A changing of the guard at the Small Business Administration has done little to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding government contract awards to small businesses. If anything, the SBA's stonewalling is even stronger, according to one group.

In the three months since taking office, SBA Administrator Steven Preston has rejected all requests – even from the media – to release a list of companies that have won federal contracts earmarked for small businesses, says Lloyd Chapman, founder and president of the American Small Business League.

Chapman has been waging a public campaign to force the SBA to follow up on government investigations that have documented hundreds of cases where small business contracts went to major corporations, from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics to Microsoft and Wal-Mart.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) has announced a $10,000 reward for the first person who can provide a complete, accurate and verifiable list of all firms that were coded as small businesses in fiscal 2005 and the amounts they were awarded in federal small-business contracts.

In a statement today, ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said, "The Bush administration has been lying to the public, to Congress and to the media about federal small-business contracting figures."

Chapman said he did not believe anyone would be able to produce a list that would justify the Small Business Administration's claim that $79.6 billion in contracts were awarded to small businesses in 2005.

"The government insists that this information is readily accessible," he said. "I'm willing to pay $10,000 in cash to see if someone is able to produce it."

ASBL said that although SBA claims this information is publicly available on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation, "the government is intentionally making this information difficult, if not impossible, for the public to access because the list will reveal that billions of dollars in contracts to defense mega-contractors, including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Bechtel and Northrop Grumman, were reported as small-business awards."

The league said it has made repeated requests to SBA Administrator Steven Preston to publicize the fiscal 2005 list of small-business contractors. "To date, he has consistently refused," an ASBL announcement states.

To win the reward, the list of federal small-business contractors must total $79.6 billion and must contain the names of the firms and the amounts they were awarded, consolidated by parent company name.

When it comes to Congress's track record on small business issues, the glass is half empty, according to two small business groups.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) and the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce assert that the Republican-controlled Congress failed to act on nine specific issues that would have benefited small businesses, even though "Republicans have promoted themselves as the party of small business."

In particular, ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said Congress did nothing to address the findings of a dozen government investigations that documented the misallocation of billions of dollars in small business contracts to major corporations.