Small Business Procurement and Utilization Reform Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. PEREZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the SPUR Act. I thank my colleague from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber) for introducing this bill.

The SBA is ensuring that small businesses are given a fair shot at competing for Federal contracting dollars. SBA publishes an annual small business procurement scorecard that grades each Federal agency on their spending toward the goal and gives agencies a score for their performance. We all know that these Federal contracts can be an incredible financial opportunity for our Nation's entrepreneurs, but even though the amount of dollars awarded to small businesses has reached record highs, the number of small businesses in the industrial base has declined dramatically.

Put simply, the Federal Government is not retaining current small business government contractors, and new small businesses are not choosing to enter the Federal market. This is a serious problem.

For our local economies to thrive, it is important that we level the playing field and ensure that more southwest Washington small businesses can benefit from these opportunities. This bill would require the SBA to include the number of new entrants into the Federal market in the methodology for scoring each Federal agency's small business performance.

By way of example, after the 2020 pandemic hit, my husband and I spent basically the better part of a year on upgrades to our auto shop, including investments in infrastructure, like ventilation systems to keep our employees and our customers safe.

Our friends, who own another auto repair shop, instead spent the entire year learning how to navigate the contract system with the city. This is a perfect example of how it is a real loss to our communities and our local economies when small business owners have to spend a year navigating a bureaucracy and figuring out how to do business with the government.

Our bill will help shed light on how successful Federal agencies are at making sure that new businesses see the value in contracting with the Federal Government and have the capacity to overcome the regulatory burdens to tap into these resources.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to co-lead this bill with Representative Stauber, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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