Press Release
Sikorsky Battles Federal Court and ASBL To Withhold Damaging Data
By Lloyd Chapman
American Small Business League
January 13, 2015
PETALUMA, Calif., Jan. 13, 2015/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On January 20, 2015 there will be ahearing in Federal District Court in San Franciscoto determine if Sikorsky Aviation Corporation can intervene in a Freedom ofInformation Act (FOIA) case that was won by the American SmallBusiness League (ASBL)against the Pentagon for Sikorsky subcontracting reports.
On Nov. 23, Federal District Court Judge William Alsup ordered the Pentagon to release Sikorsky's 2014 subcontractingreport that was submitted to the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan TestProgram (CSPTP). Judge Alsup gave the Pentagon until Dec. 3 to release the data to theASBL.
The ASBL had originally requested the Sikorsky report under theFreedom of Information Act as a test case to challenge the Pentagon's refusal to release any data on the CSPTP in over25 years.
On Dec. 2, ASBL President Lloyd Chapman predicted the Pentagon would not release the data on Dec. 3 because it could halt the renewal of the CSPTP inthe 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
As Chapman predicted, the Office of Solicitor General intervened on behalf of thePentagon and requested a 60-day stay on the release of the data. Judge Alsup grantedtheir motion on the morning of Dec. 3.
On Dec. 19, President Obama signedthe 2015 NDAA and renewed the CSPTP into its twenty-eighth year of testing.The Pentagon now has until Jan. 22 to release the data or appeal thecase to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Pentagon adopted the CSPTP in 1989 under the pretense of"increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses." Mr. Chapman has maintained that the true purpose of the CSPTP was "tocreate a loophole that allowed the Pentagon's largest prime contractors tocircumvent federal law that mandates small businesses receive a minimum of 23percent of all federal contracts."
In September 2014, Professor CharlesTiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federalcontracting law release a damaging legal opinion on the CSPTP agreeing with Chapman thatstated, "The program is a sham and its extension will be seriously harmfulto vital opportunities for small business... There is no doubt in my mind theCSPTP has significantly reduced subcontracting opportunities for smallbusinesses. It should not have gotten its 25 years of extension as anever-tested 'Test Program.' Let it expire."
A December 31, 2014 article in the Washington Post confirmedChapman's concerns about the CSPTP when Pentagon spokeswoman Maureen Schumann admitted that the program"has led to an erosion of [the agency's] small business industrialbase," and there is no evidence that the CSPTP has benefited smallcompanies.
Chapman's ASBL has been the only national small businessadvocacy organization to ever publicly object to the CSPTP.
"I am confident we will win our legal battle with thePentagon and expose the CSPTP as an appalling example of fraud and corruption at the Pentagon thathas cheated American small businesses out of trillions of dollars," statedChapman.
Chapman is completing a documentary film on the 25-year historyof the CSPTP, its negative impact on American small businesses and thePentagon's refusal to release any data on the program for over a quarter of acentury. The film is slated to be released in March.
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