PETALUMA, CA -- 09/26/07 --
The following is a statement by the American
Small Business League:
Tomorrow the United States House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 3567,
the Small Business Investment Expansion Act of 2007, which will give some
of the largest financial institutions in the world the ability to receive
federal small business contracts for an indefinite time period.
The bill was introduced on Tuesday, September 18th by Representative Jason
Altmire (D - PA) and is cosponsored by Representative Nydia Velázquez (D -
NY) and Representative Sam Graves (R - MO).
Small business advocates around the country are disappointed with
Congresswoman Velázquez for supporting a piece of legislation that they see
as another loophole that will divert even more federal small business
contracts to large corporations.
In the last four years, more than 12 federal investigations have found that
billions of dollars in federal contracts reported as going to small
businesses actually went to some of the largest companies in the world.
Additionally, several of the investigations yielded reports that found
firms like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Halliburton, General Dynamics
and even foreign-owned firms like BAE have all received hundreds of
millions of dollars in federal small business contracts.
Opponents of the bill see it as another loophole that will allow large
businesses to acquire controlling interest in a small business and keep
that small business status indefinitely.
The legislation comes less than 90 days after the Small Business
Administration moved to close a similar loophole on June 30th by requiring
firms receiving federal small business contracts to recertify their small
business status every five years.
A similar exemption for venture capital companies was proposed and put out
for comment in 2005. During the comment period the SBA received the
largest response in the history of the agency with more than 6000
responses, of which 95 percent were opposed to the policy.
The American Small Business League projects that if this legislation is
passed it will divert as much as 20 billion dollars a year in federal small
business contracts to firms that are owned by some of the largest financial
institutions in the country.
Contact:
Christopher Gunn
Communications Director
American Small Business League
Email Contact
(707) 789-9575
