SBIR 2017
SBIR Legislative Efforts in 2017 (Improvements or "Deprovements") from Rick Shindell of SBIR Insider
At the end of the 114th Congress (December23, 2016), SBIR/STTR was reauthorized for 5 years, extending the program through September 30, 2022. This happened a year earlier than the cutoff date of September 30, 2017. The brilliance of this (I'm not being facetious) was to deal with the devil you know rather than the one you don't (meaning the upcoming 115th congress).
In order to accomplish reauthorization (a huge undertaking in any congress) a quick and clean SBIR reauthorization was accomplished, allowing the base program to continue through Sept 30, 2022, but existing pilot programs from the 2012 reauthorization were to expire, or had to be reauthorized by Sept 30, 2017 by the new 115th congress (2017 - 2018). Reauthorization of those pilots didn't happen and the pilot programs were terminated as of October 1, 2017. These expired pilots included:
· Phase Flexibility - better known as "Direct to Phase II", where a phase I award is not required to go to phase II.
· Phase 0 Proof of Concept Partnership pilot program, including any civilian agency that was engaging in a commercialization pilot program.
· Expiration of all pilot programs and any increased maximum award amounts declared by those pilots.
Another lost victim was the 3% funding from the SBIR award pool to the agencies, known as the SBIR Administration Funding Pilot Program (AFPP). The AFPP allowed some of the agencies to provide important additional services to the small businesses. Items from narrowing the "Valley of Death" (speeding up the acquisition process), to improving outreach and assistance (and a lot in between). There is hope to restore this program, and we'll discuss this in depth in our next edition.
Due to pilot program shutdowns (and some didn't view all of them as losses), SBIR "improvement" bills of one kind or another were offered in the 115th congress. A total of 11 bills (9 from the House and 2 from the Senate) with some type of SBIR involvement were offered this year. At this point only the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 has passed both houses and become law.
The 2018 NDAA (Public Law No: 115-91) is a humongus piece of legislation that includes many areas of interest to small business. The portions dealing directly with SBIR, basically improves the opportunity for a DoD SBIR/STTR Phase I or Phase II winner to get to Phase III funding for a promising new technology of need to the DoD. The Small Business Technology Council (SBTC) has a nice synopsis of this on their website at http://sbtc.org/2018-ndaa-includes-positive-sbirsttr-provisions/
The House passed their bill H.R.2763 (The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Improvements Act of 2017). Along with some good provisions it had an ominous provision to greatly expand a pilot program, that in essence takes away a significant amount of SBIR/STTR award dollars from small businesses and gives it directly to universities, with no benefit to small businesses or the SBIR program. The SBTC with more than 100 small businesses signing on, sent a letter in opposition of this bill to the House Small Business Committee.
The Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, not pleased with the House's bill, created their own bill, S.1961 (SBIR and STTR Oversight and Pilot Program Extension Act of 2017). Although this bill had some good things and simple plain language to extend the pilot programs for a year, it also had provisions to increase state outreach and SBIR assistance to the states, especially the rural underserved states. It also restored the 3% admin money to the agencies and made a percentage of those funds available to the SBA to cover their SBIR/STTR outreach and expansion programs. There has been some objection to this bill in the Senate, and to date it has not been voted on.
We're getting "impressions" that pressure is being exerted in the Senate to accept the House bill, or for the Senate to offer a new/modified bill with the controversial House language on giving SBIR dollars to universities. We'll have coverage of that in the next issue.
Effect of Congressional Actions / Inactions on SBIR
We're going through it again, life in the Continuing Resolution (CR) lane. The lack of our congress to pass a budget, which is one of the top tasks they have, leaves our agencies with uncertain funding and hard choices as to who/what gets that funding. Under these circumstances, small businesses (and the SBIR program) usually get the "short end." This is especially true for the DoD who has budget issues even without "CRdom"
Some are telling us "don't worry, no problem.." others say "they are full of hooey, you better be prepared!" The Navy recently stated that it has wasted more than $4 billion due to CRs since 2011.
The bottom line is that we don't know the effect this will have on SBIR/STTR awards, including those currently being offered, evaluated, and even those being implemented. The current CR runs out January 19, 2018 and its unknown how our two parties will finish the remainder of the fiscal year.
Not to go unnoticed, we are only a few months away from our earliest primary elections for congress. A few states start as early as March/April, with many in May/June. Regardless of which side of the aisle you are on, there is great intrigue in the primaries. Will different factions of the parties rise up to challenge incumbents? Whatever the case, you'll want the candidate of your choice to be aware of the importance of small business, and the SBIR program. All politics "starts" local and a good deal remain local, but don't discount the power of getting known by your DC staffers as well. Get to know who your congressman is, and reach out to their staffers, especially if you have SBIR success to share. Likewise for your Senators.
We don't do endorsements, but the SBTC is a great organization to "consider" working with. They are the largest (and one of the few) SBIR dedicated SBIR advocacy groups. Check them out at http://sbtc.org and see what you think.