack the protections of this instrument which is typically used.
What is a GSA lease?
500
Potential consequences to employees making unauthorized commitments.
What is paying out of pocket, supervisory reprimand and/or adverse personnel action?
500
Consolidating buying opportunities across the Government; economies of scale realized by pooling requirements, centralizing agency contracting decisions and maximizing use of government-wide contracts.