[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:

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                             Number of
        NAICS sector                    Title               industries
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    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.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    Registration closing
          Location                  Address                 date
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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