WASHINGTON – United States Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, held a roundtable today entitled “Sequestration: Small Business Contractors Weathering the Storm in a Climate of Fiscal Uncertainty.” The roundtable focused on the impact of the federal budget sequestration on small business and what federal agencies are doing to achieve their small business contracting goals.
Participating in today’s roundtable were Deputy Director of Technology and Innovation for the Office of Small Business Programs at the Department of Defense Mr. Joseph Misanin; Associate Administrator of the Office of Small Business Utilization for the General Services Administration Jiyoung Park; Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for the U.S. Agency for International Development Mauricio Vera; Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for the Department of Energy Dot Harris; Deputy Associate Administrator of Office of Government Contracting & Business Development for the Small Business Administration Calvin Jenkins; President & Co-Founder of Enlightened Inc. Antwanye Ford; Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for the Department of Homeland Security Kevin Boshears; Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy for the Office of Management and Budget Mr. Joe Jordan; Director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization for the Department of Transportation Brandon Neal; Senior Procurement Executive for the Department of Transportation Willie H. Smith; President of Encore Solutions, Inc. Nicole Priester; President & CEO of Nanocomp Technologies, Inc. Peter Antoinette; and Vice President of Government Relations for the Professional Services Council Roger Jordan.
“Because small businesses are critical to the growth and recovery of our economy, we must ensure that they do not bear a disproportionate share of the burden of sequestration,” Senator Landrieu said. “These businesses are capable of providing the same, and in many cases, superior products and services as large companies. They should be given the same opportunities to do business with the federal government. This committee will continue to monitor what impact sequestration has on the federal government’s small business contracting goals, and what can be done to minimize the damage done to America’s small businesses.”
The Budget Control Act was enacted on August 2, 2012 as part of a bipartisan deal to raise the debt limit and avoid having the United States government default on its debt. The deal included $1.5 billion in spending cuts, plus a mechanism called “sequestration” that would take effect if Congress and the president could not reach a long-term deficit reduction agreement by March 1 of this year. These sequestration cuts amount to $109 billion per year, over 10 years, equaling a grand total of $1.2 trillion. Because no long-term deficit deal was made, the first round of sequestration cuts went into effect on March 1. This first round of cuts run through September 30, which marks the end of Fiscal Year 2013, and amount to $43 billion.
The federal government awards more than $400 billion in contracts each year. In fiscal year 2011, $91.5 billion or 21.7 percent of federal government small business eligible purchases went to small businesses. The Department of Defense (DoD) alone accounted for the majority of small business procurement, awarding $57.4 billion or 19.8 percent of DoD prime contracts to small businesses. Similarly, in FY 2011, the Department of Homeland Security awarded $4.2 billion in prime contracts to small businesses while the Department of Energy awarded $1.3 billion.
On April 1, Sen. Landrieu sent a letter to more than 30 agencies expressing her concern about how agencies will ensure that the implementation of budget reductions required under the Budget Control Act of 2011 will not hurt our small businesses and federal agencies.
Click here to see a sample of the letters Sen. Landrieu sent to federal agencies.
###
