What Does the FAR Overhaul’s Construction Rule Mean for Security Projects?
The FAR Council's September 2026 proposed rule for sealed bidding, bonds and construction strips out clauses that many protective-construction projects quietly relied on. The requirements do not disappear; the responsibility for writing them moves to the agency and its designers.
It moves construction requirements out of the regulation and into the solicitation. FAR Case 2026-010, published September 18, 2026, proposes removing default clauses on contractor self-performance, organization and direction of the work, site visits and physical data. Agencies can still require all of these, but only if the solicitation says so. For security construction, where field execution decides performance, those requirements should now be written deliberately into every package.
On September 18, 2026, the FAR Council published a proposed rule rewriting FAR Parts 14, 28 and 36 and their associated Part 52 clauses (FAR Case 2026-010, 91 FR 59534). It is one of twelve proposed rules implementing Executive Order 14275, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement, and it carries the same premise as the rest of the overhaul: the FAR should "contain only provisions that are required by statute or that are otherwise necessary to support simplicity and usability." Nonstatutory "how to" content moves to nonregulatory guidance such as the FAR Companion. Comments are due through Regulations.gov by October 19, 2026.
Most coverage of the overhaul has focused on competition and commercial buying. For agencies that build secure facilities, Part 36 is the section to read closely, because it governs how construction is bought and supervised.
What the proposed Part 36 does
The rule separates construction from architect-engineer services, which the preamble notes have been combined since 1946, and reorganizes Part 36 by acquisition phase. Part 28 on bonds and insurance receives simplification and administrative corrections only; the preamble states there is no substantive policy change there. Part 14 on sealed bidding is trimmed of text the Council considers duplicative or outdated.
The changes that matter most for security construction are the clauses proposed for removal:
- 52.236-1, Performance of Work by the Contractor. The current clause requires the contractor to perform a stated percentage of the work on site with its own organization. The preamble describes it as believed to restrict competition on fixed-price contracts.
- 36.519 and 52.236-19, Organization and Direction of the Work, including the mandate for full-time direction of the work at the site.
- 36.210 and 52.236-27, Site Visit, and 52.236-4, Physical Data, the latter because 52.236-3 is considered to cover the same intent.
- The preconstruction conference text and 52.236-26, which the Council recommends moving to the FAR Companion, with the requirement itself shifting to the solicitation stage.
The preamble is explicit that removal is not prohibition. On preconstruction conferences, removing the text "would not prohibit nor limit the contracting officer from establishing a requirement." On site visits, it says the same of providing "the opportunity or requirement" for offerors to visit the site.
Two further points from early legal analysis are relevant. Wiley reports that the proposed text bars reverse auctions for some design and construction services, and that the differing site conditions provision would allow an equitable adjustment only where the contractor both gave prior written notice and submitted its request before final payment, where the earlier model deviation text used "or."
Why these defaults mattered for protective construction
Ordinary construction can often absorb a gap in supervision or site knowledge. Protective construction usually cannot. The performance of a ballistic wall, a forced-entry assembly or a vehicle barrier foundation depends on how it is built as much as on what is specified. A tested assembly performs as tested only when joints, anchorage, reinforcement, penetrations and transitions match the tested configuration. That is a field-execution problem, and the removed clauses were among the few generic tools that addressed it.
- Self-performance kept a meaningful share of the work in the hands of the firm that signed the contract, which matters when a specialized protective scope could otherwise be passed down several tiers.
- On-site direction put a responsible person at the work site, which matters when concealed protective work is closed up daily.
- Site visits and physical data gave offerors a basis for pricing retrofit conditions, such as existing slabs, embedded utilities and adjacent occupied spaces, that drive protective-construction cost and risk.
- Preconstruction conferences were often where submittal sequencing, mockups and inspection hold points for protective work were first agreed.
None of these protections disappears under the proposal. Each becomes optional, which in practice means each survives only where someone writes it into the package.
What agencies and designers should do now
The overhaul's logic is that requirements should be deliberate, not inherited. Security construction benefits from that discipline if the requirements are actually written. For each protective-construction solicitation, the package should state:
- the share and type of protective work to be performed by the prime contractor or by named categories of qualified installers;
- on-site supervision requirements for protective scopes, including qualifications and presence during concealed work;
- site visit arrangements and available existing-conditions data, especially for retrofits in occupied or secure facilities;
- a preconstruction meeting requirement covering submittals, mockups, inspection hold points and acceptance evidence;
- performance criteria for each protective element, tied to a named test standard and to the tested assembly, as discussed in Certanet's guidance on procurement language for secure facilities.
These requirements belong in the specifications and project-specific sections, where 52.236-21, Specifications and Drawings for Construction, which is not among the clauses proposed for removal, gives them contractual force. Agencies with standard Division 01 templates should review them now, because many templates were written on the assumption that the FAR clauses would supply this content.
The comment window
The comment period closes October 19, 2026. Agencies, designers and contractors with experience in protective construction are well placed to explain, with project examples, where removing default clauses could weaken field quality and where nonregulatory guidance in the FAR Companion should address protective scopes specifically. The rule is still proposed. Whatever form the final text takes, the direction is clear: construction requirements will increasingly live in the solicitation, and the quality of secure facilities will depend on how carefully those solicitations are written.
That is consistent with a theme Certanet has argued for some time. Published standards and clear performance criteria do more for secure construction than generic clauses ever did. The overhaul removes the generic clauses. It is now up to owners and their designers to supply the criteria.
Recommended citation
Certanet Research, “What Does the FAR Overhaul’s Construction Rule Mean for Security Projects?” Certanet, October 12, 2026, https://certanet.com/articles/far-overhaul-part-36-security-construction.html.