National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, though I agree with Mr. Mfume that we need to find ways to incentivize and encourage agencies to contract with small businesses, very much so, I do not believe this is the correct approach.

This amendment, unfortunately, does not actually incentivize more contract with small businesses in a meaningful way. There are many underlying factors affecting the small business goaling numbers that must be addressed first before we raising the goals. We need more effective solutions to increasing contracting with small businesses.

First, the amendment does not address the concern of small businesses leaving the Federal marketplace at a very rapid rate. In fact, the amendment only incentivizes more dollars go to small businesses, which can easily be achieved by awarding huge contracts to a handful of mature small businesses, which can arguably be viewed as flouting the purpose of the goals themselves. It does nothing to incentivize agencies to contract with a greater number of small businesses, which is critical to maintaining a healthy and competitive industrial base.

Second, the Small Business Committee has taken several actions over the years to understand and address the problems of agencies overreporting their small business goals. This issue is still a work in progress. Some of these dollars purported to have gone to small businesses may have gone to large businesses, perhaps legally, likely legally. However, agencies are permitted to report all dollars as going to small businesses when this may not truly be the case.

Similarly, issues with double counting of the goals continue to exist. Raising the goals won't do enough--won't really do anything to increase the transparency or accuracy as currently reported. We need to know whether the government is truly meeting its goals before we can consider raising them.

Third, it may be simply be too premature to raise some of those goals my colleague proposes to raise. The government has never met its HUBzone goal, yet the amendment raises the goal from 3 to 4 percent, while the previous goals, as stated, have never been met.

Similarly, with the women-owned small business goal, which has been met only a few times in nonconsecutive years, raising that as well does not seem it would have the result that we are seeking.

Lastly, the SBA is undergoing some significant changes to its government contracting programs; namely, beginning to fully certify women-owned small businesses and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. These goaling numbers presumably capture awards made to firms that self-certified as women-owned, or service-disabled veteran- owned. Once the SBA begins to start certifying firms and self- certification is no longer an option, we should expect to see a correlative dip in these two goals since there will be less vendors for agencies to choose from. It may be prudent to wait and see the true picture of where the government stands on these goals, once these front-end certification programs are fully in place, rather than raising them now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, in closing, although I very much share my colleague, Mr. Mfume's goal and idea, conceptually, in seeing more contract dollars be awarded to small business, I do not believe this is the correct approach.

As a member of the Small Business Committee's Contracting and Infrastructure Subcommittee, I look forward to working with him, and certainly others, to address the underlying challenging our small businesses are facing in such contracting.

I do not support this amendment, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MEUSER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source