PETALUMA,Calif., Sept. 14, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Senate Armed ServicesCommittee Chairman, Senator John McCain, has included language in the 2017National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that could virtually repeal the SmallBusiness Act and put thousands of small businesses out of business.

TheNDAA bill includes three provisions that could dismantle federal law thatmandates American's 28 million small businesses receive a minimum of 23%of all federal contracts. McCain's version of the 2017 NDAA (S.2943) would excludesmall businesses from participating in all foreign contracts. It would alsocreate a loophole that would allow the Pentagon to falsify compliance withthe federal government's 23% small business goal.

McCain'sversion of the 2017 NDAA also includes language that would makethe Pentagon's controversial 27-year-old Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan TestProgram (CSPTP) permanent. TheCSPTP was adopted in 1989 after the Pentagon was forced to release smallbusiness subcontracting reports that indicated Pentagon prime contractors werenot complying with federal small business subcontracting laws and regulations.

TheTest Program was adopted under the guise of "increasingsubcontracting opportunities for small business." In reality,it eliminatedall public transparency on small business subcontracting data. It alsoeliminated penalties that had existed for prime contractors that violatedfederal contracting law. The Pentagon has now been "testing" whetherthe elimination of transparency and penalties for prime contractors will"increase subcontracting opportunities for small businesses."

ThePentagon has refused to release any dataon the Test Program for 27 years. In 2015, the Pentagon finally produced astudy that admitted the CSPTP had actually dramatically reducedsubcontracting opportunities for small businesses since 1989. The AmericanSmall Business League (ASBL) estimates since1989 American small businesses where cheated out of up to two trillion dollarsin federal subcontracts as a result of the CSPTP. Pentagon prime contractorsthat violated federal contracting law faced no penalties.

ProfessorCharles Tiefer one of the nation's leading experts on federal contracting lawreleased a legal opinion of the CSPTP describing it as a "sham."In his legal opinion Professor Tiefer states, "Theprogram is a sham and its extension will be seriously harmful to vitalopportunities for small business to get government contracting work... Let itexpire."

TheASBL filed suitagainst the Pentagon for refusing to release data on the CSPTP under theFreedom of Information Act. During the ASBL's suit against the Pentagon FederalDistrict Court Jude William Alsup stated,"So it would be more like a David and Goliath. You get to come in thereand be the underdog again against the big company and against the biggovernment… They are trying to suppress the evidence."

TheASBL has launched a nationalcampaign to encourage Senator McCain to remove the language from the2017 National Defense Authorization Bill that would dismantle federal smallbusiness contracting programs.

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