Contact Information: Contact: Lloyd Chapman President American Small Business League (707) 789-9575
NASA to Use Fortune 1000 Firms to Hit Small Business Goal With New SBA Policy, Says American Small Business League
| Source: American Small Business League
PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwire - June 25, 2007) - The following is a statement by the American
Small Business League:
A new Small Business Administration policy set to take effect on June 30th
will allow NASA to continue to count contracts to Fortune 1000 firms
towards their federally mandated 23 percent small business contracting
goal.
In February of 2006, NASA lost a federal lawsuit to the American Small
Business League, which was filed under the Freedom of Information Act. NASA
was forced to disclose information that indicated that they had included
billions of dollars in contracts to many of the nation's largest defense
and aerospace firms towards their small business contracting goal.
Under the new SBA policy, NASA can continue to include awards to firms such
as Boeing and Lockheed Martin in their small business contracting
statistics until the year 2012.
The SBA originally proposed a "grandfathering" policy in November of 2004,
after a series of federal investigations found the SBA had included billons
of dollars in contracts to Fortune 1000 firms and hundreds of other large
businesses towards the federal government's 23 percent small business
procurement goal. It would have allowed the SBA to continue to claim that
the government had met their small business-contracting goal by continuing
to count contract awards to large businesses as small business contract
awards. The SBA was forced to shelve the grandfathering policy after
receiving more than 6000 objections to the proposed policy.
New SBA Administrator Steven Preston resurrected the unpopular
grandfathering policy shortly after he was appointed to office, renaming it
"five-year re-certification." Like the grandfathering policy, the five-year
re-certification policy will allow NASA and all other federal agencies to
include existing small business contracts to Fortune 1000 firms and other
large businesses towards their small business contracting goals for five
more years.
The Senate is expected to propose legislation to remove Fortune 1000 firms
and all large businesses from federal small business contracting programs
before the end of 2007.