Petaluma, Calif. - On Friday, March 21, the Small Business Administration (SBA) submitted its response to federal lawsuit No. C 08-0829 MHP, which was filed against the agency by the American Small Business League (ASBL). The SBA's response was filed with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

In its response, the SBA declined to provide any rational or legal justification for refusing to provide the names of the firms that received federal small business contracts during 2005 and 2006.

ASBL filed suit against the SBA after the agency refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the ASBL for the specific names of all the firms that received federal small business contracts during 2005 and 2006.

The ASBL is seeking information that will show the Bush Administration diverted billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms. The ASBL believes the information they have requested will prove that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have actually gone to many of the largest corporations in the United States and Europe.

This latest case is the fourth lawsuit the ASBL has filed against the SBA under FOIA. To date, the ASBL has won all of the federal lawsuits it has brought against the SBA. In previous cases the SBA has tried to withhold information by claiming various FOIA exemptions. In this case, the SBA provided no such justification for withholding the data.

Since 2002, a series of federal investigations have found that the SBA inflated the Bush Administration's small business contracting statistics by including contracts to firms like: Rolls Royce, Microsoft, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, L3 Communications, Titan Industries and Boeing.

In June of 2007, SBA Administrator Steven Preston adopted a policy that will allow the federal government to continue awarding federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and other corporate giants until the year 2012.

An initial case management conference has been scheduled for Monday, May 19, 2008, at 4:00 p.m.  A Joint Case Management Statement is due ten days prior to the conference.

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Petaluma, Calif. - On Friday, March 14th, the Senate passed a budget that boosts the Small Business Administration's (SBA) budget by $100 million over the Bush Administration's request for the SBA in the 2009 budget blueprint.

The American Small Business League (ASBL) applauds Sen. John F. Kerry (D - MA), the Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad (D - ND) for working together to secure the increase in the SBA's budget.

"This Democratic budget will help create jobs by investing in America's small businesses," Sen. Kerry said in a statement released Friday. "Small businesses create more than two-thirds of all new jobs, yet by refusing to fund important small business programs the Bush Administration has starved entrepreneurs of the resources they need to grow their firms." (For more information, please visit http://sbc.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=294823)

The ASBL has been openly critical of the Bush Administration's handling of the SBA during the last eight years. Under the Bush Administration the SBA budget has been consistently slashed. In 2000, the SBA's budget was $715 million as compared to $569 million in 2008. In 1978, the SBA's budget was more than $3.5 billion, which is a far cry from the $569 million allotted to the SBA by the Bush Administration in 2008. (For more information, please visit http://www.fas.org/man/docs/fy99/historical/095-098.htm)

Since President Reagan, there have been several attempts to close the SBA and end all programs designed to assist America's more than 27 million small businesses. In fact, the Reagan Administration attempted to close the SBA in 1984 and 1985, only to have its efforts blocked by democratic members of Congress. In response, Reagan officials increased the most common small business size standard from 100 to 500 employees. In 1996, Republican members of Congress followed suit and again proposed legislation to close the agency. The attempt failed.

"The SBA's Budget should be $5 billion," said Lloyd Chapman, President of the American Small Business League. "The small business administration is there to help the companies that are the heart and soul of the American economy, its small businesses. We hope that the next administration recognizes the value of small businesses and boosts the SBA's budget and staffing to never before seen levels."

The ASBL predicts that despite the increase in the SBA's budget, the Bush Administration will make one final attempt at closing the SBA and ending federal small business programs.

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Petaluma, Calif. - The Small Business Administration (SBA) has requested a new judge in the suit filed by the American Small Business League (ASBL) against the SBA in United States District Court on February 6th.  The case has now been reassigned to United States District Judge Marilyn H. Patel for all further proceedings.
 
On Monday, the SBA declined the assignment of United States Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil for trial and disposition in the case, opting instead to have it reassigned to a United States District Judge.
 
The selection of the Honorable Marilyn H. Patel was the result of a random reassignment by the clerk of the court. 

