As GSA Interact reported on their blog, several new FAR rules will impact small business.
According to the Federal Register, “DoD, GSA, and NASA have adopted as final, with a minor edit, an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement regulatory changes made by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provide for authority to award sole source contracts to economically disadvantaged women-owned small business concerns and to women-owned small business concerns eligible under the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Program.”
The Federal Register also notes that the rule puts the WOSB Program “on a level playing field with other SBA Government contracting programs with sole source authority and provided an additional, needed tool for agencies to meet the statutorily mandated goal of 5 percent of the total value of all prime contract and subcontract awards for WOSBs.”
Of all the SBA contracting programs, the 8(a) set-aside rules were always the best for sole sourcing. Fundamentally, if a KO (contracting officer) was willing (at the program office’s behest) to accept/write a Justification and Approval (J&A), the sole source went through. As well, many times this same authority was extended to 8(a) companies on multiple-award vehicles, so that the covered programs could use the vehicle to do sole sourcing as well.
This new regulation and FAR/DFAR change creates a similar dynamic for EDWOSBs – which is huge, because there are many EDWOSB companies ready for this, and because the 8(a) sole sourcing has come under pressure, particularly after some of the issues that arose in large sole sourcing for Alaskan Native Companies (ANCs) and some less than ethical/legal behavior by companies trying to take advantage of the program. In fact, the 8(a) program seems to have largely been replaced with “small disadvantaged” status, much to the chagrin of many of my friends who have 8(a) status.
This is definitely a major change, considering the 328 EDWOSBs and 974 WOSBs who could have received sole source awards between April 1, 2011 (the implementation date of the WOSB Program) and September 1, 2015.
