Senate boost for women-owned firms
The Senate approved lifting a cap on contracts for women-owned small businesses as part of its fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization package. Final terms of the defense package are still being negotiated with the House.
The Senate-approved version would remove the financial limits placed on contracts under the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) federal contract program. Currently, awards are capped at $6.5 million for manufacturing and construction, and $4 million for everything else.
Advocacy groups have pushed for the change to help the women-owned contracting program, which has been slow to get off the ground.
“Simply put, women-owned small businesses have yet to receive their fair share of federal contracting dollars,” Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, and Olympia Snowe, R-ME, said in a joint statement.
The Senate bill also would cap reimbursement of contractor executive pay at $230,700, a substantial drop from the current cap of $763,029.
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