House Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves, R-MO, is trying again to raise the government’s small business contracting goal to 25%, from 23%.  The House approved a similar provision two years ago in the national defense authorization legislation of fiscal 2013, but it did not survive into the final version.

The new goal may have a better chance of approval this year because the Obama administration is on the cusp of achieving the 23% goal for the first time since fiscal 2005 (as first reported in Set-Aside Alert’s Jan. 10, 2014 issue).  The latest data on the White House’s Small Business Dashboard (smallbusiness.dashboard.gov) shows 23.41% of eligible purchases went to small businesses in fiscal 2013. That data is not yet official.        Graves also introduced the Contracting Data and Bundling Accountability Act of 2014, which he said would bring more transparency to data reported on bundled and consolidated contracts.