40 U.S.C. § 102 — Definitions

This section is a glossary. Except for one part of the law listed as subchapter VII of chapter 5, and except for a few sections of title 41 listed by number (3302, 3501(b), 3509, 3906, 4710, and 4711), the definitions below apply throughout chapters 1 through 7 of this title and throughout division C of subtitle I of title 41. (1) Care and handling. This term covers two kinds of activity: (A) completing, repairing, converting, fixing up, running, protecting, insuring, packing, storing, handling, preserving, and moving excess and surplus property; and (B) making safe, or destroying, property that is dangerous to public health or safety. (2) Contractor inventory. This term covers two situations: (A) property that a contractor or subcontractor has finished a government contract and still holds, beyond what they need to finish the job, where the government owns the title; and (B) property the government must or may take back because the contract's specifications or plans changed, or because the contract (or a subcontract) was ended early for the government's convenience or at its choice, before the work was finished. (3) Excess property. This means property that a federal agency controls but that the agency's head decides the agency does not need for its work. (4) Executive agency. This means (A) an executive department or independent agency in the executive branch, and (B) a government corporation that the government fully owns. (5) Federal agency. This means an executive agency, or an office in the legislative or judicial branch — except the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Architect of the Capitol, and anything the Architect of the Capitol directs. (6) Foreign excess property. This means excess property that is not located in the U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, or the Virgin Islands. (7) Motor vehicle. This means any self-propelled vehicle, or one pulled by mechanical power, built and mainly used to carry property or people on highways. It excludes (A) vehicles built or used for military field training, combat, or tactical purposes, or used mainly inside a military post, camp, or depot; and (B) vehicles an agency regularly uses for investigating, law enforcement, or intelligence work, if the agency head decides the agency must have exclusive control of the vehicle to do its job well. (8) Nonpersonal services. This means contractual services that the Administrator of General Services has designated, other than personal and professional services. (9) Property. This means any interest in property, except: (A) certain federal lands — (i) public-domain land; (ii) land set aside for a national forest or national park; (iii) minerals in withdrawn or reserved public-domain land that the Secretary of the Interior finds suitable for mining or mineral leasing; and (iv) other withdrawn or reserved public-domain land, unless the Secretary and the Administrator agree the land is not fit to go back to the public domain because it has been substantially changed by improvements or otherwise; (B) naval battleships, cruisers, aircraft carriers, destroyers, and submarines; and (C) government records. (10) Surplus property. This means excess property that the Administrator decides is not needed by any federal agency.