Comment on FR Doc # 2026-11765

I respectfully submit this comment in opposition to the proposed rule as written. I write as the Found and CEO of a small, Black woman-owned small business, and as a recent applicant for certification under the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development Program (pending review). SBA estimates that roughly 4,190 individually owned applicants will be affected each year yet certifies under the Regulatory Flexibility Act that the rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, and concludes the burden change is “de minimis.” The rule’s “de minimis impact” conclusion is not supported by the record. The SBA’s reasoning assumes preparing the new evidentiary showing takes about the same effort as the prior narrative. In my experience, that is not accurate. The proposed standard does not ask an applicant to revisit their own history; it asks them to locate official government, university, or corporate policies, audits, or rulings establishing that an entire racial or ethnic group was systematically disadvantaged, or that another group was favored. That is a different kind of evidentiary search, not a lighter version of the individualized narrative required under the current 13 CFR 124.103(c) standard. SBA’s cost-benefit and regulatory flexibility analyses rest on a faulty premise, and a rule built on that premise should not be adopted. The proposed “test” requires an applicant to produce documentary evidence — such as official policies, reports, statements, or court and administrative rulings — showing that a government or private entity disadvantaged the applicant’s group or favored another, and that this caused material harm. Sourcing and substantiating that evidence is a meaningful undertaking for a small business owner without legal or research support. The new evidentiary standard creates barriers the analysis does not acknowledge. Replacing a known, workable standard with one that is uncertain is not an improvement to the program; it is a barrier to entry, and SBA should not adopt it. SBA states it does not currently intend to apply the new test to existing participants at their next annual review, but it requests comment on reliance interests. Those interests are real, and they are not limited to certified participants, but also to pending applicants that, in good faith, relied on the standard in effect at the time in which the application was submitted. These applicants have already invested the time, documentation, and professional support that the process requires. If SBA applies the new evidentiary standard to applications that are already pending, rather than only to applications filed after a final rule takes effect, applicants like me would effectively be asked to start over under a standard we had no notice of when we applied. These reliance interests, for current participants and pending applicants alike, are themselves a reason to leave the current standard in place rather than replace it. The 8(a) program exists to help socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses become durable competitors in the federal marketplace, and over decades it has built businesses, jobs, and tax base in communities like mine. The 8(a) program’s purpose and potential pipeline matter. A fair, navigable path into the 8(a) program is what allows businesses like mine to bring a variety of knowledge and experience to federal contracts. Replacing the current standard with one that requires hard-to-obtain institutional documentation will deter qualified applicants and shrink the very pipeline the program was created to build. For that reason, SBA should not finalize this rule. For these reasons, I oppose this proposed rule and ask SBA not to finalize it. The current individualized narrative standard under 13 CFR 124.103(c) already requires applicants to substantiate their social disadvantage with detailed, verifiable evidence; replacing it with an unproven standard that demands institutional-level documentation many individual applicants cannot reliably obtain narrows access to the program rather than improving it. If SBA nonetheless moves forward with a final rule over these objections, I ask at minimum that it: (a) prepare a full Regulatory Flexibility Act analysis based on the rule’s actual burden, including the burden of locating institutional-level evidence rather than personal narrative evidence; (b) publish clear guidance and concrete examples of what evidence will satisfy the new standard; and (c) commit that any final rule will apply only prospectively, so that both current participants and applicants with applications already pending continue to be evaluated under the standard in place at the time we applied. Respectfully submitted, Calondra Tibbs Trifecta Advising, LLC Stonecrest, Georgia