The government has claimed success for several years in meeting its small business contracting goals. But the specific goals for women-owned businesses — that hasn’t happened very often. At Veterans Affairs, about two-and-a-half percent of contract dollars have gone to women-owned businesses, against a goal of five percent. A bill in Congress called the Veterans Affairs Opportunity for Women-Owned Small Businesses Act would change that. For more from one of the bill’s backers, Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger joined the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript: 

Tom Temin  The government has claimed success for several years now in meeting its small business contracting goals, but the specific goals for women-owned businesses, that hasn’t happened very often. At Veterans Affairs, about two and a half percent of contract dollars have gone to women owned small business against a goal of 5%. A bill in Congress called the Veterans Affairs Opportunity for Women Owned Small Business Act would change that. More now, from one of the bill’s main backers, Virginia Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. Congresswoman Spanberger, good to have you back.

Abigail Spanberger  Thank you for having me.

Tom Temin  And let’s talk about the state of women-owned small businesses first. Do you feel that there’s enough of them around to even be able to award twice the dollars to, from a department like VA?

Abigail Spanberger  Well, so, if you’re looking at the number of small businesses in Virginia, nearly 45% of the small businesses in Virginia are women-owned, and these are business owners who have, at times, faced some barriers in accessing federal contracts, and particularly within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And, so, if we’re thinking about 45% of small businesses in Virginia are women-owned, and then we look at the fact that back in 1994, Congress set a government-wide goal for women-owned businesses in the procurement of federal contracts. And we know that that goal has only been met twice in 30 years. And in fact, in FY 23 the VA in particular, awarded the lowest amount of prime contracting dollars of any of our federal departments to women-owned businesses. So, yes, I think, you know, there are certainly, at least in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a large number of women-owned businesses that could be meeting some of the needs and requirements of the VA. And the goal of this legislation is to, you know, affirm that Congress, in a bipartisan and bicameral way, really want to ensure that the VA is recognizing the strength and what is brought to the table by some of these businesses.

Tom Temin  And if one was to hypothesize that, since so many contracting communities are in Virginia to begin with, it’s a major contracting center writ large. How can we characterize the women-owned businesses? That is to say, are they in the areas that the federal government is heavily contracting with? VA, maybe healthcare-related services and so forth, and also information technology and all the surrounding pieces of that.

Abigail Spanberger  Certainly, because so many of our other federal agencies are far, far better, you know, being on the path towards meeting these goals. And, so, some of the types of contracts that are specific to the VA, or that would be pursued by the VA are similar types of contracts that would be pursued by other federal agencies. And, so, there is absolutely room for the VA to do more to ensure that they are looking at their own efforts internally to contract with women-owned businesses. But I do think an important piece of this is that the VA contracting officers, there is already priority consideration given to veteran owned and service disabled veteran owned businesses that have been certified by the Small Business Administration. The VA has been doing strong and important work in making sure that they are prioritizing those small businesses. And this bill would add the women-owned small business federal contract program as a third tier. And, so, you know, important to note that while the VA has priorities, and certainly while we have federal goals for who they contract with, this is not bumping out of the way. This is not displacing the top priority that exists to ensure that, when possible and when appropriate, that VA contracts first priority, VA contracts are given to veteran owned and service disabled veteran owned businesses.

Tom Temin  And you mentioned earlier, the barriers that women owned businesses face is the fact that the first order of priority for VA service disabled veterans and so forth. Does that constitute part of the barriers that the women owned businesses say they face?

Abigail Spanberger  No. I mean, we have many service disabled women veterans. We have many women veterans. Notably, when a business is a veteran owned women-owned business or service disabled veteran women-owned business. In meeting those goals, both of those priorities are listed and documented in the process. So, this, Virginia is home to many veterans, and Virginia is home to many service disabled veterans in that, you know, includes many women who have served their country and who are service disabled as a result as well.

Tom Temin  So what are the barriers that women face in VA, or any federal agency?

Abigail Spanberger  That is really the core of this piece of legislation is the fact that many, many years ago, Congress set out to ensure that there was an effort within the federal government to recognize the strength of small businesses that are women-owned or veteran owned or service disabled veteran owned. And what we have seen is that the VA in particular, lags far, far, far behind other federal agencies and so, you know, this is a call to the VA to recognize, why is it that other agencies are far more, you know, many paces ahead of the VA in awarding contracts to women-owned small businesses and awarding contracts, you know, in pursuit of the goal set forth by this 1994 law, but the VA lags far, far behind? And, so, it is a challenge, and a challenge specific, in this case, to the VA that must be dealt with. And, so, in this legislation, that you know, again, it’s bipartisan in the House and in the Senate, is for the VA to take a real clear-eyed look and you know, and hopefully, regardless of at whatever point in time we might get this bill across the finish line to the President’s desk, you know, importantly, the conversation we’re having where we are drawing some clarity to the reality that the VA lags behind other agencies, and that there is still room for other agencies to meet goals as well. It will hopefully bring some recognition to the VA as they are going through the contracting process and what particular types of improvements they might be able to make, so that eligible businesses that might currently be overlooked are given fair consideration.

