Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 1873, Small Business Fairness In Contracting Act

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1873, SMALL BUSINESS FAIRNESS IN CONTRACTING ACT -- (House of Representatives - May 09, 2007)

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Mr. SESSIONS. I want to thank the gentleman from Florida, a member of the Rules Committee, who I look up to and is a great mentor. I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in strong opposition to this rule, which completely shuts out the minority from offering any amendments to improve this legislation.

Last night, the Rules Committee met to consider the 14 amendments offered by Members to improve this legislation; and the Democratic majority voted along party lines to prevent any amendments offered by a Republican from being considered.

I wish I could say that I was surprised by this outcome, but this is nothing new. This new Democratic majority decided to break its campaign trail promises to open up legislative process for all Members. Instead, they have chosen, once again, to play party politics and to help the Rules Committee to solidify its position and reputation as the graveyard of good ideas in the House of Representatives.

I offered one of the Republican amendments that will not be considered by the House today because of the partisanship in the Rules Committee. My amendment would have struck section 303, which mandates the automatic annual recertification of successful small businesses, whether this recertification is necessary or not.

Section 303 will create an administrative nightmare for small businesses
who wish to contract with the Federal Government. Mandating this annual recertification creates a disincentive for businesses to contract with the government, because filing this unnecessary paperwork takes time, takes money and takes manpower, proving that the actions we take here in Congress actually do have real-world consequences.

The Small Business Administration already has the discretion to determine how frequently small businesses must recertify, and the SBA studied and rejected this annual recertification because it would create, as they call it, an unnecessary burden for small business.

The SBA has already passed a recertification rule that goes into effect in June of this year. This rule will protect small business contracts without the added costs and headaches associated with the Democratic majority's heavy-handed proposal. Congress should have allowed the SBA rule to take effect before mandating this new, unnecessary statutory paperwork.

The failure of the Democratic majority to include my amendment proves that this bill is more about politics than it is about policy. Yesterday, person after person from both parties talked about how great it would be for us to help the great engine of this economy, small business. Yet we find out, when it really comes down to it, they want to put rules and regulations on small businesses, whether they are needed or not.

Mr. Speaker, I ask to insert in the Record the Statement of Administrative Policy for the bill which specifically states that the bill would impose additional detailed reporting requirements on agencies and prime contractors that would increase costs without clear benefits.

Statement of Administration Policy, H.R. 1873--Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act

(REPRESENTATIVE BRALEY (D), IA AND 29 COSPONSORS)

The Administration supports efforts to increase opportunities for small businesses to compete for Federal government acquisitions. The Administration, however, opposes H.R. 1873, because it would impose broad, burdensome statutory restrictions on Federal agencies' ability to conduct acquisitions and establish unrealistic small business procurement goals. Although the Administration appreciates the efforts of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to address some of the Administration's concerns, its reported bill contains many of the same objectionable provisions as the introduced bill and the bill as reported by the House Small Business Committee.

Among its objectionable provisions, H.R. 1873 would impose costly and time-consuming requirements on thousands of agency acquisitions through an overly-expansive definition of ``contract bundling'' that would include construction contracts, new procurements not previously performed by or considered suitable for small businesses, and task and delivery orders under existing contracts even when bundling justifications were already performed under such contract. These requirements would be in addition to existing rules that already require review of all agency procurements for small business opportunities.

Additionally, the bill would establish unrealistic government-wide and individual agency small business procurement goals that could undermine the small business procurement goal process. Moreover, both the increase in goals and the restrictions on allowing a small business to be counted for only one preferred small business contracting category raise constitutional questions by establishing new race- and gender-based Government preferences without presenting a strong basis in evidence that these preferences meet constitutional standards.

The bill also would overturn a recently issued small business regulation that guards against the abuse of small business preferences while allowing an affected small business a reasonable period of time to take advantage of such preferences during performance of a Federal procurement contract. Finally, the bill would impose additional detailed reporting requirements on agencies and prime contractors that would increase costs without clear benefits.

The Administration would strongly oppose amendments to require the Office of Management and Budget intervention in individual agency acquisition decisions, thereby removing the discretion and flexibility that agencies must have to accomplish their missions by contracting for needed supplies and services. The Administration also would strongly oppose any amendments that require individual agency goals to be no lower than government-wide statutory small business goals, or that apply small business goals to overseas acquisitions.

The Administration looks forward to working with Congress to increase opportunities for small businesses without unnecessarily disrupting agency operations and imposing burdensome requirements on agencies and contractors.

I ask for all my colleagues to oppose this partisan rule, this restrictive rule that will do very little to help small businesses.

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