[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 102 (Tuesday, May 27, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30440-30442]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-11763]
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SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Small Business Size Standards: Public Meetings on a Comprehensive
Review of Small Business Size Standards
AGENCY: U.S. Small Business Administration.
ACTION: Notice of public meetings.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will hold two
public meetings to inform the public about one of the Agency's top
priorities--a comprehensive review of all of its small business size
standards. Of fundamental importance in assisting the nation's small
businesses is appropriately defining which business entities qualify as
small businesses. SBA is responsible to the public for ensuring that
size standards levels are sound and rational. Therefore, SBA is
undertaking a 2-year across-the-board examination of its size
standards. This notice discusses SBA's reasons for and its approach to
the comprehensive review and provides information about registering to
attend a public meeting.
DATES: The size standards meetings will be held on June 3, 2008, at 10
a.m. Eastern Time and 2 p.m. Eastern Time in Washington, DC. Attendees
must pre-register by May 30, 2008.
ADDRESSES: 1. The size standards meeting address is U.S. Small Business
Administration, Eisenhower Conference Room, 409 Third Street, SW.,
Washington, DC 20416.
2. Send pre-registration requests to attend to SBA's Office of Size
Standards at [email protected] or call (202) 205-6618.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Fay E. Ott, Associate Administrator
for Government Contracting and Business Development, at (202) 205-6459,
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
To carry out its mission of assisting small businesses, SBA must
identify which businesses are small and, therefore, eligible for
Federal assistance programs intended for small businesses. Congress
granted SBA broad discretion in establishing detailed small business
definitions, or size standards (15 U.S.C. 632(a)(2)). The Small
Business Act generally defines a small business as one that is
independently owned and operated, not dominant in its field of
operation, and meets a numerical size standard established by the SBA
Administrator. SBA's size standards are promulgated in 13 CFR Part 121,
``Small Business Size Regulations,'' and may be found at http://www.sba.gov/size.
Over the years, SBA has reviewed size standards on an ad hoc basis.
That is, SBA has reviewed specific industries that it believed
warranted modification either in response to requests from the public
or a Federal agency or through its own independent analysis. In
addition, SBA has periodically increased the monetary-based size
standards to keep them in line with inflation between individual
adjustments. The last increase for inflation was on December 6, 2005
(70 FR 72577).
SBA has undertaken a few broad reviews of size standards in the
past. With the inception of the Agency in 1953, SBA examined the
initial configuration of size standards and established the basic
framework for today's size standards. The last comprehensive review of
size standards was in the early 1980s. That review resulted in several
important changes. The two most important of those were (1) replacing
two sets of size standards, one for procurement programs and one for
financial programs, with a single set for all programs and (2)
formalizing the methodology for evaluating size standards. In 2004, SBA
proposed to restructure and simplify size standards
[[Page 30441]]
by determining the size of a small business based only on number of
employees and reducing the number of different size standards levels
(69 FR 13130, March 19, 2004). That effort received mixed support from
the public and was subsequently withdrawn (69 FR 39874, July 1, 2004).
SBA is concerned that since the last comprehensive size standards
review, not all of its size standards may now adequately define small
businesses in the U.S. economy, which has seen industry consolidations,
technological advances, emerging new industries, shifting societal
preferences, and other significant industrial changes. SBA's approach
to scrutinizing the limited number of specific industries during a
year, while worthwhile, leaves unexamined many deserving industries for
updating and may create over time a set of illogical size standards.
Accordingly, SBA has initiated this across-the-board review of all size
standards, and will proceed over the next two years with this
examination to ensure that the established levels reflect today's small
business segment of the various industries.
Beginning later this year, SBA will start publishing a series of
proposed rules to update specific size standards; in two years this
review will culminate in the complete evaluation of all size standards.
SBA will organize this review by examining a group of industries within
the Sectors of the North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS). A Sector is a group of related industries, such as retail
trade, manufacturing, construction, etc. Upon completion of an analysis
of the industries within a Sector, SBA will publish a proposed rule for
those industries where its assessment supports changing the current
size standards.
SBA believes that a size standard review spread over time is a more
manageable and expeditious process than attempting to update all size
standards at one time. First, SBA is able to begin the review much
sooner rather than wait until it completes an analysis of more than
1,100 industries. Second, the public can focus on and limit their
comments to a limited number of related size standard revisions in
SBA's proposal. Similarly, evaluating fewer and closely related
comments enables SBA to understand and better consider the issues and
concerns raised by the public.
The table below lists order of the size standards comprehensive
review by NAICS Sector:
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Number of
NAICS sector Title industries
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44-45...................... Retail Trade............... 75
72......................... Accommodations and Food 15
Services.
81......................... Other Services............. 49
54......................... Professional, Scientific 48
and Technical Services.
51......................... Information................ 32
61......................... Education.................. 17
53......................... Real Estate and Rental and 24
Leasing.
71......................... Arts, Entertainment and 25
Recreation.
62......................... Health Care and Social 62
Assistance.
42......................... Wholesale Trade............ 71
56......................... Administrative Support and 44
Waste Management.
23......................... Construction............... 31
52......................... Finance and Investment..... 41
11......................... Agriculture................ 64
49......................... Transportation and 57
Warehousing.
55......................... Management of Companies.... 3
22......................... Utilities.................. 10
21......................... Mining..................... 29
31-33...................... Manufacturing.............. 472
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SBA considered several criteria in deciding the order of the NAICS
Sectors. Priority was given to Sectors that have had fewer size
standard revisions over the past 20 years, less variation of size
standards within the Sector, a lower share of Federal contracts awarded
to small businesses, and a higher quality of industry data. SBA decided
to conduct the review for the Manufacturing Sector last because of the
time needed to evaluate the large number of industries.
SBA encourages the public's participation in the process of
updating its size standards. As discussed above, a proposed rule will
be developed for each NAICS Sector over the next two years. Each
proposed rule will explain how SBA analyzes an industry size standard,
the latest data on an industry, and the basis for its decision to
either retain or revise the current size standard. The public will have
an opportunity to comment on SBA's analysis. SBA will carefully
consider the public's comments on its proposals before making a final
decision. The outcome of this comprehensive review will produce a more
consistent, supportable, and equitable set of size standards designed
to achieve SBA's mission of assisting the small business community.
II. Public Meetings
SBA will discuss in greater detail its approach to a comprehensive
review of size standards at two public meetings and provide the
attendees time to ask questions or provide advice on the size standards
review. The public meetings will be held at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Eastern
Time on June 3, 2008.
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Registration closing
Location Address date
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Washington, DC............. U.S. Small Business May 30, 2008.
Administration, 409
Third Street, SW.,
2nd Floor Eisenhower
Conference Room,
Washington, DC 20416.
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[[Page 30442]]
To help focus the discussions on common areas of interest for the
attendees, it is requested that registrants sign-up for the public
meetings according the type of size standard of most interest to them,
as follows:
10 a.m.--Industries with receipts-based size standards (generally,
the construction, information, retail trade, and services industries).
2 p.m.--Industries with employee-based size standards (generally,
the manufacturing, mining, and wholesale trade industries).
III. Registration and Attendance
SBA respectfully requests that anyone interested in attending one
of the public meetings pre-register in advance with SBA. In addition,
because SBA only has space for up to 150 attendees per meeting, we
request that each organization register only one or two
representatives. Registration requests should be received by May 30,
2008. Please contact the Office of Size Standards at
[email protected] or by calling (202) 205-6618. Please provide the
following information: Name, Title, Organization Affiliation, Address,
Telephone Number, E-mail Address, and Fax Number. SBA will attempt to
accommodate all interested parties who wish to be heard. Based on the
number of registrants it may be necessary to impose time limits to
ensure that everyone who wishes to be heard has an opportunity to do
so.
Please plan to arrive early. Upon arrival at SBA Headquarters, you
must sign-in and pick-up a building pass at the Information Center
located in the lobby. Afterwards, you may proceed through the security
check and to the conference room on the 2nd floor.
Authority: 15 U.S.C. 634.
Fay E. Ott,
Associate Administrator for Government Contracting and Business
Development.
[FR Doc. E8-11763 Filed 5-23-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8025-01-P