Passage of the $700 billion government bailout of Wall Street brought a measure of relief for languishing financial institutions, but small business advocates worry about the bill's implications for small businesses.

The American Small Business League, a nonpartisan group representing 100,000 small businesses nationwide, criticized the bill earlier this week for language it claimed could hinder small businesses from receiving federal contracts.

The ASBL highlighted a section of the bill that gives the Secretary of the Treasury leverage to waive any section of the Federal Acquisition Regulations.

"It is clearly not necessary to suspend federal acquisition law to bail out Wall Street and the financial industry," said Lloyd Chapman, president of the ASBL. "This is going to be a catastrophe for small businesses."

Detractors assert the financial-rescue bill paves the way for the administration to chip away at small business programs, such as the Small Disadvantaged Businesses program.

However, federal contracts set aside for small businesses pour millions of dollars into the middle class have deminished in recent years with many small-business procurements going to corporate giants, such as John Deere and Home Depot.

The Small Business Administration has also undergone significant changes, including budget cuts from $866 million in 2000 to just shy of $572 million in 2008.

Two weeks ago, the SBA announced the end of its certification program for Small Disadvantaged Businesses to qualify for the price evaluation adjustment, a tool some government agencies can use to help hire Small Disadvantaged Businesses.

With all eyes focused on the financial meltdown on Wall Street, the announcement garnered little attention.

SDBs will now rely on self-certification, a practice that has been widely criticized for inviting fraud.

Absent the certification, the SDB program has forfeited its legitimacy, according to Belinda Guadarrama, president of G.C. Mirco, a supplier of computer software and hardware.

Worse still, Guadarrama believes the end of the current certification could be a first step down a slipper slope.

"First, they say they are doing away with the certification, then they say we don't have any control over the SDB program and then one day it's gone," Guadarrama said.

To help federal agencies meet their 5 percent SDB contracting goal, Congress created the price evaluation adjustment tool and the SBA certification process to ensure the tool was applied to legitimate SDBs.

From 1999 through 2004, nearly 3,000 businesses were certified under the SBA certification, including G.C. Micro.

In 2004, Congress allowed the price evaluation adjustment authority for SDBs to expire for all but three federal procuring agencies, including the Department of Defense.

Calvin Jenkins, deputy associate administrator for Government Contracting and Business Development, said the tool was used sparingly during its five years.

Jenkins acknowledged the potential for fraud under self-certification. However, because most government agencies no longer use the tool and many are meeting their hiring goals without assistance, the certification had become an added expense without benefit, Jenkins concluded.

"The cost of using that tool meant you had to be certified," Jenkins explained, "But, the feeling was it was unnecessary."

The close of the SDB certification and the bailout policy decisions ultimately undermine small businesses, Chapman said.

"Today, it's hard to fathom the consequences of what might happen," Chapman said. "I couldn't be more disappointed."