ASA’s Suggestions to the FY22 NDAA

ASA, along with the Construction Industry Procurement Coalition (CIPC), sent a letter to the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)’s Conferees requesting their suggestions and proposals for the FY22 Act.  Per their letter, “they requested that Department of Defense (DOD) submit a report on the effects of the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) on small businesses.  CMMC is one of the most ambitious cybersecurity compliance requirements ever undertaken by DOD.  The program is designed to be a mandatory requirement on all defense contracts.  The potential of excluding a significant portion of small business defense contractors and the ability for agencies and prime contractors to meet small business goals should be evaluated and reported to Congress.”

The letter followed with our support to exempt the Miller Act from the periodic indexing required under Title 41.  The Miller Act currently requires all general contractors on federal construction projects over $150,000 to furnish surety bonds to protect the government’s use of taxpayer funds and to ensure payments to subcontractors, and suppliers.  Any increase in the contract price threshold through indexing exposes workers, suppliers, and taxpayer dollars to unnecessary risk.   We also requested the exclusion for the increase of government wide goals for small business participation in federal contracts and for certain small business concerns.  While we support small businesses, per the Congressional Research Service federal agencies currently struggle to meet their goals for groups such as Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) small businesses and women-owned small businesses (WOSBs).  Also, regulations such as Credit for Lower-Tier Small Business Subcontracting (FAR 2018-003), that would provide a more accurate account of small business participation, have yet to be issued despite being enacted into law during FY2014 NDAA.  Per the letter, “it is an improper time to increase the government wide goals for small business participation in federal contracts.”   Finally, we oppose new and onerous requirements for military construction contractors which goes against decades of federal contracting policies and precedent, including requiring all contractors and subcontractors performing a military construction contract be licensed in the state where the work will be performed and issuing local hiring preferences.