Lawmakers seek more disaster relief contracts for small businesses

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would require the Homeland Security Department to create a database of small, disadvantaged businesses that could help with relief and recovery work after a disaster strikes.

The FEMA Small Business Database bill (H.R. 4427) would require agencies to consult the database before making contract awards.

"The database will categorize these businesses based on their type of work, geographical location and small-business status," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, in a letter seeking support for the bill. "Registration in this database will provide small businesses with the notice and information necessary to compete for government contracts within their region and thus help to jump-start the local economy after the tragedy of a national disaster or other emergency event."

Thompson and several other lawmakers maintain that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been too slow in contracting with small and disadvantaged businesses since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast.

DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie said the government already has such a database, called the Central Contractor Registration.

He also said FEMA requires large prime contractors to subcontract a portion of work to small businesses, and has been holding meetings with small businesses in the affected areas of the Gulf Coast.

"As soon as we could, we started making all the avenues available to make sure we brought in small businesses," Orluskie said.

A Democratic staffer, however, said the existing CCR database is difficult to navigate. "We would like to point out that what's proposed would be a more straightforward, pared-down database that's easy to use," the staffer said.

The staffer also asked why FEMA has not contracted with more small businesses in the Gulf Coast if the CCR is an effective tool.

FEMA in October announced a revised contracting plan for the Gulf Coast region. That strategy included a commitment to give work to small businesses.

"I am going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that we follow government procurement guidelines from here on out for the rest of the expenditures that we're going to do," acting FEMA Director David Paulison told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in October.

Orluskie said the fresh strategy will consist of awarding new contracts for upcoming work competitively, as opposed to giving task orders to large corporations already under contract. He emphasized that large contractors with existing projects will not be required to re-negotiate their agreements. Rather, new work will be competitively bid.

FEMA, however, has yet to follow through on putting new work up for bid, raising the ire of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. They particularly want to see the agency award new contracts for work that might otherwise go to four large corporations: Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp.

The two senators sent Paulison a letter on Nov. 17 seeking "a complete status report on where FEMA is in the process of competing the work covered by these four contracts, as well as a timeline for the remainder of the procurement process."

"In the initial days after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the use of less than full and open competition to provide immediate relief may have been warranted," they wrote. "Now that the immediate crisis has passed, however, such substantial and important work should be awarded competitively in a transparent manner consistent with all applicable laws and regulations to ensure the best value for the taxpayers."

Orluskie could not estimate when the agency will put out new bids, saying only that it will be "soon."