Defense Dept. Opens New Set-Aside Categories Defense Department components may set aside contracts for small businesses in all construction categories and a variety of other industries after Congress repealed the Small Business Competitiveness Demonstration Program. DOD has issued a final rule implementing the provision of the 2010 Small Business Jobs Act, effective Feb. 22. Now all components of DOD may use small business set-asides for construction; architect-engineering services, including surveying and mapping; landscaping; pest control; and non-nuclear ship repair. Set-asides were already permitted for 8(a), HUBZone and service-disabled veteran-owned firms. According to its critics, “comp demo,” as the program was known, was an example of good intentions with unintended outcomes. The intention was to limit set-asides in categories traditionally dominated by small businesses, so agencies would have to turn to other industries, such as IT, to meet their procurement goals. But critics said the result was that large companies took contracts away from small firms in those traditional industries. Twenty years after the program was enacted in 1989, Pentagon figures showed that the small business share in the designated industries had fallen to around 40%, from 78%. The Defense Department had proposed ending the program in 2006, but Congress did not approve. At the time many affected industry groups, including the Associated General Contractors and the American Nursery and Landscape Association, favored repeal.