SBA Issues Proposed Rules for Women Business Owner Federal Set Aside Program

After more than six years of delays and a lawsuit by the US Women's Chamber of Commerce, the SBA finally published proposed rules for implementing the restricted competition program for women owned small businesses. Note that the government's failure to get this program moving is one of the reasons why the feds can't meet the 5% goal for wbo procurement, costing us $6 billion a year in lost revenues.

The SBA summarized the proposal:
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) proposes to amend its regulations governing SBA's government contracting programs. This proposed rule would add a new part to implement the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Assistance Program authorized under the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 2000, Public Law 106-554, December 21, 2000. Section 811 of the act authorized contracting officers to restrict competition to eligible WOSBs for certain federal contracts in industries in which SBA has determined that WOSBs are underrepresented or substantially underrepresented in federal procurement.

The deadline for comments on the SBA's proposals is July 17, 2006. Comments can be submitted electronically.

The SBA proposals conflict with some of the recommendations of the recent NAWBO Procurement Task Force Report.

Among other things, the SBA has not taken full advantage of the authority given it in the authorizing legislation to approve existing certification programs like WBENC and NWBOC as meeting certification requirements for the program. The NAWBO Procurement Task Force specifically recommended such an approach to streamlining certification requirements.

Another concern highlighted in the Task Force report is that, unless the regs are carefully written, receipt of a single federal contract can disqualify a woman business owner from further participation in the set aside program by moving her above revenue limits established in the SBA definitions of "small" business.

NAWBO's Public Policy Forum will be working with WIPP and others to submit comments on the proposed rules. If you have ideas/suggestions, you can post them in the comments to this post.

Kirsten Osolind, chair of the Forum has a good post on this topic on the re:invention blog here.