The new regulations for the Women's Procurement Program at SBA will increase the number of industries in which women-owned small businesses reportedly are underrepresented from four to 31, though lawmakers had recommended the list for women-owned businesses should include at least 70 industries.

The government lists 140 industry codes in which companies could be eligible for set-aside contracts with little to no competition.

The proposed rule notifies the public of an inherent limitation with the data set used by the Kauffman-RAND Institute for Entrepreneurship Public Policy (RAND) to determine in which industries WOSBs are underrepresented. SBA recognized the limitation during hearing preparations for its Administrator-designee.

The data limitation was not among those specifically disclosed by RAND in its study and consequently was not discussed in the proposed rule. None of the public comments SBA received on the original rule noted this issue, although it was inherent to and discoverable from the underlying data disclosed to the public.

In the newly proposed rule, SBA describes an alternative data set which was not available for the RAND study or the previously proposed rule and was obtained by SBA from the U.S. Census Bureau. The new proposal gives the public a 30-day period to comment on the available data sets. The comments will be evaluated to determine the best available data to determine in which industries WOSBs are underrepresented in federal procurement.

The final rule submitted sets forth procedures for implementing set asides in the eligible industries. The procedures are similar to those set forth in the proposed rule published on December 27, 2007.

For more information, read http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0908/093008rb1.htm.


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