Norton Hearing on Small Disadvantaged Businesses and Minority Women (3/05/08)

Norton Hearing on Small Businesses and on Minority, Women, and Other Disadvantaged Businesses to Discuss Federal Agencies Track Records and Remedies
March 5, 2008

Washington, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, will hold a hearing Thursday, March 6, 2008 on "Doing Business with the Government: The Record and Goals for Small, Minority, and Disadvantaged Businesses," to hear testimony from small businesses and government agencies under the subcommittee's jurisdiction. The hearing at 11:00 AM in Room 2253 of the Rayburn House Office Building, also will address the challenges faced by small businesses when seeking business from the federal government, the nation's largest contractor of small businesses.

At the hearing, Norton also will discuss the scorecard grades of agencies on meeting small business procurement goals. Half the agencies did not meet their goals. Norton believes that one of the reasons may be that there has been little congressional oversight to evaluate the effectiveness of individual agencies in implementing the small business policies of the federal government that would help agencies improve. She believes the hearing is particularly important now in light of the downturn in the U.S. economy and the role of small business in producing jobs.

"Not only are small businesses responsible for the lion's share of new jobs; most of these jobs remain in this country." Norton said, "Thus, small businesses have special value for our economy and for the American people. With the increasing possibility of a recession, federal procurement and contracting become even more important for small businesses, not only for their own vitality but also for the health of our economy, whose future is tightly linked to small businesses."