VA Acquisition Regulation: Supporting Veteran-Owned and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses

This document implements portions of the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act of 2006 (the Act) and Executive Order 13360, providing opportunities for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB) to increase their Federal contracting and subcontracting. The Act and the Executive Order authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish special methods for contracting with SDVOSBs and veteran-owned small businesses (VOSB). Under this final rule, a VA contracting officer may restrict competition to contracting with SDVOSBs or VOSBs under certain conditions. Likewise, sole source contracts with SDVOSBs or VOSBs are permissible under certain conditions. This final rule implements these special acquisition methods as a change to the VA Acquisition Regulation (VAAR). This document additionally amends SDVOSB/VOSB, Small Business Status Protests, where VA provided that VA would utilize the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to consider and decide SDVOSB and VOSB status protests. This requires VA and SBA to execute an interagency agreement pursuant to the Economy Act. Negotiations of this interagency agreement have not yet been finalized. Therefore, VA has amended these regulations with an interim rule to provide that VA's Executive Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) shall consider and decide SDVOSB and VOSB status protests, and provides procedures there for, until such time as the interagency agreement is executed by the agencies. VA hereby solicits comments on this regulatory amendment only.