Contact

Please e-mail the American Small Business League (ASBL) at brianreeder@asbl.com. Thank you.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

SBA Proposes Policy to Limit Contracting Opportunities for Women-Owned Firms

Petaluma, Calif. - Today the American Small Business League launched a national campaign to oppose a newly proposed Small Business Administration (SBA) policy that will further delay the implementation of the 5 percent set-aside for woman-owned firms that became law with the passage of P.L. 106-554 in 2000.

If implemented, the new policy will severely limit federal contracting opportunities for women-owned firms. The proposed policy represents the latest attempt in the Bush Administration's seven-year campaign to kill the program designed to ensure women-owned businesses have a fair and equitable opportunity to receive a minimum of 5 percent of federal small business contracts.

Additionally, the policy ignores the findings of a Rand Corporation study that found that woman-owned firms were underrepresented in up to 121 of the 140 industrial categories of goods and services purchased by the federal government.

The SBA's proposed policy would limit the implementation of the program by only allowing set-aside contracts for women in 4 of the 140 industrial categories.

"I hope people understand that what this means is the Bush Administration doesn't believe that giving male owned firms over 95 percent of all federal contracts and subcontracts is enough," President of the ASBL Lloyd Chapman said. "This administration is opposed to an existing federal law that would merely provide that the 50 percent of U.S. citizens that are women receive at least 5 percent of the federal contracts. I think women across the country need to let the SBA know that they will not stand for these injustices by submitting comments in opposition to this rule."

In 1994, Congress set a goal of awarding 5 percent of the total value of all prime contracts to women-owned businesses. According to data from the Federal Procurement Data System, that goal has not been met since 1996. In FY 2006, women-owned firms received only 3.4 percent of federal small business contracting dollars. While male owned firms received a staggering 96.6 percent of all federal contracts.

The American Small Business League's campaign to oppose this anti-woman-owned small business policy will involve: mobilizing ASBL members to comment against the proposed rule, working with chambers of commerce across the country to help them encourage their members to comment and contact their legislators, and communicating the importance of stopping this rule change to legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

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Contact:
Christopher Gunn
Communications Director
American Small Business League
(707) 789-9575

Monday, January 7, 2008

ASBL Urges Concerned Citizens to Comment on SBA's Proposed Rule to Limit Set-Asides for Women

The American Small Business League opposes the Small Business Administrations efforts to limit contracting opportunities for women owned small businesses through a proposed rule that would take steps toward the implementation of a women's federal procurement program, but limit federal contracts protected status for women owned small businesses to 4 of 140 industries used by the federal government for the purchasing of goods and services.

The rule was posted in the December 27th issue of the Federal Register and if enacted would drastically limit the number of Government contracts awarded to women entrepreneurs by requiring women-owned small businesses to demonstrate under-representation and direct discrimination by a government agency to qualify for protected status.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship called the rule, "a slap in the face to women business owners."

Please go to the following link and use the resources below to comment against this rule change and let the SBA know that we will not stand for it.

The Portal for comment submission is:
http://www.regulations.gov/search/index.jsp

Copy and past the following into the comment or submission section:
3245–AF40

PDF of Federal Register from December 27th
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/pdf/E7-25056.pdf

Rule Change Description
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=090000648037edf3&disposition=attachment&contentType=html

Example Comment:

I am against this proposed rule change. Stating that women owned small businesses are disadvantaged in 4 of 140 industries is an insult to women small business owners across the nation.

S. 2300 Update

As we move into 2008 please note the Senate will be considering S .2300, so be sure to reach to your representatives this week.

Our fight for the removal of large firms from federal small business contracting has reached a point where the United States Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship has heard our plea and is introducing comprehensive legislation to remove large firms from federal small business contracting with S. 2300 the, “Small Business Contracting Revitalization Act of 2007.”

I wanted to let you know that the Senate Committee on Small business and Entrepreneurship voted on and passed S.2300 on November 7th. This bill will now move to the full Senate.

S. 2300 addresses:
- Contract bundling
- Annual re-certification via CCR (with out additional bureaucracy see Sec. 502)
- Subcontractor misrepresentation
- Expands opportunities for minority, women and service-disabled veteran owned small business.

Please email your elected officials today and ask them to support S. 2300.

Text: "Please support S. 2300 the Small Business Contracting Revitalization Act and annual re-certification via CCR which will help remove large firms from Federal Small Business Contracting."

Senate Contact list
House Contact list
Speaker Pelosi
Chairwoman Velazquez
Link to the S. 2300
GovExec.com Update