Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3867, Small Business Contracting Program Improvements Act

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3867, SMALL BUSINESS CONTRACTING PROGRAM IMPROVEMENTS ACT -- (House of Representatives - October 30, 2007)

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Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza) for the time, and I would yield myself such time as I may consume.

Small business is the engine that drives our economic strength. The almost 26 million small businesses in the United States employ over half of all private sector workers and pay approximately 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll. Over the last decade, small businesses have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually.

Congress, for decades, has acknowledged the important role small businesses play in the Federal procurement process. This is evident in the Small Business Act of 1953. The Act says that, and I quote, ``it is the declared policy of the Congress that the government should aid, counsel, assist and protect ..... the interests of small business concerns in order to preserve free competitive enterprise and to ensure that a fair proportion of the total purchases and contracts or subcontracts for property and services for the government ..... be placed with small business enterprises.''

In 2006, the Federal Government spent over $400 billion on goods and services in over 8 million separate contracts. Small businesses won about 80 billion worth of those contracts, a little over 20 percent.

The Veterans Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act of 1999 established a goal of 3 percent for Federal contracts awarded to service-disabled veterans. Unfortunately, we have yet to meet that worthy goal.

The underlying legislation being brought to the floor today, H.R. 3867, the Small Business Contracting Improvements Act, seeks to expand procurement opportunities for businesses owned by service-disabled veterans by placing these businesses at the top of the priority list for receiving Federal contracts.

The legislation adjusts the net worth standard for businesses in the 8(a) program for the first time in about 20 years, to $550,000, so it is more consistent with inflation. To take part in the 8(a) program a business must be owned by citizens who are socially and economically disadvantaged. Participants in the program are eligible for sole source and limited competition government contracts. They also can receive a 10 percent cost advantage in some procurements.

As part of their campaign, Madam Speaker, the new majority spoke often about taking the House of Representatives in a new direction. Unfortunately, that direction seems to be backwards because now the Rules Committee no longer allows Members to present their amendments even if they're a few minutes late. That is a departure from the practice of the Rules Committee under the prior majority.

Last week, several Members attempted to file amendments with the Rules Committee. The majority denied the Members even the ability to file the amendment because they were a few minutes late, thereby denying Members the right even to come before the Rules Committee to speak about the merits of their respective amendments.

Representative King attempted to file his amendment on-line as required by the committee; however, due to technical issues, he was not able to file the amendment on-line. Representative King was told by the majority on the Rules Committee that they would waive the electronic filing requirement; however, because he had spent time trying to get the amendment filed electronically, he missed by a few minutes the deadline to physically file the amendment. It's disappointing that the majority would not allow Representative King to offer his amendment when it was clear he was trying to comply with the filing requirements. Because of technical issues, he was delayed.

I understand the need the majority may have in issuing a deadline. But in the prior majority, Madam Speaker, we always allowed Members to at least file their amendments even if they were past the deadline, and even made some of those amendments in order. It is a shame that the new majority has decided to take a step back and not allow some discretion in this matter.

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This new hard-and-fast time requirement is particularly difficult, if not impossible, when a Member is trying to file a second-degree amendment. As you know, Madam Speaker, a second-degree amendment is written to amend an amendment, so that it is not possible to draft such an amendment until the initial amendment was made public, and that list of amendments filed is not made public until after the amendment deadline.

We already saw how the new majority's requirement blocks amendments when, during a previous rule, Representative Akin was not allowed to offer a second-degree amendment.

It's unfortunate, Madam Speaker, by not allowing Members to even offer amendments in the Rules Committee, we believe that the majority is, in effect, silencing the voices of millions of Americans.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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