With all the advances made on the LGBT front in recent years, you might think that fight has been won.

Yet closets remain in Uncle Sam’s space. Walter works in one, figuratively.

Walter is a government contractor on an Army facility. He runs a small, Florida consulting firm. He’s gay and he doesn’t want Sam to know.

“What would happen if I came out, I’m not 100 percent sure,” he said, “but I don’t recognize a lot of messages that it’s all right.”

That why Walter and the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) want President Obama to order federal agencies not to discriminate against LGBT companies. In an era in which they can marry, and openly serve in the military, Congress and high federal positions, some gay contractors still fear that they could lose federal business if their sexual orientation were known.  Read Full Article.

New rules in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) may impact how you do business with the Federal Government.  A number of these new rules relate specifically to small businesses.

Consolidation and Bundling:  DoD, GSA, and NASA are issuing a final rule to amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement sections of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 and regulatory changes made by the Small Business Administration, which provide for a Governmentwide policy on consolidation and bundling.

Small Entity Compliance Guide: This document is issued under the joint authority of DOD, GSA, and NASA. This Small Entity Compliance Guide has been prepared in accordance with section 212 of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996. It consists of a summary of the rules appearing in Federal Acquisition Circular (FAC) 2005-91, which amends the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). An asterisk (*) next to a rule indicates that a regulatory flexibility analysis has been prepared. Interested parties may obtain further information regarding these rules by referring to FAC 2005-91, which precedes this document. These documents are also available via the Internet at http://www.regulations.gov.

Sole Source Contracts for Women-Owned Small Businesses: DoD, GSA, and NASA have adopted as final, with a minor edit, an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement regulatory changes made by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that provide for authority to award sole source contracts to economically disadvantaged women-owned small business concerns and to women-owned small business concerns eligible under the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Program.

Updating Federal Contract Reporting of Veterans’ Employment: DoD, GSA, and NASA are adopting as final, without change, an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement a final rule issued by the Department of Labor's (DOL) Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) that replaced the VETS-100 and VETS-100A Federal Contractor Veterans' Employment Report forms with the ETS-4212, Federal Contractor Veterans' Employment Report form. Reference Article