Congress mandates training to help agencies meet veteran contracting goals
H.R. 865 — Service-Disabled Veteran Opportunities in Small Business Act · Filed by Nicolas LaLota (R-NY) · 9 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 31, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires the Small Business Administration to train federal employees at agencies that miss their service-disabled veteran small-business contracting goals on how to award more contracts to service-disabled veteran-owned firms. The SBA must also issue guidance on best practices within 180 days and report annually to Congress on which agencies missed their targets and how many trainings were conducted.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a transparency and training mandate tied to existing federal contracting goals for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. It enforces accountability rather than creating new entitlements, and it does so through training, guidance, and congressional reporting.
What the text implies
- Annual reporting requirement creates a public record of which federal agencies systematically underperform on service-disabled veteran contracting, potentially exposing procurement bias or neglect.
- Training mandate may shift federal procurement culture by making contracting officers and agency staff directly responsible for understanding and supporting service-disabled veteran-owned businesses.
- The bill references but does not restate the existing goal in Section 15(g)(1)(A)(ii) of the Small Business Act — the actual target percentage is not visible in this text, limiting assessment of how ambitious the accountability mechanism is.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Service-disabled veterans gain structured support and accountability mechanisms to increase federal contracting opportunities. The bill creates transparency (annual reporting to Congress) and mandates training to help agencies meet existing statutory goals, strengthening a protected class's access to federal procurement without imposing costs on ordinary citizens.
Who stands to gain
- service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses
Named in the bill
Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Veterans Business Development, Federal agencies, Service-disabled veterans, Small Business Act Section 36, Small Business Act Section 15(g)(1)(A)(ii)
Where it stands
9 cosponsors: 7 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- Jan 31, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 31, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Small Business · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Small Business”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 2 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $60,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 9 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Nicolas LaLota, the sponsor, reported $986,333 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- National Veteran Small Business Coalition — $60,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,741 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress mandates training to help agencies meet veteran contracting goals” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr865 Report an error
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