In another attempt to save SBA’s parity rule, Senators Max Baucus and Mary Landrieu have attached an amendment to the Small Business Jobs Act, H.R. 5297. The amendment would provide for parity in set-asides among all small business contracting programs.

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled that HUBZone companies have first priority in set-asides because of the language of the HUBZone law. (SAA, 3/19) The Obama administration supports congressional action to overturn the court ruling.

However, the Small Business Jobs Act has been stalled in the Senate by opponents who say it is too expensive.

GSA is proposing that contractors be required to measure their greenhouse-gas emissions. The GSA plan follows up on President Obama’s order that federal agencies cut their emissions.

GSA’s plan, as reported by the newspaper Federal Times, said contractors should be required to track their emissions, and the results could be a factor in contract awards. GSA concluded that it’s not feasible to require contractors to reduce emissions in the short term.

However, the agency acknowledged there is no universally accepted standard for measuring emissions and few companies are equipped to do so.

A new interim rule requires first-tier subcontractors to report on their Recovery Act spending in the same way prime contractors do. Subcontractors with awards of $25,000 or more must report how much Recovery Act money they received and how many jobs were created or saved.

The subcontractor’s reports go to the prime contractor, who will include them in its quarterly reports to the government.

SBA is considering granting a class waiver of the nonmanufacturer rule for Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry Systems (CS-MS), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) Systems, Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Systems, and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) Systems under Product Service Code 6640 under NAICS code 334516 (Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing). According to the request, no small business manufacturers supply these classes of products to the federal government.