Lawmakers protest delay in program to aid women-owned small businesses

Members of Congress filed an amicus brief Thursday in support of a lawsuit against the Small Business Administration for failing to kick off a program to provide advantages in federal contracting for women-owned small businesses.

Late Wednesday, SBA officials announced that they will begin to implement the program, which was enacted into law by the 2000 Small Business Reauthorization Act. Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez, D-N.Y., who has voiced strong criticism of SBA, dismissed the agency's announcement as meaningless. "This is the same story over and over again," she said.

Women's business groups and their congressional allies have vocally criticized the delay in implementation. The Washington-based Women's Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit against the agency in October.

An SBA spokeswoman said Wednesday's announcement was not related to the filing of the amicus brief, and instead attributed the delay to the need to conduct certain studies before the law is implemented. "We're moving along, following the letter of the law and doing this as quickly and as thoroughly as we can," she said.

The regulations likely will give agencies the ability to limit certain competitions to women-owned small businesses. Currently, these types of businesses do not receive set-aside contracts and are not eligible to participate in the 8(a) program, which is for minority-owned small businesses.

"The challenge is that there are other targeted programs out there and white women weren't allowed to get into those markets," said Margot Dorfman, chief executive of the Women's Chamber of Commerce.

The federal government currently has a goal of awarding 5 percent of contracts to women-owned small business, but they currently earn about 3 percent of total contracts awarded. Velazquez estimated that as a result of this discrepancy, women-owned small businesses have lost $25 billion during the past five years.

On Tuesday, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wrote a letter to SBA administrator Hector Barreto, and asked him to report to Congress on the delay.

"By refusing to implement the women's contracting program and repeatedly failing to meet required contracting goals, this administration is undermining virtually every existing opportunity for women business owners to break into the good-old-boy network of federal contracting," said Kerry.

Unlike Velazquez, Kerry interpreted the SBA's announcement as a clear decision to implement the law in the near future. "I am pleased that after five years of constant pressure, the Bush administration has finally decided to follow the law and implement the long overdue women's contracting program," he said.

SBA supports other programs for women-owned small businesses, including the Matchmaking program which partners small companies with large government contractors. It said 50 percent of the $26 million worth of contracts generated from the program has gone to women-owned small businesses.

Dorfman, however, dismissed Matchmaking and other programs aimed at women as small and ineffective.

"We don't need your special SBA women's awards, special SBA women's newsletters and publications with pictures of happy women at endless women's events. What we need is for the Small Business Administration to implement the law that was created by Congress to establish a targeted program through which agencies would have the tools they need to meet their contracting goals," she said.

Dale Patenaude, vice president of the San Antonio-based Rothe Development Inc., a technology services company which is owned by a woman, said his company benefits only when going after subcontracts because prime contractors want to give a certain amount of business to women-owned companies.

He said he supports either the implementation of the law designed to help women-owned small businesses, or the elimination of programs that reserve certain contracts for minority-owned companies, a practice that excludes his own firm.

"We've got to have some way to get even; some way to get a fair share," he said.