Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act

Madam Speaker, I thank Chair Roger Williams and Ranking Member Nydia Velazquez for their cooperation in getting this piece of legislation to the floor.

This amendment represents, in many respects, the sort of amendments that are bipartisan that have come about under their leadership, first in this Congress and then in the previous Congress when their roles had been reversed. It is a good process to have, and I honestly hope that other committees can follow the example here.

The U.S. Federal Government, in case people don't know, is the largest customer in the entire world. The government spends more than $690 billion every year on products and on services and is required by law to have those services meet the application, meet the solicitation, and then be considered properly. The government requires also by law that it gives equal consideration to businesses where applicable.

Once an agency has evaluated and assessed their needs, acquisition personnel will post a solicitation on the Federal Government's System for Award Management. It is also commonly known as SAM.gov.

That posting then is used to document and to track the eligibility of an individual or an entity to be able to receive Federal funds.

Now, winning a contract can secure for a small business tens of thousands of dollars for their products or their services where applicable, which also results, obviously, in huge financial gains, but the problem here is that this is not a simple feat.

Successfully securing a government contract requires fortitude and tenacity over and over again, day in and day out, as small businesses will need to do in order to be able to take advantage of that solicitation.

Now, not only can it take a long time for a small business to win their first government contract, but it also requires a significant amount of financial resources. They have to be invested in the process.

Some businesses in this country spend on average $80,000 to $130,000 just to be able to earn their first contract. They have to get the right consultants. They have to put together the right teams. They need the right expertise that goes above and beyond what their capabilities are, and it is work, work, work.

Additionally, it can take small business owners up to 2 years to start making a return on that same investment, making the need for an adequate cash flow absolutely essential. You have to be able to ride that tide, as many small businesses will tell you, and cash flow is a huge part of that.

Now, despite the prospective awardees' heavy lift, and it is a heavy lift, agencies on their own, unilaterally, without reason, can cancel the solicitation without ever disclosing why, leaving the small businessperson or the small minority business left on their own to recoup the money that they have put in and also being unable to bid right away on something else.

It leaves entrepreneurs in the dark. It causes them to be depleted of their resources and absent of any guidance on a path moving forward. The government doesn't say we have taken your solicitation, here is what you have to do. They just say we have canceled the solicitation, and then the small business entity has to figure out what they do next after that large investment.

Small business owners, in my opinion, deserve better allies in the Federal Government. That is why the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford) and I have put together in a bipartisan way the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act. We think it is a remedy for a very serious problem.

The act requires the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to issue regulations that would provide for the disclosure of additional information when a small business solicitation is canceled.

In other words, if you are going to make a unilateral decision, you have to at least tell the small businesses who have invested money in trying to provide for that why you did it. We have a good SBA Administrator. I think that she just needs the right kind of language in a bill and the authority to be able to do just that.

The bill would also require the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization to help small businesses seek additional opportunities if a solicitation that they bid on is arbitrarily and unilaterally canceled.

It is my hope and the hope of the gentleman from Missouri as well that we are able to provide them with the

opportunities they need to be able to continue to grow and develop their businesses and the opportunity to be successful rather than to be in a punitive situation where we offer bait and then snatch it back after businesses are, in fact, vested on a course of winning a contract.

Small businesses, needless to say, really have been the driving force in our economy, and I know that Mr. Williams and Ms. Velazquez will agree. After all the hard work these small businesses do, they deserve the courtesy of disclosure from the Federal Government and its contracting agencies.

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of this.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 8014) to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to issue rules for cancelled covered solicitations, to amend the Small Business Act to provide assistance to small business concerns relating to certain cancelled solicitations, and for other purposes.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 8014, the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act sponsored by Representatives Mfume and Alford.

H.R. 8014 seeks to bring clarity to small business owners when an agency cancels a contract solicitation. Small businesses spend an incredible amount of time and resources preparing to bid on government contracts. When an agency cancels a contract solicitation, the small businesses that started preparing are left with nothing to show for their work. Furthermore, there is little clarity about what the agency will do with the products and services it originally intended to purchase.

H.R. 8014 will require agencies to share with the SBA its future plans with the canceled solicitation and a

justification as to why it was canceled all while providing assistance to small businesses who were impacted by the cancellation by helping them identify similar contracting opportunities.

Small businesses deserve to have a full understanding of what opportunities are available to them and deserve to know how agencies will fulfill their buying needs.

Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote for H.R. 8014, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford).

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this bill will prevent small businesses from being left with nothing to show for contracting opportunities that never materialize for one reason or another. It is my hope that this will increase the number of small businesses willing to take the leap of faith to compete for government contracts.

Before I yield back, I thank Representative Mfume for this bill and all the work he has done for small businesses throughout the years. I appreciate it very much.

While he may no longer be serving on our committee for the remainder of the 118th Congress, I appreciate his contributions that he has made throughout the years to America's entrepreneurs, and he is my friend.

Madam Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, today, I rise to thank Chairman Williams and Majority Leader Scalise for helping get H.R. 8014, the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act, to this very House floor.

I am honored to serve on the Small Business Committee, especially having been a small business owner myself. The committee exists in Congress to champion Main Street and to make sure that the small businesses that employ about half of all Americans can continue to thrive.

Madam Speaker, our role is to help lower the barriers to creating small businesses and to support small businesses that already exist. It is quite simple, and I think this bill helps with that.

Major tools to help existing small businesses are government contracts specifically set aside for small businesses.

However, Federal agencies cancel contract solicitations often with no warning and no reason, leaving the small businesses that spent thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and a lot of time preparing these bids out in the cold. They have no idea why their deal did not go through.

This bill, the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act, will help address the problem.

This legislation would require agencies to provide to the SBA a justification for canceled contract solicitations. Additionally, this would require the agency canceling the contract solicitation to disclose available information about plans to reissue similar solicitations.

Finally, Madam Speaker, if the agency does not plan on reissuing solicitations, the agency's director of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization must assist the small business in identifying similar contracting opportunities.

I am proud to co-lead this legislation, along with Mr. Mfume of Maryland, and urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and supporting Main Street America.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 8014, the Transparency and Predictability in Small Business Opportunities Act introduced by Mr. Mfume and Mr. Alford.

This legislation requires the government to provide information to small business contractors when they cancel solicitations.

The government has flexibility to change requirements and solicitations as needed when their circumstances change. While this flexibility is necessary, the small businesses take on the risk and can incur losses when it happens.

Requiring an agency to disclose the reasons behind a cancellation and any plans for the work will provide small contractors with a little more information to adjust their business plans and operations accordingly.

This is a commonsense strategy to provide some relief to small contractors, and that is why I support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Mfume), the ranking member of the Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I am in support of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.