On January 29, 2021, Diz Locaria was quoted in Law360 on President Joe Biden's executive order directing federal agencies to maximize their use of domestically sourced products and services, mandating changes to "Made in America" rules, and clamping down on the use of waivers to get around those rules.
According to the article, the order creates a Made in America Office within the White House Office of Management and Budget, and its director is tasked with reviewing every agency request for a Buy America waiver and making all waivers and requests public.
"That czar, for lack of a better term … takes away some of the discretion that the agencies had and puts it at a much higher policymaking [level]," Locaria said.
That higher-level review — when removed from the pressure of meeting contracting needs that agencies also have to consider, and especially when combined with Biden's allegations that the Trump administration "did not take [compliance] seriously enough" — means there is likely to be "a lot less of those contract-specific waivers," Locaria said.
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