The American Small Business League filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday against the U.S. General Services Administration to restore recently removed aspects of a database used to monitor federal contracts.

In the motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the league objected to the removal of two identifying fields from the searchable Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation. One of the fields identified small businesses, and the other field identified the names of contract recipients.

The system, the government's electronic database for federal contracting data, is used by federal agencies, watchdogs and the general public to oversee the procurement process, according to the motion. Agencies are required to report all contracts worth more than $3,000, as well as subsequent modifications.

The General Services Administration ordered these two changes on March 12. The league originally filed its lawsuit, American Small Business League v. Martha N. Johnson, on March 8 in preparation for the changes. Johnson serves as administrator of the GSA.

The league argues that the data removal violates the transparency standards articulated in the Federal Procurement Policy Act of 1974. It argues that the information at issue must be immediately restored to the publicly accessible database because the lack of access creates an “irreplaceable harm,” adding that the information “has been used in the past to identity instances where contracts set aside for small businesses were awarded to Fortune 500 corporations.”

The league estimates that $1 trillion worth of contracts intended for small business have gone to big businesses in the past decade, according to a Wednesday news release.

A nonpartisan advocacy group formed in 2004, the league is represented by Robert Belshaw, of counsel to Gutierrez & Associates in San Francisco.

Source: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2010/04/smallbusiness-group-objects-to-federal-contract-database-change.html