WOSB Accountability Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1816) to establish requirements relating to certification of small business concerns owned and controlled by women for certain purposes, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. 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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1816, the WOSB Accountability Act, introduced by the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. McGarvey), the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaLota).

H.R. 1816 prohibits agencies from counting self-certified women-owned small business contractors, otherwise known as WOSBs, toward an agency's women-owned small business contracting goals.

The committee has repeatedly found that programs that allow self- certification are far more susceptible to waste, fraud, and abuse. After years of hard work removing self-certification from other contracting goals, this bill is an opportunity to remove it from one of the two remaining statutorily defined small business contracting goals.

I am proud of this committee's work to remove self-certification in other programs, such as service-disabled veteran-owned small business contractors. Now, it is time to do the same with the WOSB program to help ensure integrity across SBA programs.

While we continue to have conversations on how to better align small businesses' contracting goals with merit-based principles, this bill would reduce the ability of fraudsters to exploit the system that is currently in place.

By mitigating the ability to defraud government contracts, we help ensure that taxpayer dollars are used as intended and help create a more level playing field between the WOSB program and other small business set-aside programs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote for H.R. 1816, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaLota).

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

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

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

In recent years, both SBA and Congress have directed changes to the small business contracting programs to increase accountability and ensure proper use. The WOSB Accountability Act will continue this work by moving the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program to full SBA certification.

This bill is important to ensure that the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program works as intended, assists the companies as intended, and, ultimately, levels the playing field for women-owned firms competing for government contracts as intended.

The data shows that women are starting and running new small businesses, generating revenue and jobs in their communities, and growing in increasingly diverse industries, but fewer and fewer are signing up to work with the government. Again, many more are leaving.

Women-owned small businesses continue to make up a strikingly small share of Federal contracts, and the government continues to fail to meet the 5 percent goal of contracting dollars that Congress set three decades ago.

Better leveraging the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program to recruit and retain more small firms strengthens the entire industrial base, promotes competition, and drives innovation.

Mr. Speaker, passing this bill today will do that. I urge all Members to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaLota) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams) for their work on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I close by thanking the ranking member from New York (Ms. Velazquez) for her leadership on this bill and her many years of work to create, strengthen, and enhance the Women-Owned Small Business program. I am pleased to support this bill and encourage all of my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the fundamental question this bill addresses is: Should a Federal contract intended for women go to men and fraudsters, or should a Federal contract intended for women-owned small businesses actually go to women?

Fortunately, even though we Republicans and Democrats disagree on a lot in this Chamber, we agree that the contracts meant for women should go to women.

Yet, right now, under Federal law, companies can simply self- certify--check a box claiming to be a woman-owned small business--and still count toward the Federal Government's goals.

That means bad actors can game the system, take contracts they don't deserve, and rob real women entrepreneurs of the opportunities meant for them. That is wrong, and that is exactly the kind of Washington loophole I am working to close.

Self-certification invites fraud. In fact, the Small Business Administration's own inspector general has repeatedly warned about the risks of fraud under self-certification. This was especially apparent with the SBA's COVID-19 lending programs, where fraudulent self- certification led to billions of dollars in losses.

That is why I am proud to support the WOSB Accountability Act, a bipartisan effort that ensures contracts meant for women go to women.

This legislation is straightforward, Mr. Speaker. It puts an end to the days of businesses just claiming they are women-owned without having to prove it.

Under this bill, only certified and verified women-owned small businesses would count toward the Federal Government's contracting goals, just like it should be. It is high time we address this issue and empower women in business by ensuring the system works for them, not against them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Velazquez, my fellow New Yorker, for partnering with me on this important piece of legislation. It is time we stop allowing fraudsters to steal opportunities meant for legitimate women entrepreneurs. I urge all of my colleagues to support the WOSB Accountability Act.

Mr. Speaker, in 1994, Congress established a goal of awarding 5 percent of Federal contracting dollars to women-owned small businesses. Recognizing the obstacles that female entrepreneurs faced when entering and competing in the Federal marketplace, Congress identified this goal as an uphill battle. Three decades later, we can see how much of an understatement that was and how much more work has to be done.

Empowering female entrepreneurs has long been a top priority of mine. In 2000, to give women-owned firms a boost and incentivize agencies to bring in more WOSBs to compete for contracts, I wrote the law and created the WOSB program.

Today, many women-owned firms are critical partners to Federal agencies as a result of that law, yet the WOSB goal has been met only twice, and women-owned firms are not seeing the contracting opportunities that should accompany their level of participation in the market. We need to again provide a boost to the WOSB program and encourage more competition and success for WOSB firms.

My legislation that we are considering today will move more firms through the SBA's certification process so Federal agencies have a larger pool of companies that can trigger WOSB competitions.

Mr. Speaker, it will further protect the integrity of the program. We want to ensure that women-owned firms are who they say they are because that is who the program is designed to empower.

We expect that contracting officers will have more confidence working

with WOSBs, knowing that the SBA has already verified them.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this bill.