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U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce Asks Court to Hold Hearing to Review SBA Delays in Implementation of Women's Federal Contracting Program
 After seven years of delay, the SBA has again delayed the implementation of an important program to support opportunities for women business owners
Dear women business owners and supporters:
Today, the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce took strong action to help women business owners secure federal contracts by filing a request for a status hearing before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia so that the Court could make ask the SBA why it has failed to implement the women's federal procurement program.
Almost seven years have passed since Congress authorized the Small Business Administration (SBA) to implement the Women's Procurement Program in order to redress the government's chronic and agency-wide failure to meet government contracting goals for women-owned small businesses. But after years of promises, the SBA has now reversed its course again. Through today's action, the women's chamber is asking the Court to hold a status hearing to make inquiries with the SBA regarding the government's delays.
 Act now - tell Congress you want their help. Tell Congress that it is time to step in and force the SBA to implement the Women's Federal Procurement Program.
 Through a bipartisan effort, Congress passed the Equity in Contracting for Women Act of 2000 on December 21, 2000. This Act was established to end years of underrepresentation by women-owned small business in federal contracting by giving agencies the ability to limit certain competitions to women-owned small businesses.
On October 29, 2004, the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce filed a claim against the SBA for failure to implement the program. On September 30, 2005 the Court issued an opinion stating the Court was, "compelled to conclude that the delay in this case is unreasonable." The court also said that the SBA had sabotaged the implementation of this program.
Six years ago, the SBA completed a required study and issued a proposed regulation for implementation of the women's program, then reversed its course saying it needed to complete a "study of the study." After the National Academy of Science's completed the "study of the study," and the Rand Corporation completed an underrepresentation study, the SBA issued a second proposed rule (to implement the program). Remarkably, now the SBA has pulled the second proposed rule and filed a wholly new third rule – delaying the implementation of this program again.
The continual stonewalling by the SBA, and the failure of the federal government to achieve their modest goals for contracting with women, has cost women business owners over thirty-three billion dollars since 2001. In the United State of America, our federal agencies are required to implement the laws of our land. The unconscionable delays by the SBA show a complete lack of respect for our legal system and for the millions of women business owners, their employees, families, and communities. We are asking the Court to step up now and put an end to this travesty.
The federal government has never met the paltry five-percent goal for contracting with women-owned small businesses. Even though women own nearly one-third of all businesses in the U.S., during 2006 women-owned small businesses only secured 3.4 percent of government contracting purchases. Congress took action nearly seven years ago to end this underrepresentation. But, this administration has done everything within its power to block the implementation of this program.
Women in Business Are Underrepresented in Federal Contracting
The SBA has blatantly ignored self-imposed deadlines responsive to the Courts order and recklessly touted it's nearly seven years of delay as "advances" for women-owned small businesses. The Court has ruled that precisely the opposite is true: persistent delay in implementing the women's procurement program injures women-owned small businesses deprived of the opportunity to compete on terms authorized by Congress.
The U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce is doing all we can do to help women business owners gain fair access to federal contracts. Please step up and let Congress know that we need their help now. We're losing billions of dollars every year.
Thank you for your support.
Margot Dorfman, CEO
U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
2006 Results Show the Failure of the Federal Government to Provide Fair Competitive Opportunities for Women in Business
Remarkably, even though women own nearly one-third of all businesses in America, we received only 3.4% of the 2006 total federal contracting. And, the chart above shows the huge disparity between total federal spending, spending with small businesses and spending with women-owned businesses.
To better understand this issue, use the following links:
Other Contracting Related News and Information
 The U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce™ was established to revolutionize the economic opportunities and impact of women. As the driving force of the Women's Economic Movement™, the USWCC establishes strategies and tools, a bold new women's economic platform (USWCC | New Deal™) and a community for progress (USWCC | Community). These forces come together to drive the Women's Economic Movement.
U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
1200 G Street NW, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005
web: http://www.uswcc.org
tel: 888-41-USWCC
©2007 U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce™.
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