Agencies initiate emergency acquisition authorities – At least four agencies have implemented emergency acquisition authorities to make it easier to award contracts to support coronavirus relief efforts. The General Services Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the IRS raised the micro-purchase threshold (MPT) and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) in the last week. The Defense Department on March 17 raised the threshold for sole source 8(a) contracts to $100 million as required under the 2020 Defense authorization bill. This is a huge increase, given typically the threshold for 8(a) contracts at DoD has been $22 million.  Congress increased the threshold for the first time since 2015.