Devon Hewitt, partner in Protorae Law’s Government Contracts practice, was quoted by Bloomberg BNA in a July 24th article about the recently proposed legislation to increase small business contractor awards.
The Assuring Contracting Equity Act (HR. 3175, S.1859) could increase federal awards to small firms by nearly $10 billion, and would require officials to reevaluate compliance with small business subcontracting goals when awarding contracts.
Ms. Hewitt states, “I think this has been a big loophole in small business initiatives that needs to be closed and this bill is a start.” She noted there might be less resistance to increasing the governmentwide small business contracting goal now that the government has had some success in meeting the existing goal. However, doubling the goal for certain types of businesses “is really a stretch.”