Petaluma, Calif.- Despite years of complaints about the Bush Administration policies that have allowed Fortune 1000 firms to receive billions of dollars in Federal small business contracts, Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Chairman John Kerry has disappointed small business owners across America by declining to schedule hearings to investigate the abuses.

 

In January of 2005, Kerry accused the Small Business Administration of, “Fostering an atmosphere that encourages widespread fraud and abuse in small business contracting.” Yet, he has failed to draft legislation to resolve the issue or schedule oversight hearings.

 

In Report 5-15, the SBA’s Office of Inspector General referred to the diversion of federal small business contracts to large businesses as one of the biggest challenges facing the nation today. They also found large businesses that had illegally received federal small business contracts by fraudulently representing themselves as small businesses.

 

Investigative stories by ABC, CBS and CNN have uncovered firms like Boeing, IBM, BAE, Northrop Grumman, L3 Communications, Rolls Royce, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin have all received millions in U.S. Government small business contracts.

 

Since 2002, over a dozen federal investigations have found that fraud, a lack of oversight, regulatory loopholes and bureaucratic error have allowed hundreds of large businesses to receive billions of dollars in government contracts earmarked for small businesses. To date, no legislation has been passed to address the issue.

 

Small business owners and advocates point out that Senator Kerry’s Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee website seems to completely ignore the diversion of billions of dollars in small business contracts to Fortune 1000 firms.

 

Instead of focusing his attention on an issue that small business advocates believe has diverted over $60 billion a year in federal small business contracts to many of the largest firms in the country, Kerry has focused the Committee’s attention on issues small business owners feel are significantly less critical to their immediate survival.

 

A Bush Administration policy set to go into effect in June will allow Fortune 1000 firms to receive federal small business contracts until the year 2012. So far, congress has not passed legislation to stop the policy from taking effect.

 

Small business advocates are hoping that Senator Kerry will draft legislation that will once and for all remove Fortune 1000 companies from all federal small business contracting programs.