About Us

COG is the one place in metropolitan Washington that regularly brings leaders together to develop solutions to the region's major challenges. COG prepares plans enabling the region to receive federal funding, provides members with research and data to inform decision-making, and offers a wide range of programs, including commuter services, cooperative purchasing, technical assistance and grants, and public outreach campaigns.

Transportation

Through the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB), area officials, planners, and engineers ensure a well-managed and maintained transportation system. The TPB, which is staffed by COG, conducts the federally mandated transportation planning process for the region and ensures the uninterrupted flow of federal transportation funds that area jurisdictions receive.

Environment

COG's work engages leaders in various environmental fields from water quality experts to climate scientists. Together, they are advancing regional efforts to restore local waterways, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change, promote recycling, and enhance and preserve green space and agriculture.

Community

Area officials and experts, including planning and housing directors and child welfare and health officials, work together with their counterparts at COG to help shape stronger communities throughout the region.

Homeland Security & Public Safety

COG brings police chiefs, fire chiefs, emergency managers, and other leaders together as part of its work to strengthen regional public safety coordination, homeland security planning, and emergency communication.

Cooperative Purchasing

COG initiated its Cooperative Purchasing Program in 1971 with the basic objective of reducing costs through economies of scale created through volume buying. By taking advantage of the combined purchasing power of participating jurisdictions, volume buying saves jurisdictions and their taxpayers money.

The program also promotes sharing information among area purchasing officials, and encourages continuing education for procurement professionals throughout the region.Through the Chief Purchasing Officers Committee, participating agencies, school boards, authorities, and commissions cooperatively bid on more than 20 different purchases, resulting in larger volume and better unit pricing.

COG has a partnership with the Baltimore Metropolitan Council and their members called the Mid-Atlantic Purchasing Team (MAPT), which provides additional opportunities to participate in cooperative purchases and to ride on the contracts of these jurisdictions, taking advantage of the buying power of the entire National Capitol Region and the Greater Baltimore Area.

Currently, regional cooperative purchasing opportunities are available for bottled water, water and wastewater treatment chemicals, medical supplies, gasoline and diesel fuel, office furniture, banking services, electrical supplies, public safety equipment, software and training, and more.

Members also have the opportunity to use the the Rider Clause to join existing awards and avoid the need to do in-house bidding.

COG also manages a Vendor Registration System (VRS) that exposes our member procurements to over 20,000 regional vendors - Vendor Registration System. All COG’s formal bids are done through the VRS Lockbox and require bidders to be registered on the system.

Searchable Contract Database

COG provides a database of more than 14,000 contracts held by COG and multiple local government agencies. Many of these contacts contain the COG Rider Clause, which allows members to leverage existing agreements without going out to bid.