U.S. Small Business Administration
-- News Release --

Release Date: September 29, 2008
Contact: Christine Mangi (202) 205-6948
Release Number: 08-100
Internet Address: http://www.sba.gov/news


SBA Submits Final Women's Contracting Rule

WASHINGTON, DC - On Friday, the U.S. Small Business Administration
submitted to the Federal Register its final rule concerning women-owned
small business (WOSB) contracting procedures, plus a new proposed rule
on the industries eligible for WOSB contract assistance. The rule was
submitted in advance of this morning's hearing in a federal lawsuit that
requires SBA to show progress toward finalizing the rule.

The proposed rule introduces a new data source that, if adopted, would
significantly increase the number of industries under which a set aside
could be established to 31, from the four that were permissible under
the previously proposed data set.

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.

###