Senate small biz bills facing expiration; Pt. II

      Congress soon will be confronting a deadline to act on more than a dozen bills dealing with small business contracting concerns.

      Congress is on break until after the midterm elections. The Senate will reconvene for 10 days in November, and the House and Senate together will begin meeting regularly for a “lame duck” session starting on Nov. 29. The next Congress will convene on Jan. 3, 2023.

      A number of small business measures are in either, or both, the House and Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2023 packages.

      Many others are awaiting possible last-minute action. Many will expire on Jan. 3. Some could be revived next year.

      Here are the major Senate bills facing deadlines for passage in the current Congress:

• Improving the Small Business Administration’s small business contracting programs: S 5044, sponsored by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-MD, is focused on improving SBA’s small business contracting. No bill text has been released yet. Cardin is chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
• Women’s Business Centers: S 4863 would improve the SBA’s Women’s Business Centers program by codifying requirements for applicants and grantees, among other steps.
• Agile Procurement: S 4623 would ease the path for agile procurements of technology by creating a pilot program to bring more junior and mid-career professionals into federal procurement from other fields; creating a working group to reduce barriers to government contracting for businesses, including small businesses; and allowing the Defense Dept’s agile pilot program to incentivize employee stock ownership plans, which would necessitate more rules against conflicts of interest. See the press release at https://bit.ly/3Mz1XR2.
• Other Transaction Authority (OTA): S 4553 would extend OTA to the Homeland Security Dept. The bill has been approved by the Senate.
• Organizational Conflicts of Interest: S 4516 would order the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to develop governmentwide policy and guidance to reduce organizational conflicts of interest relating to national security and foreign policy.
• DOD depots and equitable adjustments: S 4473 would allow the use of DOD depot working capital funds for unspecified minor military construction projects at defense industrial base facilities. It also would provide interim partial payment to small business contractors that request an equitable adjustment due to a change in the terms of a construction contract, and for other purposes.
• Federal electric vehicles: S 4057 would require the federal government to develop a comprehensive plan for electric vehicle fleet battery management.
• Innovation and competition: S 1260 would establish a new tech unit at the National Science Foundation, establish a regional technology hub program, and establish a critical supply chain resiliency program, among other goals.

More information:
Congress.gov search by bill number: https://congress.gov
Note - some bills have no text published

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