America's Supply Base · Policy Series
Protecting small business access to federal contracts is a national imperative
The federal government is rewriting the rules of procurement — and small business suppliers are in the crosshairs.
The American Small Business Chamber of Commerce™ has responded to the April 2025 Executive Order on federal procurement. This page collects that response: four foundational reports documenting what is happening to the supplier base, what small business access is, where it comes from in law, and how consistently Congress has defended it — and the comments we filed with the FAR Council on the rewrite the order set in motion.
Rebuttal · April 2025
Rebuttal to the April 2025 Executive Order on Federal Procurement
Executive Order 14275, signed 15 April 2025, may sound routine. It is not. Our policy memo sets out how it authorizes agencies to bypass Congress, rewrite regulations, and remove safeguards that have protected small firms for seventy years — with no public notice and no congressional oversight.
Foundational Reports
The evidence base
Four reports. Together they answer what is actually happening to the supplier base, why small business access matters economically, where it is written into law, and how consistently Congress has voted to protect it.
Stop the Profound Loss of Small Business Federal Suppliers
The data behind the campaign. Between FY2008 and FY2024 the number of unique small business vendors selling to the federal government fell from 144,773 to 73,833 — a 49% decline — while total small business contract dollars rose from $62.43 billion to $175.23 billion. Fewer firms are capturing a larger share of the work, and more than 40% of the Defense Department's small business vendors have exited in a decade. Drawn from SAM.gov small business goaling data, FY2001–FY2024.
America's Economic Engine
Between FY2008 and FY2024 the federal government lost 49% — roughly 70,000 — of its small business suppliers, while the number of small businesses in the United States grew 27.5%. This report makes the case that small business contracting is not charity, preference, or a relic, but core procurement strategy — and sets out five policy priorities to reverse the decline.
Guaranteed by Law
A provision-by-provision map of the statutes and regulations that mandate small business access — from the Small Business Act's declaration of congressional policy through the Rule of Two, subcontracting plans, and the 8(a), WOSB, HUBZone and SDVOSB programs, to the FAR and SBA rules that carry them out. Small business access is not policy preference; it is statutory mandate.
Bipartisan Foundations
Seventy years of roll-call votes, from the Small Business Act of 1953 to the FY2020 NDAA. Nearly every expansion of small business contracting law passed by voice vote, unanimous consent, or lopsided cross-party margin — signed by Presidents of both parties. The record shows small business contracting is not a partisan question but a structural pillar of American economic policy.
What We Filed
On the record with the FAR Council
Executive Order 14275 directed a rewrite of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. When the FAR Council published the proposed rules on 23 June 2026, we filed — twice, into four dockets, two weeks ahead of the deadline.
Filed 2026-07-03 · Four RFO dockets · Request
Request for a 90-day comment period
Before commenting on substance, we asked the FAR Council for adequate time. The most consequential rewrite of federal acquisition regulation in a generation cannot be meaningfully answered by a small firm in a short window — asking for time to respond is itself a policy position.
Filed 2026-07-09 · FAR Cases 2026-002, 2026-005 · Public comment
Principal comment on the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul
Sixteen pages on what the rewrite of Parts 5, 6, 7 and 10 does to the front door of the federal marketplace. Grounded in our own reproducible analysis of roughly 30 million contract actions in the government's published procurement data (FY2022–FY2026), the comment shows the proposal compresses the advance-notice window small firms depend on, weakens the notice requirements that make opportunities visible at all, and loosens the market-research trigger governing when set-asides apply. In the $25,000–$45,000 entry band — 662,158 awards worth $21.0 billion over FY2022–FY2026 — small business wins 47.0% of dollars, against 27.58% of federal contract dollars government-wide across the same period. The doorway stays open on paper while the time to walk through it disappears.
Filed 2026-07-09 · Four RFO dockets · 5 U.S.C. § 610
Comment under the Regulatory Flexibility Act
Eleven pages accepting the FAR Council's own invitation — made in identical words in all four notices — for small entities to comment on existing regulations affected by the rulemaking. It documents, from the government's own data, which existing protections do measurable work for small business participation and should survive the rewrite.
Within two weeks of posting, twelve public comments by other parties — small business owners among them — cited our filings on the FAR Overhaul dockets. Count as of 10 August 2026.
Take Action
Tell us what you are seeing
The strongest evidence in this campaign comes from suppliers themselves. If procurement changes are affecting your business — lost work, contracts you can no longer reach, decisions you are weighing about staying in the federal market — tell us. Your account stays confidential unless you tell us otherwise.