Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, in this historical moment, we are all working to find ways to eliminate racial injustice and the disparities it causes. Certainly, people of color must be treated with fairness and respect by law enforcement. But it will take far more than that to begin to make a dent in the race and sex discrimination that keeps far too many people locked out of the American dream. In this context, the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise or DBE Program, which is reauthorized in this legislation, is essential. As we have over the past decades since the DBE program was originally enacted in 1983, this Committee has received enormous amounts of evidence demonstrating that discrimination continues to plague the industries that make up the surface transportation market. One of the studies referenced in our Committee Report involves the Nashville and the surrounding metropolitan area. The numbers are devastating--especially in prime contracting. Firms owned by African Americans earned 3 cents on the dollar of what we would expect them to earn given their availability in Architecture and Engineering markets. For Asian Americans the number was 18 cents on the dollar and for Hispanic Americans it was 47 cents on the dollar. That is simply unacceptable. In construction contracting, African Americans did better, but Hispanic Americans did much, much worse--and none did as well as white males. In prime construction contracts, African American owned firms earned 55 cents on the dollar of what we would have expected given their representation in the availability for prime construction contracting. Asian Americans earned 25 cents on the dollar and Hispanic Americans earned 1 cent on the dollar. Metro Nashville Tennessee Disparity Study Final Report, Griffin and Strong, P.C., August 2018, at 83 through 84. These numbers make clear that minority business owners in this country are trapped in a cycle of discrimination from which escape is close to impossible. We cannot permit this situation to continue.
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