Over the past few years, small businesses have lost out on opportunities when contracts intended for them were awarded to large corporations.  Though the federal marketplace continues to grow at record rates, small businesses’ contracting opportunities are dwindling. For the past six years, the federal government has failed to meet its 23 percent contracting goal – costing small businesses nearly $4.5 billion in lost contracting opportunity last year alone.   Small firms also face challenges as the government continues to combine work into contracts that are too large for entrepreneurs to bid on, making the work less accessible to small businesses.  These factors have all resulted in lost contracting opportunities for this nation’s small firms.  

Last year, I voted to pass H.R. 1873, the Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act. This legislation is an important step in putting small businesses on a level playing field with big corporations by increasing their access to federal contracts.   Small businesses make up nearly 99.7 percent of companies, yet they continue to face numerous challenges that prevent them from receiving their fair share of the $340 billion dollar federal marketplace.   In addition to increasing small business access to federal contracts, this legislation would: 

• Make “contract bundling”—the practice of grouping small government contracts together and awarding them as one large contract—more difficult by forcing government agencies to justify why they have bundled contracts in the first place
• Require the Small Business Administration to reach out to small businesses regarding opportunities for earning government contracts
• Raise the federal small business government-wide contracting goal from 23 to 30 percent, and includes new provisions to fight fraud in the contracting process
• Expand contracting opportunities for small businesses by opening up opportunities overseas and increasing enforcement on subcontracting goals
• Require the Small Business Administration to keep small businesses informed about the opportunities to compete for government contracts
• Mandate stricter oversight of government agencies to ensure that these agencies are making progress toward awarding contracts to small businesses