Legislative Updates: Small Business Bills in the House (& Senate)!

Just like the elves in Santa’s workshop, Congress has been busy this winter season! Among the chaos, three bills with the potential to impact small business Federal government contractors have been percolating. The first and third bill propose amendments to laws already in place covering surviving spouses of SDVOSB owners and the Department of Homeland Security’s Mentor-Protege Program, while the second bill proposes an entirely new SBA program for small businesses geared toward promoting research and development efforts.

Here’s our brief summary of each bill:

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GAO Defers to SBA’s Interpretation of Runway Extension Act

The Runway Extension Act has been a hot topic for federal government contractors. And as of this writing, the issue of the Act’s effectiveness hasn’t been conclusively decided—though SBA says the Act isn’t yet effective, others (including us, in various posts on this blog) have disagreed with this analysis.

A recent GAO decision decided a protest based on the Runway Extension Act.

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Runway Extension Act: Congress Strikes Back

A short time ago in a blog not too far away, we wrote about the newly passed Small Business Runway Extension Act.

Shortly after passage of the Runway Extension Act confusion struck the government contracting world when the SBA openly stated that it would not implement the Runway Extension Act. Recently, the House Committee on Small Business passed H.R. 2345, “Clarifying the Small Business Runway Extension Act” which, in no uncertain terms, tells SBA it has to implement the Runway Extension Act before the end of 2019.

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