Senate Small Business Committee Reports Anti-Bundling Bill

Today the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee approved legislation, S.2989, designed to address contract bundling. This topic has become an area of growing interest for AGC members as the government is increasingly relying on this procurement method for the bidding of federal contracts. Unfortunately, AGC found that the legislation as proposed did not do enough to address bundling concerns and sent a letter to the Committee to state those concerns. This bill looks to address contracting bundling as follows: (1) accountability of senior agency management for all incidents of bundling; (2) timely and accurate reporting of contract bundling information by all federal agencies; and (3) improved oversight of bundling regulation compliance by the Small Business Administration (SBA).  The bill, however, does not address how bundling directly affects the construction industry. The bill also attempts to address subcontracting. The bill: (1) provides guidelines and procedures for reviewing and evaluating subcontractor participation in prime contracts and (2) provides for oversight to ensure speedier payments to small business subcontractors who have successfully completed work on behalf of the prime contractor. AGC expressed concerns that the bill does not address an obvious subcontracting issue, the counting of total subcontractor participation at all tiers. AGC has called on Congress to address concerns over the fact that construction contracts currently cannot be reviewed for contract bundling. Senate leaders have indicated they would like to work with AGC to help address our concerns on this issue, and well as other issues concerning small business contracting issues that Congress will consider in the coming weeks.