The ASBL is suing the SBA under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to force the release of the names of all the firms that received federal small business contracts for 2005 and 2006.  To date, the SBA has refused all requests for the data.  Since 2002, a series of federal investigations have found that billions of dollars in federal small business contracts have actually wound up in the hands of some of the largest corporations in the world.

This is the fourth lawsuit the ASBL has filed against the SBA.  In previous suits, the ASBL has been successful in forcing the release of information that has shown that the SBA inflated federal small business contracting data by including billions of dollars in contracts to Fortune 500 firms. 
 
Since 2002, the SBA has consistently tried to explain the diversion of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms as miscoding or data entry errors.  As recently as last week, an SBA spokesman addressed an audience at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and stated that miscoding was still the reason why small business contracts went to large businesses.
 
"2008 is the seventh consecutive year that they have tried to make that excuse.  It is not believable to think that $100 billion a year in federal small business contracts accidentally finds its way into the hands of the biggest companies in the world.  It's no accident, and I think the Bush Administration is trying to stall the release of the data until after the elections," ASBL President Lloyd Chapman said. "The data I am asking for will prove that they have diverted small business contracts to big companies. That is why the SBA is willing to go to federal court to withhold this data. We have won our previous lawsuits against the SBA because the court found the SBA's arguments to be groundless and untrue."
 
An initial case management conference has been scheduled for Monday, May 19, 2008, at 4:00 p.m.  A Joint Case Management Statement is due ten days prior to the conference.

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Petaluma, Calif. - Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Stephen Preston has decided his agency will go to federal court in San Francisco over his agency's refusal to release the names of Fortune 500 firms that received a major portion of more than $270 billion in federal small business contracts during 2005 and 2006.

Administrator Preston has consistently refused to release the specific names of firms that received federal small business contracts. Under Preston's direction, the SBA has even refused requests from members of Congress for a complete list of all firms the SBA reported as receiving federal small business contracts.

During late 2007, Northern California Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey was just one of the many members of Congress whose request for the information was refused by Mr. Preston.

On February 6th, 2008, the American Small Business League filed its fourth lawsuit against the SBA in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.  The ASBL has won a series of legal battles against the SBA and NASA under the Freedom of Information Act. Documents obtained by ASBL litigation have been instrumental in proving that the SBA had intentionally inflated the Bush Administration's small business contracting statistics by including billions of dollars in awards to Fortune 500 firms in its annual small business contracting data.

The ASBL contends that the inflated numbers were used to misrepresent the Bush Administration's compliance with the congressionally mandated small business contracting goal.  According to the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 1997, the federal government has a goal of awarding 23 percent of the total value of all prime and subcontracts to small businesses.

Since 2003, investigative reports by ABC, CBS and CNN found the SBA had attempted to inflate Bush Administration small business contracting statistics by including billions of dollars in federal contracts to hundreds of large firms like: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Rolls Royce, Microsoft, Wall-Mart, L3 Communications, British Aerospace Engineering (BAE) and Buhrmann NV, a Dutch firm with 17,000 employees in 26 countries.

The SBA has until mid-March to respond to the ASBL lawsuit and present its case for withholding the data. Historically, the SBA has been guilty of dragging out cases filed under FOIA for as long as possible and then capitulating just prior to going to trial. The ASBL believes that the SBA uses this tactic as a means of avoiding responsibility for ASBL's legal fees. By law, a federal judge must issue a ruling in the favor of the plaintiff in order for the plaintiff to be eligible for reimbursement of their legal fees.

"I'm sure SBA Administrator Preston just wants to stall the release of this damaging information until he and Bush are out of office," ASBLPresident Lloyd Chapman said. "This close to the elections, the Bush Administration obviously does not want information released to the public that will prove they have diverted hundreds of billions of dollars in federal small business contracts away from the small businesses where most American's work and into the hands of the Fortune 500 firms that are the largest contributors to the Republican party."

The ASBL plans to file similar lawsuits under FOIA against the Department of Defense and the General Services Administration within the next sixty days. To date, the ASBL has won every lawsuit it has filed against the Bush Administration.