To require the Secretary of Defense to report on certain contracts and awards to small business concerns, and for other purposes.
Summary
What This Bill Does
This bill creates a focused reporting requirement on small-dollar Defense Department contracting. Within 180 days, the Secretary of Defense, acting through the Office of Small Business Programs, must study contracts and awards at or below the simplified acquisition threshold over the previous five years. The report must go to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the House Small Business Committee, and the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. It must identify the total dollar amount of covered contracts, the percentage and aggregate dollars awarded to small businesses, contract types not awarded to small businesses, reasons those contracts were not set aside for small businesses, patterns suggesting contracts should have been set aside, and recommendations for statutory, regulatory, policy, or guidance changes.
Who Benefits and How
Small business defense contractors benefit because Congress would receive data on whether low-dollar Pentagon contracts are being set aside or awarded to small firms. Congressional armed services and small-business committees benefit from quantified oversight evidence on simplified acquisition threshold contracting. Defense Department small business advocates benefit from a report that can support policy or regulatory changes if contracting officers are bypassing appropriate set-asides.
Who Bears the Burden and How
DOD contracting officers, procurement data staff, and Office of Small Business Programs staff must collect five years of award data, classify contract types, explain non-set-aside decisions, identify patterns, and prepare recommendations within 180 days. Large defense contractors that win simplified-threshold work may face more scrutiny if the report shows contracts should have been set aside for small businesses.
Key Provisions
- Requires a Defense Department study of contracts and awards at or below the simplified acquisition threshold.
- Requires reporting on total covered dollars and the share awarded to small businesses over five years.
- Requires identification of contract types not awarded to small businesses and reasons they were not set aside.
- Requires analysis of trends where covered contracts should have been set aside for small businesses.
- Requires recommendations for statutory, regulatory, policy, or guidance changes.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Directs the Defense Department Office of Small Business Programs to study contracts at or below the simplified acquisition threshold and report to defense and small-business committees on small-business award shares, missed set-asides, reasons, trends, and recommended fixes.
Key Policy Areas
Defense, Small Business, Government
Primary Purpose
Directs the Defense Department Office of Small Business Programs to study contracts at or below the simplified acquisition threshold and report to defense and small-business committees on small-business award shares, missed set-asides, reasons, trends, and recommended fixes.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- Small business defense contractors
- Defense Department small business advocates
- Congressional armed services committees
- Congressional small business committees
- Procurement oversight staff
Identified Costs
- DOD contracting officers
- Defense procurement data staff
- Office of Small Business Programs staff
- Large defense contractors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeReferred to the House Committee on Armed Services.
Introduced in House
Ms. Scholten introduced the following bill; which was referred to …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
DOD contracting officers, Defense Department Office of Small Business Programs staff, Large defense contractors
Congressional armed services committees, Congressional small business committees
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology