Legislative Affairs

The SBIR - one of the most critical small business technology funding sources must be reauthorized by Congress this year so that our innovations continue to receive funding and support.   ASBA is tracking and has been part of the discussions on Capitol Hill - here is the lastest update. 

According to SBIR Insider…

We just heard that the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (SBE) will hold a public markup of a bill to reauthorize the SBIR Program on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 11:30 a.m., in room 428A Russell Senate Office Building.  As previously reported by the SBIR Insider, much work has been on-going behind the scenes of the committee to try and reach a workable compromise on the VC issue, as well as some other issues. Many items of importance are being addressed in the Senate SBE’s SBIR bill, but without a VC compromise, the reauthorization would likely be stalled into oblivion.

The fact that a public markup will be held next week strongly suggests that a workable VC compromise has been struck. With a VC compromise at hand, the Bond & BIO clan may well support the Senate SBE effort and help get the bill passed in the committee. Details as to the bill itself are not available at this time. SBE chair John Kerry, and ranking member Olympia Snowe have held many hearings and roundtables on SBIR over the past couple of years, and are very familiar with the programs needs. It appears that this latest effort will be a short term solution to get the SBIR reauthorized without turning the program upside-down and loading it with special set-asides.  

Challenges: Even if the bill is passed in the committee, it has to be passed in the Senate. It is unlikely that a full Senate vote could happen prior to the Senate’s return on September 8, 2008. There are some Senators who don’t believe in small business programs, set-asides, SBA and SBIR, and they could pose a problem for Senate passage. If the bill passes the Senate, it will then be headed for conference with the House. The bill could be successful in the conference if BIO and NVCA support it. I believe they may, because the alternative is a continuing resolution (CR) which does them no good, or expiration of the program which would result in a crap shoot for the "must pass" end-of-the-year omnibus bill.  

I did hear something interesting from one of our readers, who is very active in keeping his politicos informed (kudos to him!). He told me that his hill visits reflected the thought that the SBIR would be kept alive via a CR and reauthorization would be addressed in June of 2009. This was before the announcement of the SBE’s markup of a reauthorization bill.  

Congress is in recess from August 9 (although they are trying to bail the week of August 4) through September 7. In addition to their national conventions, (Dems Aug 25-28, Reps Sept 1-4) your Senators and Representatives will be in their district/state work period, visiting folks like you (hopefully). This will be prime-time for you to reach out to them, without the cost of going to DC. We’ll get some advice from "professionals" as to how to approach them. (poor sentence construction, I’m not going to touch that…) 

In an upcoming future issue, we will be including a list of Representatives & Senators that support SBIR. I am very much interested in your experience as to which of your politicos support SBIR, and which ones don’t. We can include that in our list, while protecting your identity.