Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to enter into a colloquy with Senators Moran and Tester, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, to discuss H.R. 561, the Protecting Business Opportunities for Veterans Act. H.R. 561 is important legislation that seeks to prevent large companies from using a veteran-owned small business as a front to win a small business set-aside or sole-source contract that the small business contractor is incapable of performing. To prevent this, H.R. 561 places certain subcontracting limitations on the Department of Veterans' Affairs Vet's First contracting program. For the agency's small business set-asides for veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, the small business prime would need to certify that it will perform 50 percent more of the work. This limitation on subcontracting can only be circumvented if the small business prime subcontracts to a ``similarly situated'' business. However, as ranking member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, I have two concerns with this legislation. The first concern is that all the penalties for violating the limitations on subcontracting fall on the small business prime contractor and does not provide the agency with the flexibility to impose penalties on the subcontractor that is using the small business as a front to win the contract.…”