The federal government can promote this by making it a requirement of the receipt of federal funds, on which such institutions — and many other large employers — rely.
Dwight Evans will require federal fund recipients to adopt locally based procurement policies that support local and minority businesses.
Occurrences
Local food procurement for schools, hospitals, jails, and other institutions. The federal government can incentivize local procurement by such anchor institutions.
Evidence
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OMB's final guidance took effect October 1, 2024. For section 200.319, OMB discussed removal of the prohibition on using geographic preferences, while cautioning that any geographic preferences must be consistent with the Constitution, federal statutes and regulations, and award terms. For section 200.321, OMB said recipients and subrecipients are encouraged to consider small businesses, minority businesses, women's business enterprises, veteran-owned businesses, and labor surplus area firms for procurement contracts under federal awards.
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Congress.gov lists H.R.2485 as introduced on April 6, 2023, with latest action on April 7, 2023, referred to the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. CRS summarizes the bill as requiring DOT's DBE program and assistance recipients to analyze and report on DBE outreach, training, public reporting, and annual reports for federally funded transportation contracts.
Assessments
The promised requirement was not fully delivered: federal fund recipients were not broadly required to adopt locally based procurement policies supporting local and minority businesses. Later OMB guidance, effective October 1, 2024, partially overlaps by allowing some geographic preferences and encouraging consideration of minority and other disadvantaged businesses in federal-award procurement. Evans also supported related DBE contracting legislation, but it did not pass and did not itself create the promised local procurement mandate.