Contact Information: Contact: Christopher Gunn Communications Director American Small Business League (707) 789-9575
SBA Proposes Policy to Limit Contracting Opportunities for Women-Owned Firms
| Source: American Small Business League
PETALUMA, CA--(Marketwire - January 9, 2008) - The following is a statement by the American
Small Business League:
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.