BRAVE Act

II 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. 1621 To amend title 38, United States Code, to authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in awarding a contract for the procurement of goods or services, to give a preference to offerors that employ veterans, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MAY 22, 2019 Ms. BALDWIN (for herself and Mr. TILLIS) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs A BILL To amend title 38, United States Code, to authorize the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, in awarding a contract for the procurement of goods or services, to give a pref- erence to offerors that employ veterans, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Boosting Rates of 4 American Veteran Employment Act’’ or the ‘‘BRAVE 5 Act’’. 6 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:24 Jun 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1621.IS S1621 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •S 1621 IS SEC. 2. PREFERENCE FOR OFFERORS EMPLOYING VET- 1 ERANS. 2 (a) IN GENERAL.—Subchapter II of chapter 81 of 3 title 38, United States Code, is amended by adding after 4 section 8128 the following new section: 5 ‘‘§ 8129. Preference for offerors employing veterans 6 ‘‘(a) PREFERENCE.—In awarding a contract for the 7 procurement of goods or services, the Secretary may give 8 a preference to offerors that employ veterans on a full- 9 time basis. The Secretary shall determine such preference 10 based on the percentage of the full-time employees of the 11 offeror who are veterans. 12 ‘‘(b) ENFORCEMENT PENALTIES FOR MISREPRESEN- 13 TATION.—(1) Any offeror that is determined by the Sec- 14 retary to have willfully and intentionally misrepresented 15 the veteran status of the employees of the offeror for pur- 16 poses of subsection (a) may be debarred from contracting 17 with the Department for a period of not less than five 18 years. 19 ‘‘(2) If the Secretary carries out a debarment under 20 paragraph (1), the Secretary shall commence debarment 21 action against the offeror by not later than 30 days after 22 determining that the offeror willfully and intentionally 23 misrepresented the veteran status of the employees of the 24 offeror as described in paragraph (1) and shall complete 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:24 Jun 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\S1621.IS S1621 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 3 •S 1621 IS debarment actions against such offeror by not later than 1 90 days after such determination. 2 ‘‘(3) The debarment of an offeror under paragraph 3 (1) includes the debarment of all principals in the offeror 4 for a period of not less than five years.’’. 5 (b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections 6 at the beginning of such chapter is amended by inserting 7 after the item relating to section 8128 the following new 8 item: 9 ‘‘8129. Preference for offerors employing veterans.’’. Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 00:24 Jun 01, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\S1621.IS S1621 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS