Committee requires SBA to implement GAO IT recommendations in HR 4491 and to brief Congress

The House Committee on Small Business voted to report HR 4,491, the SBA IT Modernization Reporting Act, after sponsors said the bill requires the Small Business Administration to implement 11 recommendations from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and to provide Congress with an implementation plan and briefings.

Representative Cisneros, sponsor of HR 4,491, said the GAO identified "critical gaps" in the SBA's modernization efforts, including risk management, cybersecurity and budgeting, and that the bill would require the SBA Administrator to adopt GAO's 11 recommendations and provide an implementation plan and timeline to Congress.

Ranking Member and other speakers emphasized the need for a reliable, secure IT platform to serve small businesses — including a unified certification platform for contracting certifications — and praised the bill's balance of agency flexibility and congressional oversight. Committee members said the measure would promote best practices in IT modernization to avoid costly failures and protect small businesses' data.

Procedure and vote: the committee agreed to report HR 4,491 favorably; a roll call was requested and postponed under committee rule 13 and House rule 11. When the committee resumed, the clerk reported the vote as 23 ayes and 0 noes and the bill was ordered favorably to the House.

Speakers discussed that contracts are awarded to small businesses every year and that an efficient IT platform is critical for small business participation in federal contracting; the bill was framed as bipartisan and designed to strengthen oversight and execution of future SBA IT projects.