Tom Temin  We are speaking with representative Abigail Spanberger. She represents Virginia’s seventh district. And I wanted to ask you about another bill having to do with veterans. And it seems like every new program that the federal government offers is like chum in the water, attracting scammers. In this case, it is the PACT Act benefits. Now, you know, a few years in, and you’re backing legislation to try to root out scamming of that. What’s going on and what are you trying to do?

Abigail Spanberger  So, just as a reminder for anyone who’s listening, the Honoring Our PACT Act is a is a bill that I was proud to vote for that expands VA health care and benefits for millions of veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances, as well as veterans and through the global war on terror, as well as veterans of the Vietnam Gulf War and those from the post 9/11 global war on terror era. This legislation is has been vitally important for those who tragically become ill as a result of their service and and what we have seen happen is that scammers are stepping forward in trying to pose, online and elsewhere as kind of entities that can help a veteran get these benefits that they deserve. Among the most prevalent scams that we’ve seen are online and email-based scams where the scammers will will state that they can help with the Camp Lejeune settlement, and so they are targeting veterans who develop some serious illnesses from water contamination at Camp Lejeune. The reality is that this bill that we passed, Honoring Our PACT Act, is meant to help veterans, and there are veteran service organizations across the country that are there to support and help veterans as they apply for these benefits, as they make sure that they are registering their service and documenting that they may have had any potential toxic exposures. And the fact is, you know, the numbers are in 2023 alone, right after we passed this bill that veterans reported about $350 million in losses to fraud, and so bringing an understanding, particularly for older veterans who might be on the receiving end of some of these scams, particularly for family members helping a loved one apply for the benefits that they might deserve, understanding that there are so many efforts just abhorrent efforts to try and scam veterans is kind of part of preventing these scamming efforts.

Tom Temin  All right, so this is not a bill, but rather you’re just urging VA to kind of strengthen the tools it has against fraudsters that bill the VA for services they never delivered and never had any intention of delivering.

Abigail Spanberger  Well, and specifically ensuring that the Secretary of the VA takes aggressive action to recognize, communicate to veterans and, you know, as the VA is doing the processing of those who had toxic exposures, that they are working as they can to be part of the process of clamping down on or blocking scammers who are trying to exploit veterans.

Tom Temin  Because the Veterans Affairs Department has recently reinstated an anti-fraud tool for outside caregivers. It’s not directly PACT Act related, but that’s one of the programs that’s in there.

Abigail Spanberger  To be leveraged, particularly with this newer. The programs created under the PACT Act are so new, and there is so much potential for fraud in this circumstance to make sure that those anti-fraud and anti-abuse efforts are directed specifically and not to the exclusion of other places where fraud may exist, but directed but thoughtfully and explicitly, also towards some of these scammers who might try to take advantage of veterans with toxic exposures.

Tom Temin  So, a couple of new bright spotlights on Veterans Affairs to add to what’s already, you know, a pretty heavy oversight program of that agency. Are you getting signals from Dennis and company that, yeah, they see what you’re going after and kind of go along with it, both on the contracting and on the PACT Act side?

Abigail Spanberger  I think it’s important to also note that I think the Secretary has been doing important and valuable work, and even since the passage of the honoring our pact act to suddenly make millions of American veterans potentially eligible for these additional benefits, has been an enormous shift that Congress has placed, and rightly so. I’m proud of the vote on the VA. And there have been kind of tremendous hurdles and real administrative challenges in needing the moment in terms of processing all of these new claims and flowing new people into the program. And so there have certainly been some learning curves and some hurdles along the way, as we have just so substantially impacted the amount of casework that that the VA has come in, while it hasn’t been been perfect, and there’s been challenges along the way. I do think that the Secretary has done important work in in growing that that capability, and certainly in, you know, in partnering with congressional offices like mine as we endeavor to support the veterans that we work with. And, so, these are two areas where I don’t want to speak for the Secretary, but I feel quite confident stating that he and nobody who works within the VA wants to see a single dollar go to a scammer that should be going to a veteran who has suffered health problems because of their service to our country, and so just helping to encourage and highlight, you know, certainly to the VA, but also to the public, the challenges that so many veterans are facing as these scammers attempt to target them, I think, is important, and in tandem with the work that the VA is already doing.

Tom Temin  Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger represents Virginia’s seventh district. As always, thanks so much for joining me.

Abigail Spanberger  Thank you so much for having me.

Tom Temin  We’ll post this interview along with links to more information at federalnewsnetwork.com/federaldrive. Subscribe to the Federal Drive wherever you get your podcasts.

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