By Pamela Hess
The White House beat a host of senators to the punch Tuesday by issuing an executive order to ensure women get a fair share of the $200 billion in federal contracts awarded every year.
The executive order comes nine months after a coalition of women's groups filed a legal petition to include women in the group for which a small percentage of federal contracts are set aside. The order came just hours before a host of senators planned to introduce a "sense of the Senate" resolution calling on federal agencies to meet the target.
The announcement has been long awaited, said Amy Millman, executive director of the National Women's Business Council, in Washington, D.C.
The White House "has done nothing in the past, everything was a goal here, an idea there," Millman told United Press International. "Clinton is finally saying, 'this is an important business sector: Hello, do business with women!'"
Women-owned businesses are the fastest growing sector of commerce, especially in the non-traditional fields of manufacturing and construction, according to Sharon Hadary, executive director of the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. Such businesses receive about 2.4 percent of government procurement contracts, missing out on billions Congress intends to funnel their way.
"It's a big pool of competitive contracting, the big guys can always outbid the small guys, or small girls for that matter," Millman said. "They have to go with the lowest bid. The newest entrant to the market is women and they can't compete" without a set aside.
"If we are going to see this segment of the economy achieve its full potential and making the greatest contribution to the economy we need to assure access to markets," Hadary told UPI.
Hadary said small businesses with multi-year government contract are more likely to grow and stay in business, and women-owned businesses are expected to make up half of all U.S. businesses in the next decade.
But small businesses in general have been hurt by the government's inclination toward bundling numerous contracts together and competing them as a single award to speed the process. Small businesses can't handle the large contracts, and therefore can't get the work except as subcontractors.
Worse, some large contractors compete with women-owned businesses on their team to improve their chances of winning the award and then drop the women once they have won, Hadary said.
Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and a host of others were scheduled to introduce a resolution on the Senate floor Tuesday criticizing the administration for not doing enough to enforce the federal goal - set in 1996 -- of awarding 5 percent of federal contracts to women-owned businesses.
"Basically the administration dropped the ball and we decided that the women-owned business community is far too important to small business generally and to the economy as a whole to allow this to wither on the vine," Craig Orfield, communications director for the Senate Small Business Committee, told UPI. "I think it is a shame that the president let the issue lapse the way it has."
Orfield asserted that the White House rushed the executive order out today to undercut the Senate resolution.
"Clearly the administration did get wind of it, and this pretty well demonstrates that they are trying to make up or make good with the women-owned business community," he said.
James Ballentine, associate deputy administrator for government contracts at SBA, told UPI that the administration has been working on the executive order since January.
"It's taken a long time because it has to clear all the agencies but it's been a collective effort," Ballentine said. "This has been in the works for many months. We have been working diligently on this. We at SBA and the administration realized that more can be done within the agencies and to hope the executive order will be the driving force."
The National Women's Business Council's Millman said that small bureaucratic step - and getting the White House to act as a bully pulpit for women-owned businesses-is a giant one for women.
"When you are not in the process it looks like 'ho hum' - but then when you realize how hard you worked to get it to this point," Millman added.
The White House beat a host of senators to the punch Tuesday by issuing an executive order to ensure women get a fair share of the $200 billion in federal contracts awarded every year.
The executive order comes nine months after a coalition of women's groups filed a legal petition to include women in the group for which a small percentage of federal contracts are set aside. The order came just hours before a host of senators planned to introduce a "sense of the Senate" resolution calling on federal agencies to meet the target.
The announcement has been long awaited, said Amy Millman, executive director of the National Women's Business Council, in Washington, D.C.
The White House "has done nothing in the past, everything was a goal here, an idea there," Millman told United Press International. "Clinton is finally saying, 'this is an important business sector: Hello, do business with women!'"
Women-owned businesses are the fastest growing sector of commerce, especially in the non-traditional fields of manufacturing and construction, according to Sharon Hadary, executive director of the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. Such businesses receive about 2.4 percent of government procurement contracts, missing out on billions Congress intends to funnel their way.
"It's a big pool of competitive contracting, the big guys can always outbid the small guys, or small girls for that matter," Millman said. "They have to go with the lowest bid. The newest entrant to the market is women and they can't compete" without a set aside.
"If we are going to see this segment of the economy achieve its full potential and making the greatest contribution to the economy we need to assure access to markets," Hadary told UPI.
Hadary said small businesses with multi-year government contract are more likely to grow and stay in business, and women-owned businesses are expected to make up half of all U.S. businesses in the next decade.
But small businesses in general have been hurt by the government's inclination toward bundling numerous contracts together and competing them as a single award to speed the process. Small businesses can't handle the large contracts, and therefore can't get the work except as subcontractors.
Worse, some large contractors compete with women-owned businesses on their team to improve their chances of winning the award and then drop the women once they have won, Hadary said.
Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and a host of others were scheduled to introduce a resolution on the Senate floor Tuesday criticizing the administration for not doing enough to enforce the federal goal - set in 1996 -- of awarding 5 percent of federal contracts to women-owned businesses.
"Basically the administration dropped the ball and we decided that the women-owned business community is far too important to small business generally and to the economy as a whole to allow this to wither on the vine," Craig Orfield, communications director for the Senate Small Business Committee, told UPI. "I think it is a shame that the president let the issue lapse the way it has."
Orfield asserted that the White House rushed the executive order out today to undercut the Senate resolution.
"Clearly the administration did get wind of it, and this pretty well demonstrates that they are trying to make up or make good with the women-owned business community," he said.
James Ballentine, associate deputy administrator for government contracts at SBA, told UPI that the administration has been working on the executive order since January.
"It's taken a long time because it has to clear all the agencies but it's been a collective effort," Ballentine said. "This has been in the works for many months. We have been working diligently on this. We at SBA and the administration realized that more can be done within the agencies and to hope the executive order will be the driving force."
The National Women's Business Council's Millman said that small bureaucratic step - and getting the White House to act as a bully pulpit for women-owned businesses-is a giant one for women.
"When you are not in the process it looks like 'ho hum' - but then when you realize how hard you worked to get it to this point," Millman added.
