Comment on FR Doc # 2026-11765

House Strategies Group, LLC, a current participant in the 8(a) Business Development Program, submits the attached comment on this proposed rule. We accept that Ultima Services Corp. v. USDA bars the race-based presumption as a mechanism, and we do not ask SBA to restore it. We ask SBA to do three things consistent with that holding. First, add a binding grandfather provision that keeps current participants eligible for the remainder of their program terms, rather than relying on the preamble's non-binding statement that SBA "does not currently intend" to apply the new test to current participants. The reliance interests run in two directions: participants who made one-time, capital-intensive investments to enter against a nine-year clock, and the procuring agencies that rely on the continuity of accepted 8(a) requirements and on re-engaging known firms. Second, correct the cost-benefit analysis, which assumes without evidence that disadvantage in federal contracting is a closed historical chapter. That premise is contradicted by a substantial and recent disparity-study record (including the Minority Business Development Agency's review of roughly 100 studies and recent municipal and federal analyses) and by the network-and-capital mechanism documented by the economist Glenn Loury. Third, confirm that the new test at proposed Section 124.103(b) can be satisfied by documented group-level disadvantage supported by the categories of evidence Section 124.103(b)(4) enumerates, so that the test reaches the disadvantage the program exists to address by a constitutional route. The full argument, a first-person attestation of material harm, and the authorities cited appear in the attached PDF.