In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the American Small Business League for the specific names of firms that were coded as small businesses for FY 2005 and FY 2006, the Small Business Administration responded Friday by issuing a press release with the Top 100 report of small businesses that received the most small business procurement dollars for FY 2006. The ASBL accuses the SBA of falsifying the data to cover up the fact that Fortune 500 firms have received most small business contracts dollars in recent years.

The ASBL points to the fact that in a July 6, 2006 New York Times story titled, "Impersonators in the Land of Small Business," by Ron Nixon; spokesmen from General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Boeing acknowledged that they had millions of dollars in federal small business contracts. In fact, the story stated that General Dynamics had 47 small business contracts, Northrop Grumman had 121 small business contracts and Boeing had 37. Northrop Grumman and Boeing were conspicuously absent from the SBA's list of the top 100 recipients despite stories from ABC, CBS and CNN, which found that the Fortune 500 firms had received millions of dollars in small business contracts.

"Clearly this is an attempt by the SBA to do what they have always done; to cover up the fact that Fortune 500 corporations are actually the recipients of most small business contracts," President of the ASBL, Lloyd Chapman said. "To date no one has been able to obtain a list of all recipients of small business contracts. With this in mind, we intend to file a lawsuit against the SBA as a means of forcing them to release the names of all the firms that received small business contracts for FY 2005 and FY 2006, which should total $75.1 and $77.8 billion respectively."

In Report 5-15, the SBA Office of Inspector General stated that, "One of the most important challenges facing the SBA and the entire Federal Government today is that large businesses are receiving small business procurement awards and agencies are receiving credit for these awards."

"The SBA's list of the Top 100 small business contractors flies in the face of more than 15 federal investigations that have found fraud, abuse, loopholes and a lack of oversight in federal small business contracting," Chapman said. "With this list, they made more of an attempt at muddying the waters surrounding this issue than at legitimately solving the problem of large firms receiving federal small business contracts."

According to a report by FEDMINE.US containing the Top 50 recipients of federal small business contracts, firms like: UT Battelle LLC, Blackwater, GTSI, Thales and Hewlett-Packard received billions of dollars in federal small business contracts during FY 2006. However, the SBA's report for the same year contains no mention of these firms. Additionally, the top recipient of federal small business contracts for FY 2006 is, "Miscellaneous Foreign Contractors," According to FEDMINE.US. With this in mind, the ASBL challenges the SBA to explain Miscellaneous Foreign Contractors, the disparity between the two lists and publish their methodology for compiling their list.

FEDMINE.US has access to the XML data feed from FPDS-NG.