To make improvements in the enactment of title 41, United States Code, into a positive law title and to improve the Code.

Mostly housekeeping on old legal citations — but a contractor misconduct database would go public, and rights lost in a 2011 rewrite come back.

More about this bill

Almost no one would notice a change here. Most of the work is housekeeping on old legal citations. Federal laws still point to procurement rules that were moved or repealed in 2011. More than 440 of those pointers would be redirected to where the rules actually live now. That touches dozens of areas of federal law, from farm programs to the Clean Air Act. A few pieces do carry real weight. Wage rules for workers on federal service jobs would reach smaller contracts. Today those rules only kick in above $2,500. That cutoff would apply only to the pay terms a contract must spell out. Workers on District of Columbia contracts would be covered too. Public records would move in two directions. The government keeps a database of contractor fines, convictions, and settlements. It would have to be posted on a public website. Ratings of a firm's past work would stay off it. At the same time, small energy research contracts would drop off a yearly list sent to Congress. The cutoff there would rise from $10,000 to $25,000. Firms that sell to the government would get an old right back. A 2011 rewrite of the law dropped it by mistake. A contract could not make an agency's own ruling final on a question of law. Judges could still weigh in. The repair would count as of January 4, 2011.