Enhancing Small Business Research And Innovation Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I'm pleased to rise today in support of H.R. 2965, the Enhancing Small Business Innovation Act of 2009. As the country continues to suffer through this deep economic recession, we have regular debates in this House and in Washington regarding what policies will best help to alleviate the current downturn and accelerate recovery.

All too often in these debates it seems there is a tendency to overlook an important fundamental fact: The government does not create wealth and prosperity. It is created, rather, in the private sector, by risk-taking, entrepreneurial Americans with ideas and capital, and their own hard work. There is arguably no element of the private sector better equipped to drive the economic turnaround than America's high-tech small businesses.

To this end, there are ways the government can help turn our economy around, by minimizing its interference in the economy and fostering an environment where private sector innovators can flourish and their ideas can be developed into new goods and services which increase productivity and our quality of life. By providing small amounts of early-stage seed funding to entrepreneurs with cutting-edge ideas, the Small Business Innovative Research program and Small Business Technology Transfer program can help do that. With 12 participating agencies and total funding in excess of $2.3 billion, the SBIR and STTR programs reauthorized in this bill serve to facilitate increased private sector commercialization of these promising ideas while helping the government advance its R&D goals and meet its technology needs.

The legislation before us today makes important improvements to this program, most notably by providing statutory clarity to what have been changing interpretations of the eligibility of majority venture capital-backed small businesses. Both the Science and Technology Committee and the Small Business Committee have considered this issue in detail in recent years, and I think the growing consensus in support of this legislation's proposed changes is a strong indication that they are on target, maximizing the eligibility of legitimate small businesses while minimizing inappropriate eligibility of large businesses.

I also want to note my strong support for title III of this bill, which includes amendment language I included in a similar version of this legislation last year. The language requires agencies to give priority consideration to applicants from rural areas so as to increase award recipients from these areas. This is important to reach areas such as my home State of Nebraska, which tends to have low participation in the programs but are, nonetheless, home to entrepreneurial and innovative small business owners who would benefit from consideration in the grant review and award process.

I want to commend Chairman Gordon, Ranking Member Hall and Chairman Wu--as well as our colleagues on the Small Business Committee--for their work on this legislation. I look forward to working with them to ensure smooth and timely passage of this bill as it moves to the Senate and into conference.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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(Mr. SMITH of Washington asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment, and I thank Congressman Reichert for offering it.

These are two critical programs. And I thank the committee, as well, for their excellent work in reauthorizing these programs, the SBIR and the STTR programs, which are designed to help small businesses with innovative products get access to help from the Small Business Administration to promote those products, and in particular, to emphasize help for veteran-owned businesses, small businesses, minorities, and underrepresented areas.

I applaud Mr. Reichert for offering this amendment as we reach out to those people and try to make them aware of this program, which has been a significant challenge, as Mr. Reichert outlined, of people being aware of the opportunities that are there. It makes a great deal of sense to those same veterans, minorities, and underrepresented areas to do that outreach. I think this is a well thought-out amendment that will help enormously in making sure those people get access to these critical programs.

As Mr. Reichert mentioned, there are a large number of veterans coming back from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan who are looking for these opportunities. This amendment will help make sure that our veterans get that help that they need to find those opportunities that are there.

And this will also be a huge boon to our economy. There are a lot of great ideas amongst these groups. If we can take those ideas, turn them into businesses and turn them into jobs, we all benefit from it, while at the same time helping our veterans who so richly deserve our help.

This is an important amendment that will help facilitate access by veteran-owned and other underrepresented businesses to the SBIR and STTR programs that we are discussing today.

As was already explained by my colleague, this amendment ensures that the outreach to underserved areas and underrepresented small businesses called for in this legislation will be conducted by organizations that include those which serve underrepresented States, regions, and businesses owned by women, persons of minority status, or service-disabled veterans.

As my district is home to many veterans who have gone on to start small businesses, and with many who will soon return home from service abroad and look to start businesses of their own, I am proud to offer this amendment with my colleague, Mr. REICHERT. This amendment will help to ensure that there are avenues available to those veterans and other underrepresented small business owners that would benefit from the assistance offered by the SBA.

I ask that my colleagues support this amendment.

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