PETALUMA, Calif., July 2, 2015/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An analysis by the American Small BusinessLeague (ASBL) has uncovered 179 Fortune 500firms and their subsidiaries received federal small business contracts infiscal year 2014. The study was based on the most recent information availablefrom the Federal Procurement Data System.

The largest recipient of federal small business contracts wasVerizon. Some of the other firms that received federal small business contractsin recentyears include: Chevron, Apple, General Electric, AT&T, CVS, HewlettPackard, UPS, Bank of America, Home Depot, Target, Microsoft, Wells Fargo,Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Boeing, Oracle, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics,Northrop Grumman, Honeywell International, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Sears andJohn Deere.

The ASBL research is consistent with the recent investigative report released by Public Citizen titled "Slighted:Accounting Tricks Create False Impression That Small Businesses Are GettingTheir Share of Federal Procurement Money, and the Political Factors That MightBe at Play."

ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News and RTTV alongwith dozens of stories in many of the largest newspapers in the country have all reported on the fraudand abuse in federal small business contracting programs.

As early as 2003, the Government Accountability Office uncoveredover5,300 large businesses were receiving federal small business contracts.

On June 26, the Pentagon and the SBA ignored the results ofthe May 6 Public Citizen report and held a jointmeeting to claim 24.99 percent of all federal contracts were awarded to smallbusinesses. Billions in contracts to Fortune 500 firms and their subsidiarieswere included in that number.

The research by ASBL, Public Citizen and federal investigatorshas found the SBA's data to be significantly inflated in two ways. The SBA uses a rulethey fabricated called the "exclusionary rule" to use a much lower federalacquisition budget in calculating the percentage of awards to smallbusinesses. The SBA also unlawfully created a "five yearrule" to include billions of dollars in contracts to Fortune 500companies and their subsidiaries in their small business data.

Both the "exclusionary rule" and the "five yearrule" have no basis in law and are in direct conflict with the provisionsof the Small Business Act. The Small Business Act defines a small business ashaving no more than 1500 employees and requires small businesses receive "not less than 23 percent of the total value of all primecontract awards for each fiscal year."

The House Small Business Committee unanimously adopted an amendment to call for a new GAOinvestigation into fraud in federal small business contracting programs,based on research done by Chapman's ASBL.

Senate Small Business Committee Chairman, DavidVitter, has demanded that SBA Administrator MariaContreras-Sweet provide him with a complete list of all firms that receivedfederal small business contacts in fiscal year 2014 for an upcoming hearing onthe issue.

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