diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 29480a093..744ba4774 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+# The order of packages is significant, because pip processes them in the order
+# of appearance. Changing the order has an impact on the overall integration
+# process, which may cause wedges in the gate later.
+
+pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 argparse
 Babel>=1.3
 eventlet>=0.13.0
@@ -13,7 +18,6 @@ oslo.db>=0.2.0  # Apache-2.0
 oslo.i18n>=0.2.0 # Apache-2.0
 oslo.messaging>=1.3.0
 PasteDeploy>=1.5.0
-pbr>=0.6,!=0.7,<1.0
 posix_ipc
 pycrypto>=2.6
 python-ceilometerclient>=1.0.6
diff --git a/test-requirements.txt b/test-requirements.txt
index 7489db905..2d7a7efac 100644
--- a/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/test-requirements.txt
@@ -1,7 +1,11 @@
-coverage>=3.6
-discover
+# The order of packages is significant, because pip processes them in the order
+# of appearance. Changing the order has an impact on the overall integration
+# process, which may cause wedges in the gate later.
+
 # Hacking already pins down pep8, pyflakes and flake8
 hacking>=0.8.0,<0.9
+coverage>=3.6
+discover
 lockfile>=0.8
 mock>=1.0
 mox>=0.5.3
diff --git a/tools/requirements_style_check.sh b/tools/requirements_style_check.sh
deleted file mode 100755
index 2b5bd10f7..000000000
--- a/tools/requirements_style_check.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-#
-# Enforce the requirement that dependencies are listed in the input
-# files in alphabetical order.
-
-# FIXME(dhellmann): This doesn't deal with URL requirements very
-# well. We should probably sort those on the egg-name, rather than the
-# full line.
-
-function check_file() {
-    typeset f=$1
-
-    # We don't care about comment lines.
-    grep -v '^#' $f > ${f}.unsorted
-    sort -d -i -f ${f}.unsorted > ${f}.sorted
-    diff -c ${f}.unsorted ${f}.sorted
-    rc=$?
-    rm -f ${f}.sorted ${f}.unsorted
-    return $rc
-}
-
-exit_code=0
-for filename in $@
-do
-    check_file $filename
-    if [ $? -ne 0 ]
-    then
-        echo "Please list requirements in $filename in alphabetical order" 1>&2
-        exit_code=1
-    fi
-done
-exit $exit_code
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 7f589d814..82a8da482 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ commands =
 commands =
     flake8 heat bin/heat-api bin/heat-api-cfn bin/heat-api-cloudwatch bin/heat-engine bin/heat-manage contrib functionaltests
     {toxinidir}/tools/config/check_uptodate.sh
-    {toxinidir}/tools/requirements_style_check.sh requirements.txt test-requirements.txt
     # Check that .po and .pot files are valid:
     bash -c "find heat -type f -regex '.*\.pot?' -print0|xargs -0 -n 1 msgfmt --check-format -o /dev/null"