SBIR REAUTHORIZATION
REAUTHORIZATION REQUIRED
Every 7-10 years, the SBIR program must be “reauthorized” by Congress or
it will cease to exist. It has
survived three reauthorizations in the past, and faces another one in
Federal Fiscal Year 2008.
Although SBIR is a popular program, its reauthorization is never a sure bet. That is particularly true now, with many interests vying for limited Federal budget dollars. And, SBIR continues to have its adversaries who, for various reasons, oppose the program.
WHY ACT NOW?
Terry Bibbens, former Entrepreneur in Residence at the Small Business Administration (SBA), has made the important point that many members of Congress were not in office the last time SBIR was reauthorized (2000). Therefore, they may not even know that SBIR exists, much less its value to their constituents. Now is a great time to educate your Congressional representatives about SBIR and what it has done for your state, community, and maybe even your company.
WHAT DIFFERENCE YOU CAN MAKE
You’ve heard it before, and we’ll say it again: Members of Congress take note when substantial numbers of their constituents contact them about a particular Federal program or legislative bill. If they don’t hear from any constituents, then they go on their own assessment of the merits of the program or bill. If they hear from one or two constituents, then they consider their comments. But if they hear from dozens of constituents, now they strongly consider how those constituents feel about the program or bill. Add your voice so that your Congressional representatives will hear not from one or two constuents about the importance of SBIR, but from many of you!
Reauthorization UPDATE September 5, 2008
Please see the following email of importance regarding the SBIR reauthorization.
CONTACTING YOUR CONGRESSMAN OR WOMAN
We offer advice to two common questions here:
where can you find your Congressional representative’s email or fax
number, and what message should you convey to him or her?
Finding Congressional representative email or fax
Thanks to the Internet, this is pretty easy to do.
For members of the House of Representatives, go to http://www.house.gov/writerep.
You will be asked to enter your state and zip code, and will receive
information about your Representative. What is displayed, however, is only snail mail
address and phone; to get the useful fax and email information, click
on the name of your Representative, which is linked to his or her website. If a
Website isn’t accessible here, try http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml,
which lists all Representatives’ website alphabetically or by state.
It is the
Congressperson’s website where you can find a fax number, usually under a
“Contact Rep Jones” type button. Email
has gotten a bit trickier for most Congresspersons; instead of giving you their
email address, most provide an electronic form that you will fill out and then
send (email) it to the Representative. Therefore,
you may want to write out what you want to say, then cut and paste it into this
form.
Finding information on your Senator is accomplished by
going to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
Enter your state, and you are told their names and websites; once again, the
website is where you will find a fax number and (typically) a “form” for
sending an email.
Another useful website in this process is http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/. By clicking on your state, this website will list all of your Senators and Representatives. Click on the Congressperson’s name (not their website), and you are given a 1-2 page “bio” of him or her. Note under “Political Profile” the category “First Elected to Office.” If he or she has been elected since 2000, then they are a newbie who is less likely to even know what SBIR is.
What To Say to Your Congressperson
Let’s face it: many
of us just don’t know what to say to our Representative or Senator when we
write them. We’re here to help!
Read on…
As general advice and examples of what a letter to your
Congressperson should look like, check out http://www.ams.org/government/contact.html,
http://www.healthcare-now.org/action/write.htm,
and http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa020199.htm.
In short, keep it brief (1 page or less), explain why you are writing and
why it is an important issue, and request a specific action.
Click here
for sample letters that you might consider modifying and sending to your
Congressperson, specific to the SBIR program reauthorization:
Where Do I Get Ammo?
If you’re an Army Ranger asking that, we can’t help you.
But if you’re someone who wants to write his or her Congressional
Representatives to solicit their support for the SBIR program’s
reauthorization, here are some suggestions:
The SBA maintains a database of SBIR awards made since the
program’s inception. Check out http://tech-net.sba.gov/tech-net/public/dsp_search.cfm?URLTokenSuppressed=Yes.
You can sorts these data in all sorts of ways to provide some interesting
tidbits in your letter. For example,
to fill in the blanks in our sample SBIR letters above, you would select a state,
specify only SBIR (not including STTR), ask for “State
Summary List” under the Desired Report subcategory, and hit the “Search
These Criteria” button. The List
you get has number of awards and their dollar value, which you can now plug into
the blanks in your version of the sample letters.
One caution: do not use the
data under “Total Awards” from the SBA website, as it is not always correct; you instead should
add together the number of Phase I awards and number of Phase 2 awards to get an
accurate total.
The Small Business Technology Coalition (SBTC) maintains a
wealth of information relevant to SBIR’s impact and the 2008 reauthorization
effort at its website http://www.sbtc.org.
Look under the “Resources” column on the home page for some juicy
bits of information that you can use.
The organization SBIR Colorado currently has on its website
(http://www.sbircolorado.org/) a
keynote presentation by Terry Bibbens summarizing the reauthorization effort.
This presentation includes a number of useful charts and tables about the
importance of small business to
Staying on Top of the SBIR Reauthorization
We’re the first to admit that it isn’t easy to stay on
top of Legislative efforts, including something like the reauthorization of the
SBIR program. We can suggest a few
sources that might be helpful:
The aforementioned SBTC (http://www.sbtc.org)
is actively involved in the reauthorization effort, and its website should be
consulted regularly.
The SBIR Gateway (http://www.zyn.com/sbir/)
also does a good job of staying abreast of the reauthorization effort. Look
under the “News Items” column for articles like “View Latest SBIR News”
for reauthorization updates.
When a specific Legislative Bill containing the SBIR reauthorization is created, you can track it on the Thomas Library of Congress website, http://thomas.loc.gov/. As specific reauthorization legislation winds its way through Congress, you may want to write additional letters to your Congressional representatives, reminding them of the importance of SBIR generally, to your state, and to your company.