Kerry pledges to overhaul SBA in chairman's role

When he takes over as chairman of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee in January, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., will focus on strengthening the Small Business Administration and boosting federal contracting opportunities for minority groups.

In a recent conference call with reporters, he discussed his agenda for the 110th Congress and prospects for moving on small business issues that he said have seen slow progress or slippage over the past several years.

Kerry said the SBA's budget has been cut by nearly 40 percent -- more than any other federal agency -- over the last six years. The committee will seek to reverse those cuts and improve employee morale, he said, also noting he would like to see the SBA administrator job restored to the Cabinet level. The Clinton administration elevated the position to that status, but President Bush downgraded it when he took office.

In addition, Kerry has listed two other priorities: reforming SBA's Disaster Loan Program, which was slow to help Gulf Coast business owners in the aftermath of last year's hurricanes, and improving the effectiveness of its loan and counseling programs for minority entrepreneurs.

He also wants to see a set-aside program for women-owned small businesses fully implemented. Plans for that program, first authorized in 2000, were made available for comment in June, after the Women's Chamber of Commerce successfully sued the administration for delays in implementing it.

Beefing up an under-used SBA preference program for service-disabled veterans is also on Kerry's to-do list. "We've got an awful lot of veterans coming home and having a real struggle finding jobs," Kerry told reporters. "We ought to have a special effort and gratitude to those who served, to help improve the contracting record with service-disabled veterans," he said, noting that 0.6 percent of contracts last year went to business owners in that group. The governmentwide target is 3 percent.

He said he intends to pursue new programs to assist veteran business owners get access to capital, and to offer grants to small firms when their employees are on active duty. SBA is currently up for reauthorization, and a bill addressing several of these priorities passed the Senate in July.

Federal contracting opportunities for small business owners will be under a spotlight in the new session, Kerry has said. He said his committee will conduct aggressive oversight to address the government's failure to meet small business participation goals and continuing problems with large businesses winning contracts set aside for small ones.

Two weeks ago, SBA unveiled new rules requiring businesses to recertify their size status five years into a contract and whenever an option is exercised afterward. But Kerry and other advocates criticized the regulations as falling short of the initial proposal to require annual recertification. They said the rules will not do enough to stem abuse of the contracting preferences available for small concerns.

Kerry stressed that the Senate panel will continue to operate on a bipartisan basis in the new session. "The last six years have actually been very frustrating for, I think, both Olympia Snowe [R-Maine, and present chairwoman of the committee] and myself, because we've had a number of small business priorities which have been put on the back burner by the SBA and the administration," he said.

Noting that measures passed in the Senate stalled in the more partisan House, Kerry said he looked forward to working with his counterpart, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y. "Now, what we pass in the Senate can go to a conference committee, where I believe it can be fairly heard and worked on," Kerry said.

In a statement, Velazquez echoed several of Kerry's priorities, saying she would "work to ensure that entrepreneurs have access to affordable capital, and a fair and open federal marketplace."