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To change the percentage of outstanding stock that must be held through an employee stock ownership plan for the purposes of the pilot program to incentivize contracting with employee-owned businesses of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.
Summary
The ESOP Act modifies the Department of Defense pilot program that incentivizes contracting with employee-owned businesses. The bill changes the employee stock ownership plan requirement from wholly-owned (100 percent) to at least 30 percent ownership. This allows businesses with employee ownership stakes of 30 percent or more to qualify for the incentive program, rather than requiring complete employee ownership.
AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.
Sponsor (1)
- Rep. Mills, Cory [R-FL-7] (R-FL)
Money behind the sponsor
Top reported contributors to Cory Mills’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.
- NULL $11,592
- FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY $10,000
- ECS $6,600
- PIONEER JETS $6,600
- ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SIMULATIONS $6,600
Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Cory Mills → · Outside spending →
Actions (2)
- Dec 5, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services. · house
- Dec 5, 2025 Introduced in House
Similar bills (6)
Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.
Full text
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 5, 2025
Mr. Mills introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services
A BILL
To change the percentage of outstanding stock that must be held through an employee stock ownership plan for the purposes of the pilot program to incentivize contracting with employee-owned businesses of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the “Empowering Small-business Ownership Participation Act” or the “ESOP Act”.
SEC. 2. CHANGE TO ESOP PERCENTAGE REQUIREMENT FOR PILOT PROGRAM TO INCENTIVIZE CONTRACTING WITH EMPLOYEE-OWNED BUSINESSES.
Section 874 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (10 U.S.C. 3204 note) is amended—
(1) by striking “wholly-owned” each place it appears and inserting “owned”;
(2) in subsection (a)—
(A) in the heading, by striking “Wholly-owned” and inserting “Owned”; and
(B) by striking “100 percent” and inserting “not less than 30 percent”;
(3) in subsection (b), in the heading, by striking “Wholly-owned” and inserting “Owned”; and
(4) in subsection (c), in the heading, by striking “Wholly-owned” and inserting “Owned”. <all>
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