Compliance Stuff

The 8(a) Business Development Program has garnered intense scrutiny from the Trump Administration over the past few months.  See  here ,  here  and  here . This focus continues with three significant developments in 2026: Secretary Pete Hegseth’s January 16 announcement on X of a Department of War audit of 8(a) sole-source contracts, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) January 22 guidance restructuring how the 8(a) program is administered, and SBA’s issuance of Notices of Suspension to some 8(a) firms that failed to fully respond to SBA’s   by the January 19 deadline. Together these developments reflect growing skepticism toward the 8(a) program and signal increased scrutiny for contractors that have long treated 8(a) status as a relatively predictable procurement vehicle. Department of War Audit On January 16, 2026, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced via X (formerly Twitter) that the Department would be “taking a sledgehammer” to the 8(a) progra...

  The recent rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 6—governing “Competition Requirements”—is prompting questions about whether the changes may signal a shift in federal small business contracting policy . In particular, the removal of explicit references to certain socioeconomic program provisions raises concerns in the small business community.   In this blog, PilieroMazza dissects the FAR Part 6 rewrite, concluding that most revisions appear to be structural rather than substantive. However, the unresolved status of the “Rule of Two” continues to raise concerns regarding the protection of small business set-aside opportunities. A. The Rule of Two: Why Statutory Codification Is Essential As most federal contractors are well aware, the FAR Overhaul is well underway, with an overarching goal of eliminating regulations that are not explicitly grounded in statutory authority. While we have yet to see the revised FAR Part 19—which currently houses the “Rule of T...