Federal supply and service contractors and subcontractors that have 50 or more employees and one or more federal contracts or subcontracts of $50,000 or more (“Covered Contractors”) are required to have in place (within 120 days of entering into a covered contract) a compliant affirmative action program for each employment location, including annual written affirmative action plans for women, minorities, individuals with disabilities and, for contractors and subcontractors with one or more awards of $150,000 or more, protected veterans.  By June 30, 2022, Covered Contractors (excluding construction contractors) must register their companies and each establishment subject to affirmative action obligations through the OFCCP’s new online contractor portal and certify that they have developed and maintained the required affirmative action program and written affirmative action plans for each establishment.  If you have any questions on this updated requirement, please contact Marc Violante at MarcV@wispro.org

The Department of Defense issued a federal register notice requesting information from academia, startups, small businesses, government labs, and domestic semiconductor manufacturers in pursuit of a public-private partnership that will create regional hubs of microelectronics innovation. his Microelectronics Commons idea, envisioned by an Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering-led cross functional team, aims to:

• Create “Lab-to-Fab” testing/prototyping hubs to build a network focused on maturing microelectronics technologies
• Provide broad access to these prototyping hubs, potentially through augmented academic facilities (i.e. a local semiconductor company or a Federally Funded Research and Development Center)
• Facilitate microelectronics education and training of students at local colleges and universities, and provide a potential pipeline for an engineering workforce to bolster the local semiconductor economy

Please click here to read more.

President Biden has released an executive order related to project labor agreements and federal construction projects. The intent is to promote economy and efficiency in the promotion of federal construction projects. To read the order, please click here.

Under the new infrastructure law, 22 out of 25 EPA projects on the remaining Great Lakes “Areas of Concern” will be completed by 2030.The bulk of the funding will go to clean up and restore the severely degraded Areas of Concern sites, some of which are in Wisconsin. To read more, please click here.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has recently released a new report on the state of competition in the defense industrial base. The report surveys the state of competition across key defense sectors and finds that extreme consolidation poses risks to our nation’s national and economic security. To read more, please click here.

Mondaq – The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council revised Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) 52.219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting, and related FAR sections to address an inconsistency between that clause and the corresponding Small Business Administration (“SBA”) regulation at 13 C.F.R. § 125.6.¹ Limitations on subcontracting limit the percentage of work small business prime contractors performing covered contracts can subcontract to large businesses. These restrictions apply to contracts or portions of contracts that an agency has reserved or set aside for small-businesses, including orders under certain multiple award contracts, and that are expected to exceed the simplified acquisition threshold (currently $250,000), except contracts set aside based on socioeconomic status, in which case limitations on subcontracting apply regardless of value.² Please click here to read more.

DefenseOne – Defense firm consolidations have killed competition for government contracts, a White House-ordered study finds. The industrial base must expand, says Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Please click here to read more.

Federal News Network – The Pentagon’s revamped Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is moving forward under the Defense Department chief information office, but DoD is rolling back an aspect of the plan that would have allowed some 40,000 companies to self-attest to their cybersecurity practices. Please click here to read more.

As part of a governmentwide effort to strengthen American leadership on clean manufacturing, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced actions to reduce emissions from building materials. GSA released two requests for information (RFIs) to gather current marketplace insights from industry, including small businesses, on the national availability of concrete and asphalt materials with environmental product declarations, low embodied carbon or superior environmental attributes. Please click here to read more.

The Defense Department released the State of Competition in the Defense Industrial Base report, as directed by Executive Order 14036. The report discusses the current state of competition in the DIB and recommends DoD actions to promote a more diverse and expanded industrial base. The report also outlines actions that DoD is taking to specifically promote competition in its small business vendor base as well as in five priority industrial base sectors, including microelectronics, missiles and munitions, high-capacity batteries, castings and forgings, and critical minerals and materials. The report includes 5 recommendations. Please click here to read more.