A portion of the House of Representatives' version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 861 of H.R. 8070) would, if passed into law, require and authorize the Department of Defense to engage in three new contracting procedures relating to veteran-owned small businesses (VOSBs) that have been certified as such by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).
The first provision would require the DOD to establishing a contract participation goal for VOSBs (including service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, or SDVOSBs, by virtue of the fact that any SDVOSB can be counted as a VOSB), covering both prime and subcontracts, that is not less than the federal government's general participation goal for SDVOSBs, that being five percent.
The second provision authorizes DOD to award contracts to VOSBs "using procedures other than competitive procedures", if the contract is under a certain dollar threshold (the bill points at existing law for the thresholds, those currently being $7,000,000 "in the case of a contract opportunity assigned a standard industrial classification code for manufacturing", or $3,000,000 otherwise), and if the DOD contracting officer determines that the VOSB is "a responsible source" and the contract "offers best value to the United States".
The third provision authorizes DOD to award contracts based on competitive procedures where the firms eligible to compete for the contract are all VOSBs, as long the contracting officer "has a reasonable expectation that two or more [VOSBs] will submit offers".
The bill, having been passed by the House, has been received in the Senate. It is not yet clear whether the Senate bill or the bill that passes will include these VOSB provisions.
Read the House bill at https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8070/text.
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