SBA has joined contractor groups in urging Congress to repeal a law that prohibits the Defense Department from awarding outsourcing contracts to companies unless their employee health plans are equal to those available to federal employees.

SBA Administrator Hector Barreto and other agency leaders say the restriction “is harming small business.”

In a March 15 letter to Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the SBA officials said, “[T]he practical effect of this provision is to bar small businesses from competing for these DOD contracts.

Federal employee unions backed the provision in the 2005 Defense Appropriation Act, saying it would level the playing field in public-private job competitions under OMB Circular A-76.

But the Fair Competition Coalition, a contractor group, said the law actually tilts the playing field in favor of government employees. In a letter to congressional appropriators last month, the Coalition said it especially hurts small firms that cannot afford comprehensive health plans.

The contractors noted that federal employees are already winning up to 90% of job competitions under OMB Circular A-77.

NASA has announced the first in a series of competitions offering cash prizes for innovations in space technology.

The first two competitions will focus on the development of materials for making ropelike tethers and on ways to transmit power wirelessly. Winners to be chosen later this year will each receive a $50,000 prize.

The competitions will be managed by the Spaceward Foundation of Mountain View, CA.

NASA plans to ask Congress to provide up to $80 million for such competitions over the next five years, agency officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security awarded 27% of its prime contracts to small businesses in fiscal 2004, Post-Newsweek Tech Media reported.

“That exceeds our 23 percent goal,” Elaine Duke, deputy chief procurement officer for DHS, said at an industry conference in Washington. “And we are looking to do better than that this year.”

The Bush administration is consolidating the training of federal acquisition personnel at the Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir, VA.

The announcement by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy stopped short of calling it a merger, but the Federal Acquisition Institute will move to Fort Belvoir. “Civilian and defense acquisition workforces [will] receive similar training and development opportunities at a shared facility,” OFPP said.

The Senate voted March 17 to restore $78 million that the Bush administration wants to cut from the SBA budget for 2006.

The amendment would increase the SBA’s budget to $671 million. It includes funding to hire more procurement center representatives and to continue several programs that the administration had targeted for elimination, including Microloans.

The Senate rejected a bigger budget increase proposed by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), then passed the smaller boost backed by Kerry and Small Business Committee Chair Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

The final appropriation will be settled in a House-Senate conference committee later this year.

The Senate has approved a tax credit designed to ease the financial strain on National Guardsmen and reservists when they are called to active duty and on small companies that employ them.

The amendment, sponsored by Democrats Mary Landrieu (LA) and John Kerry (MA), provides a tax credit of up to $15,000 per employee to all businesses that pay the difference between an employee’s military and civilian paychecks. For small businesses, the legislation also provides a credit of up to $6,000 per employee to help pay for the hiring of temporary replacements for employee on active duty. For small manufacturers, this credit limit is $10,000.

The House has not acted on similar legislation.

The rising costs of health care and energy ranked as the top concerns in the annual survey of women business owners by Women Impacting Public Policy.

More than 70% of those responding to the online poll identified health care as the most critical issue and overwhelmingly agreed that Association Health Plans would be the most helpful for small businesses to control costs.

Energy ranked as the second important issue, with 78% in favor of developing alternative energy sources by providing tax and monetary incentives to manufacturers and users.