Members of Congress and their staffs got an earful of recommendations and concerns about reauthorizing the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program last week, as attendees at the Small Business Technology Council’s “Congressional Fly-In” fanned out across Capitol Hill. The highly-successful SBIR Program is set to expire in September unless Congress takes action to extend it. But the version of the extension passed by the House of Representatives (H.R. 5819) contains a number of troubling provisions, that would undermine the historic strengths of SBIR. So SBTC members and executives of other companies in the SBIR Program, as well as public officials from states that look to SBIR to help with their economic development, came to Washington to share their views with Congress.

The Fly-In series of events began last Wednesday afternoon with a discussion of the key issues in the SBIR reauthorization. On Thursday, Fly-in participants met for a breakfast session with Congressional staffers in the hearing room of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. Then it was on to a series of meetings at the offices of individual Senators and Representatives.

As Members of Congress and their staffs have become more familiar with the House-passed SBIR reauthorization bill (H.R. 5819), opposition to several provisions in the bill has grown. In particular, concern has centered on

• the role of large companies (including large venture capital companies) in the SBIR Program,

• the proposal to allow companies to bypass the competitive “proof of concept” phase of SBIR, and

• the proposal to allow SBIR awarding agencies to make awards of nearly unlimited size.

SBTC members and others who are concerned about this issue should consider taking advantage of the e-mail tool on the SBTC and NSBA websites that allows you to quickly compose and send a letter to your elected representatives on the issue.