Five months after a federal court ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s overhaul of a U.S. Department of Transportation program, minority-owned businesses say they are being shut out of billions of dollars in construction work.
The 2021 Biden-era bipartisan $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act set a national goal for the Transportation Department to steer at least 10% of surface transportation, public transit and highway safety research funding to disadvantaged businesses. But the department’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program – a 42‑year‑old federal initiative to help minority and women‑owned firms compete for contracts to repair roads, bridges and highways – is now in flux.
A U.S. district court in Kentucky cleared the way last October for the administration to end the program’s automatic presumption that businesses owned by women or racial minorities were socially and economically disadvantaged, part of a broader campaign to overhaul or eliminate race or gender-conscious government programs such as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives known as DEI.
Under the new rules, roughly 50,000 firms nationwide are required to submit “personal narratives” along with other financial documents to recertify. Firms must demonstrate, based on their individual experiences and without reference to race or sex, that they are socially and economically disadvantaged by detailing specific instances of hardship, systemic barriers and denied opportunities.
Since certification is handled at the state level, where federal transportation dollars are distributed, they face a state-by-state patchwork of timelines and processes and the suspension of participation goals for major infrastructure projects.
…
During the prolonged reevaluation process, minority and women-owned firms can still bid on contracts but face competition against larger, better-capitalized firms, undermining what they describe as the program’s purpose of leveling the playing field in transportation contracting, four procurement consultants and lawyers told Reuters.
“Prime contractors and general contractors do not use women and minorities unless they have to,” said Joann Payne, president of Women First, an advocacy organization for women-owned businesses in transportation and construction. “Taking away the goals has devastated the program.”