Public Comments Are a Government Contracting Strategy Tool, Not a Formality
Federal contractors spend enormous resources responding to rules after they become binding. Far less attention is devoted to the period when those same rules are still being written.
That imbalance deserves reconsideration.
In an August 12 Federal News Network interview, Terry Gerton spoke with Colette Delawalla, founder of the Stand Up for Science Foundation, about the public's limited understanding of federal notice-and-comment procedures. Delawalla's central point was straightforward: people often underestimate the value of their own operational experience and therefore decline opportunities to tell agencies how proposed policies will work in practice.
For government contractors, that is not merely a civics issue. It is an acquisition strategy issue.
The federal rulemaking process gives affected parties an opportunity to provide agencies with information concerning a proposed rule's effects and possible alternatives. GAO has described the comment process as involving agency receipt and processing of comments, consideration of relevant and substantive submissions, and identification of revisions that may be appropriate in response.
The distinction between a comment and an effective comment is important. General expressions of support or opposition may communicate sentiment, but technically useful submissions do more. They identify the provision at issue, explain the operational consequence, supply data or concrete examples, identify unintended effects, and propose an administrable alternative.
That format should sound familiar to government contractors because it resembles good acquisition advocacy. Contractors routinely possess information agencies lack: actual implementation costs, supply-chain limitations, workforce availability, cybersecurity dependencies, commercial practices, subcontractor burdens, technology lead times, pricing consequences, and the interaction between multiple regulatory requirements.
A proposed requirement that appears inexpensive from Washington may impose significant systems changes across hundreds of subcontractors. A cybersecurity reporting period that looks manageable in isolation may conflict with incident-investigation realities. A small-business rule may unintentionally discourage otherwise useful teaming structures. A labor requirement may create pricing assumptions that do not correspond to the available workforce.
Those facts belong in the rulemaking record before compliance becomes mandatory.
Participation also forces contractors to distinguish lobbying from technical regulatory engagement. A persuasive comment does not need to attack the policy objective. Often the stronger approach accepts the agency's objective and demonstrates that another mechanism would accomplish it more effectively, at lower cost, with greater clarity, or with fewer unintended consequences.
Government contractors should therefore monitor the Federal Register and acquisition-policy dockets with the same seriousness they apply to procurement forecasts. FAR and DFARS cases, SBA regulations, cybersecurity rules, labor requirements, domestic-source restrictions, and agency supplements can materially affect future contract economics long before the first solicitation incorporates them.
The procurement community frequently complains that regulatory requirements are impractical after they arrive in a contract. Notice and comment represents the earlier moment when industry has an opportunity to explain why.
The government is asking the question. Contractors should become better at answering it.
Recommended FedContractPros.com Tool: Federal White Paper Drafting Kit. A regulatory comment is not identical to a federal white paper, but both depend on disciplined claims, credible evidence, structured analysis, and a concrete recommendation. The Kit provides a practical framework for organizing precisely that type of agency-facing argument.
Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, lobbying, regulatory, or government-relations advice. Organizations should evaluate applicable lobbying, ethics, disclosure, and regulatory requirements before submitting agency comments.