Groups press for reauthorization of small business research program

As it stands, top lawmakers from the House and Senate small business committees are expressing some public confidence that a more durable agreement can be reached this year.

{mosads}Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), the chairwoman of the Senate Small Business Committee, said she believed a deal could be struck by Friday.

Landrieu and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have also attached their version of a long-term reauthorization to the defense authorization bill, which passed the Senate and awaits consideration by the House.

“We’re not going to be negotiating this in the press,” Landrieu said. “These negotiations are going on, and both sides are working in good faith.”

Landrieu’s House counterpart also sounded cautiously hopeful.

“Despite our differences, I remain optimistic that all sides can come together in good faith to negotiate a plan that not only reauthorizes, but improves the program,” Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the chairman of the House Small Business Committee, said in a statement.

SBIR, which requires participating agencies to set aside 2.5 percent of their research-and-development budgets to small businesses in the program, has received more than a dozen short-term reauthorizations in recent years.

But unlike on other issues, the obstacles to a long-term deal on the programs are due more to differences between the House and Senate, instead of between Democrats and Republicans. Those issues include the length of the reauthorization and the percentage of awards that can be given to venture-capital firms.

In their letter, the 900 groups said they would prefer a reauthorization that hewed more closely to the Senate proposal.

But even as lawmakers are publicly optimistic, there are also signs that negotiations are still bumpy at times.

A House committee aide told The Hill that negotiators in the chamber feel they are meeting their Senate counterparts more than halfway, but to no avail.

“We’ve been willing to compromise on key aspects of the program, even offering the other side about 80 percent of what they want. But this is not a one-sided process,” the aide said. “It takes both bodies to make this happen.”

On the other side of the Capitol, a Senate aide suggested there were different hurdles.

“Sen. Landrieu is fairly confident that if the principals could ever meet on this they could bridge their differences, but that doesn’t seem to be a priority for her counterparts on the House side,” said Elle Ourso, a spokeswoman for Senate Small Business.

This post was updated at 4:32 p.m.