This week, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA-03) and Rep. Dan Meuser’s (R-PA-09) bipartisan legislation, the Corrective Action Report Oversight and Accountability Act, unanimously passed the House Small Business Committee.

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is tasked with ensuring that small businesses are given a fair shot at competing for federal contracting dollars. Congress has established goals to award a percentage of these contracts to women-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, and small disadvantaged businesses.

When federal agencies fall short of these goals, they are required to provide SBA with corrective action plans that detail the steps that the agency will take to meet the unmet goals; however, these plans are not standardized, making them difficult for SBA to enforce.

The Corrective Action Report Oversight and Accountability Act corrects these discrepancies across federal agencies. It requires all agencies to include information in these reports that will provide clarity about small business’ participation as federal contractors and will hold the agencies accountable for hitting their small business benchmarks.

“Small businesses get the job done. Our bipartisan bill levels the playing field for entrepreneurs who are far too often boxed out of federal contracting dollars, and I’m grateful for Rep. Meuser’s partnership on this issue,” said Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez.

Bill text can be found here.