“The House recently passed Senate Bill 583, titled the ‘Promoting Rigorous and Innovative Cost Efficiencies for Federal Procurement and Acquisitions (PRICE) Act.’ The Price Act would require the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to report projects from its Procurement Innovation Lab (PIL) that have used innovative techniques to help modernize contracting procedures. The bill would also require the DHS to offer training to its personnel on how to use these techniques. In addition, the PRICE Act would require that these innovative best practices be made available to other federal agencies to improve procurement methods and training. The Price Act also supports the White House’s goals of providing new federal contracting opportunities to small disadvantaged businesses.
A little background is helpful to understand the PRICE Act, and Congress nicely included some background in drafting the law. The act references the Business Opportunity Development Act of 1988, which established goals for federal contract awards to Veteran-owned Small Businesses (VOSBs), Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs), Women-Owned Small Businesses (WOSBs), Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZones), and disadvantaged small businesses. Nevertheless, some agencies have been reluctant to utilize these contracting programs. The Price Act would provide a vehicle across agencies to identify and adopt best practices, procedures and strategies to improve procurement methods to increase small business participation in government contracting…”
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in its cost estimate expressed that Senate Bill 583 would probably change some methods and activities in contracting processes across most federal agencies. CBO also expects that the bill would codify many of the methods and activities which would help to lock in best practices and provide consistent processes across agencies.
The legislation is supported by a broad coalition of groups including Small Business Majority, Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (APTAC), GovEvolve, HUBZone Contractors National Council, and the Women Veterans Business Coalition…” Read the full article here.
Source: House Passes Senate Bill to Modernize Processes to Increase Small Business Participation in Federal Contracting – By Kevin Wickliffe, February 22, 2022. SmallGovCon.
