[dustinmr]

I can’t really speak to that specifically. But I can say it doesn’t really fit with either my government contracting experience nor what that particular engineer was explaining to me at the time.

In general, it matters very much how the money is appropriated for whatever you’re going to do with government money. What you might not be able to do under one particular program may not be prohibited at all under another. Or, some official may be empowered to waive some requirements. I would expect, for example, that FEMA might be able to waive the requirement you speak of, if, for example, they found it was less expensive, or even just convenient for the government.

And in terms of what the specific person I was talking with had to say, his bid on work with PREPA included proposals based on getting funding for upgrades as he had previously done in Florida after another hurricane. Which seemed reasonable when he explained. Basically, Florida Power & Light got grants from FEMA to do various upgrades to their grid because the upgrades were likely to save the feds money in a future hurricane. Or at least, that was his explanation. And it fits with my experience in DC early in my career as well.