Politics Stalls Small Business R&D Bill in Senate The Senate has given up, for now, on passing legislation to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research Program after the bill became a political football. Senate Republicans tried to use the relatively noncontroversial bill as a vehicle for amendments aimed at rolling back various federal regulations. Nearly 150 amendments were offered, and many were voted upon over the past two months. The bill’s sponsor, Senate Small Business Committee Chair Mary Landrieu, D-LA, said it had bipartisan support. “Unfortunately, some senators chose to stonewall in a self-serving effort to get their way on unrelated issues,” she said in a statement. Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the bill from the floor on May 4 after an unsuccessful attempt to limit debate. The vote to limit debate was 52-44, but that motion requires a 60-vote supermajority. All Republicans voted no. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, ranking Republican on the Small Business Committee, voted against limiting debate even though she is a cosponsor of the SBIR bill. Democrats accused Snowe of killing the bill after Majority Leader Reid refused to allow her to offer an anti-regulatory amendment. Committee Chair Landrieu, who often issues joint press releases with her Republican colleague, told the newspaper Politico, “She decided to pull the plug on this bill. So I like her so much personally, and I respect her, but I really think that was not the right thing to do.” Snowe told the newspaper, “I have a right to insist on a position as much as the majority leader does or anyone else does in the United States Senate, and I want to vote on an amendment. I don’t know how that is considered to be obstructionist.” The SBIR program will continue to operate under temporary authority, but the House and Senate remain at odds over a key provision that has delayed reauthorization for two years. Senators Landrieu and Snowe had fashioned a compromise with some House members over the issue of giving SBIR grants to companies controlled by large venture-capital firms. The Senate bill would limit those companies to 25% of the SBIR money in the Defense Department, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, and 15% in all other agencies. However, Rep. Renee Elmers, R-NC, has introduced a new SBIR bill in the House, H.R. 1425, that would allow VC-backed firms to win up to 49% of SBIR funds.