S. 1009 would require, to the extent possible, that no less than one-third of the funds the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) obligates annually for procuring uniforms and certain protective gear be spent for contracts with domestic small business manufacturers. That provision would apply to contracts signed six months after the bill’s enactment for select DHS component units. S. 1009 also contains several reporting requirements, including an annual briefing to the Congress and studies on the adequacy of uniform allowances and ways to bolster domestic procurement.
Currently, DHS sources its uniforms under a contract that will expire in January 2027. Based on information from DHS, the agency obligates funds when items are ordered and outlays them when they are delivered, usually within 90 days.
The affected agencies, including Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, currently spend $100 million on 1,500 items annually under the contract, which covers the majority of items subject to the bill’s requirements. Using information from DHS, CBO expects that it would need to procure 150 of those items from new sources to meet the bill’s requirements.
Using information from DHS regarding its current uniform contract, CBO estimates that each item that is re-sourced from domestic small business manufacturers would cost about 100 percent more. That includes a change fee, which is required under the current contract, and additional costs from the item being sourced from a domestic small business manufacturer. In conversations with CBO, DHS indicated that it could take several years to re-source items due to prototype development and testing. Based on this information, CBO anticipates that DHS would gradually procure items from domestic small business manufacturers beginning in fiscal year 2025.
