Don Bacon: “I thank Chairman Chabot for his leadership for the part of our country that is the engine of our economy, small…”

“I thank Chairman Chabot for his leadership for the part of our country that is the engine of our economy, small businesses, of which 47 percent of our American workers are a part. So we appreciate his leadership. I also want to thank the ranking member for her support of this bill. I appreciate the bipartisan effort to get this bill done. In fact, they both summarized the benefits of this bill very well. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4754, the Change Order Transparency for Federal Contractors Act. This bill is a commonsense, preventative measure designed to protect small businesses from loss by providing them with critical information up front, prior to submitting a bid on a Federal construction project. Ultimately, and this is the bottom line, this legislation is about the Federal Government paying its bills on time. Currently, small businesses are flying blind. Before they bid, they have no knowledge of an agency's change order process or history of payment. Construction is an inherently complex industry that inevitably requires changes to the original plan. Construction contractors must deal with this inevitability, but without knowledge of their customer's business practices, they cannot formulate accurate offers or sufficiently plan their operations prior to bidding. As a result, they may unknowingly place their business in jeopardy by working with an agency with a poor track record of timely payment. This is not a hypothetical problem.…”