A Small Business Administration (SBA) proposal to boost the number of women-owned businesses who are tapped to work on federal contracts is drawing heavy fire. Women’s advocacy groups say the industries set aside for eligibility include four that are typically male-dominated, including national security and international affairs, engraving and heat treating, institutional furniture and kitchen cabinet making, and selected motor vehicle dealers.

In 2000, Congress passed the Equity in Contracting for Women Act in order to give contracting officers the ability to restrict competition for up to 5% of all prime contracts to women-owned businesses whose industries were underrepresented in federal contracting. The law mandated that the SBA conduct research to discover which industries were underrepresented.

The advocacy group Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) is charging that, based on the incomplete manner in which the SBA conducted the evaluation, only four industries were named as underserving women-owned firms.

“Congress passed this legislation in 2000 because the federal government was not meeting the 5 percent goal set for contracting to women-owned firms. In 2007, the federal government still has not met this goal,” said Barbara Kasoff, president of WIPP in a statement. “This is why we are so bitterly disappointed by the SBA proposed program -- it will do nothing to enable the 10.4 million women-owned small businesses to get their fair share of federal business.”

House Small Business Committee Ranking Member Nydia Velázquez, who encouraged the SBA to rework the proposal, said that few businesses would meet eligibility requirements to be placed in the Central Contracting Registry, the pool from which the government chooses recipients of its contracts.

The SBA has said that the proposed rule is just one part of their efforts to boost the number of contracts women-owned businesses earn each year. SBA Administrator Stephen Preston gave one explanation for the underemployment: only 55,000 of 10.4 million women-owned businesses are even listed in the federal registry.