PETALUMA, Calif., June 18, 2015/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Pentagon is refusing to release any datathat has been submitted by General Electric to the Pentagon's 25-year-oldComprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program (CSPTP).

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the American SmallBusiness League (ASBL)requested the page out of GE Aviation's Small Business Subcontracting Plan thatwould indicate their company-wide small business subcontracting goal for fiscalyear 2014. The page the ASBL received from the Pentagon had beencompletely redacted.

This came just a few months after the ASBL prevailed in afederal case filed against the Pentagon in federal district court in San Francisco where Judge William Alsup ordered the Pentagon to release the complete copy of theSikorsky's subcontracting plan.

In April, the Pentagon eventually released to the ASBL the pages from Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation's company-widesmall business subcontracting plan that indicated their company-wide smallbusiness subcontracting was only 22.9 percent which is well short of the 37percent currently required under the law.

The Pentagon is still refusing to release a complete copy of theSikorsky subcontracting plan and is appealing the case to the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Since Sikorsky released their subcontracting totals, the ASBLplans to file an appeal on the Pentagon's refusal to release any data on GEAviation's subcontracting and file another case against the Pentagon if theirappeal is denied.

The CSPTP was adopted in 1989 under the guise of "increasing subcontracting opportunities for small businesses."

In reality, the CSPTP dramaticallyreduced opportunities for small business because of its two mainprovisions. First, it eliminated any publicly available documents that could beused to track a prime contractor's compliance with their subcontracting goals.Secondly, the program eliminated any and all penalties that had previouslyexisted for Pentagon prime contractors that failed to comply with their smallbusiness subcontracting goals.

Since the program's inception over 25 years ago, the Pentagon has never been able to provide any documentation of anykind that the program has actually helped small businesses in any way.

In September of 2014, Professor CharlesTiefer, one of the nation's leading experts on federalcontracting law, released a legal opinion on the CSPTP that stated, "The programis a sham and its extension will be seriously harmful to vitalopportunities for small business to get government contracting work... Let itexpire."

In late September, Pentagon spokeswoman MaureenSchumann even admitted that the program "has led to an erosion of our small business industrial base." 

Investigations by the General Accounting Office were also unable to uncover anyevidence the program has helped small businesses in any way.

"Based on all available evidence, it's clear theComprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program is a blatant sham that hasdefrauded American small businesses out of hundreds of billions in federalsubcontracts. Congress should repeal the program immediately," stated ASBLPresident LloydChapman.

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