A GAO report requested by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship shows that small businesses in the Gulf region - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida - received $2.9 B or 14% of the total contract dollars allocated for Katrina clean-up and rebuilding and other small businesses nationwide received $2.7 B. Of the small business contracts, HUBZones and SDBs had contracts for over half of the total SB dollars awarded while WOBs and VOBs combined received 25 percent of the awards.

With the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency using different metrics to determine the progress on DOD's Superfund sites, it is all but impossible to get an accurate picture according to a recent GAO report. For example, on several sites DOD uses the term in "mature stages," whereas EPA describes the same sites as "in early investigative stages." Of 141 DOD Superfund sites, the report focused on Fort Meade (Maryland), Tyndall Air Force Base (Florida), and McGuire Air Force Base (New Jersey). Compounding the problem is the lack of an interagency agreement between DOD and EPA and DOD's failure to comply with a 1980 law that requires clean-up to be "approved, documented and made available to the public" in order for sites to be recognized by EPA as completed.

 - A public meeting called by the Joint Taskforce on Federal Contracting Opportunities to hear small businesses' concerns regarding government contracting opportunities, or lack thereof, was held June 28, 2010 at the Commerce Building in Washington, DC. Among other things, small businesses expressed concern over contract bundling, the delay in implementing the women-owned small business program, the unfair advantage of Alaska Native Corporations in the small business contracting arena, and the negative impact of the insourcing initiative. They also asked for an expansion of the simplified acquisition threshold to $500,000, a resolution of the parity issue that gives precedenceto HUBZone companies and an increase in the revenue threshold for the 8(a) program. The TaskForce will use the small business input garnered from testimony and submitted comments to make recommendations to the President. SEBAC submitted comments to the TastForce.

 - In an effort to reduce overall procurement costs by twoto three percent annually, Shay Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy, has directed his procurement officials to use more GSA Multiple Award Schedule and interagency contract vehicles, eliminate time and material contracts, and increase the use of fixed-price and incentive plus contracts. The agency also plans to increase small business contracting opportunities. In addition, the agency intends to add 20,000 procurement personnel in the next five years ensure better oversight of its acquisition process.