S-2139 : Still Just a Bill

Small Contractors Improve Competition Act of 2015

This bill expresses the sense of Congress that, when used appropriately, with respect to federal agency procurement, an auction between a group of offerors who compete against each other by submitting offers for a contract or task or delivery order with the ability to submit revised offers with lower prices throughout the course of the auction (reverse auction) may improve the federal government's procurement of commercially available commodities by increasing competition, reducing prices, and improving opportunities for small businesses.

The Small Business Act is amended to prohibit the use of reverse auctions for certain Small Business Administration federal procurement contracts (covered contracts) for:

• design and construction services;
• goods purchased to protect federal employees, members of the Armed Forces, or civilians from bodily harm; or
• goods or services other than these to be awarded based on factors other than price and technical responsibility, or if awarding the contract requires the contracting officer to conduct discussions with the offerors about their offer.

This prohibition applies specifically to any covered contract to be made under the procurement programs for women-owned small business concerns and for small business concerns owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans, as well as under the Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program.

In the case of an award of a non-covered contract, a reverse auction may be used for the award only if specified decisions are made by a contracting officer trained on the appropriate use and supervision of reverse auctions for such contracts.

A federal agency may not award such a contract using a reverse auction if:

• only one offer is received;
• offerors do not have the ability to submit revised bids with lower prices throughout the course of the auction; or
• at any time during the procurement process the federal agency misinforms an offeror about the price ranking of the last offer submitted by an offeror.