Congress: more defense contracts for small businesses.

• Position: Defense Insider

Members of the House Armed Services Committee are escalating a campaign to help small - and medium-size companies score more Pentagon contracts.

"How do we make sure it's not the same usual suspects getting all the contracts?" asked Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking minority member on the committee.

Small businesses in his home state and elsewhere see the overwhelming bureaucracy in Pentagon procurement and turn the other way, even though they might have products that the military needs and that might cost less than larger contractors charge, Smith said, "I hear that in my district a lot," he said.

Leading the charge against the Pentagon's business unfriendly policies is Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa. His spokesman, Jeff Urbanchuk, said a Shuster-led defense business panel wants to identify...