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House wants AbilityOne exempt at VAVeterans organization opposes HR4920On Dec. 16, the House approved HR 4920 to exempt procurements of many products on the AbilityOne list from being subject to the VA “Rule of Two” strong preferences for procurements from veteran-owned small businesses. The legislation is intended to restore preferences at the VA for products made by AbilityOne non-profits employing blind and severely disabled people. While the AbilityOne priorities had been in place throughout the federal government since 1939, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in October that VA preferences for veteran-owned small firms under a 2006 law should have priority over AbilityOne preferences. The VA followed that decision by canceling the AbilityOne preferences, leading to AbilityOne organizations losing contracts and threatening layoffs of more than 100 blind and disabled workers. Supporters of AbilityOne say Congress never intended the veterans’ preferences to override AbilityOne. Meanwhile, a veterans business group has been mobilizing to block the restored AbilityOne preferences in HR4920. “NVSBC (National Veterans Small Business Coalition) is very opposed to HR4920’s current language,” Scott Denniston, executive director, wrote in a Dec. 18 letter to then-Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. (Note: Sen. Kelly Loeffler on Dec. 30 replaced Isakson, who resigned for health reasons) “The bill not only turns back efforts over the past 10 years to have the Department of Veterans Affairs comply with Public Law 109-461, commonly known as “VETS First”, but also has the potential to put veteran-owned small businesses out of business thru (sic) no fault of their own,” Denniston wrote. Denniston wrote that he believes “compromise language” can be added to ensure opportunities for both service-disabled veterans and for AbilityOne disabled workers. He offered no details on such a compromise. The legislation in its current form has a 48% chance of passing the Senate, according to GovTrack. In the district of Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, an AbilityOne non-profit employing blind and disabled workers recently lost major VA contracts due to the court decision. “Recently it has become clear that those laws are in serious need of clarification,” Foxx said in a statement.
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