21 



Mr. Glover. I do have concerns about it. If we do it, just a quick 

 math, it looks like it is between $10 and $30 million, depending on 

 who you are talking to. The agencies already provide programs and 

 they have got resources. Some assistance might be appropriate, but 

 I would look at it very carefully and it is something I would be very 

 concerned about. Because we do not ask big firms — we do not take 

 money out of their budgets to do that — there is a specific amount, 

 salary and expenses. What we are saying is oh, you are small busi- 

 nesses, so you are going to have to pay part of the salaries and ex- 

 penses for this program. 



Excuse me, large firms do not have to pay that. I think we have 

 to be very careful about dipping into that, because it would be very 

 easy for the agencies to raid this fund and they have certainly 

 made through the years a lot of different attempts to do that. 



But I do recognize that by and large these programs are under- 

 funded by the agencies today. They do not have enough administra- 

 tive costs. So, it is a serious problem. I am just not sure — I do not 

 have a fixed number for you as to what that should be, but I think 

 probably what it would be is whenever we reauthorize it, add some 

 more to what we are giving. Not take it away from small business, 

 but take it away from the other overall expenses. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. 



Mr. Rezendes? 



Mr. Rezendes. I want to echo those same concerns. We have the 

 same concerns also, particularly in a fixed percentage for adminis- 

 trative costs is that it makes it very difficult from an oversight per- 

 spective, from the Congress perspective to look at how those mon- 

 ies are being spent and managed. Right now, it is clear that those 

 costs cannot come out of these accounts. As Congress always has 

 the direction and the discretion to add more administrative staff 

 and money to the other parts of these budgets to handle this which 

 makes it more visible and more manageable. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. The only problem is we do not have any 

 more money to add, but short of that. Dr. Barish? 



Dr. Barish. Just to follow up. SBIR is different than the other 

 agencies programs and the reason why it is different is because you 

 have to have at least one annual solicitation — we send ours to tens 

 of thousands of people — and that means you get a lot of proposals. 

 You have heard that the proposal-to-award ratio is about 10 to 1. 

 In other programs in the Federal agencies, you do not generally get 

 a ratio of proposals to awards of 10 to 1, and you have to evaluate 

 them in a very short time. 



The SBA policy directive says we have to make the awards 6 

 months after we receive the proposals, so that places a significant 

 burden on all the agencies. So, it really is different than the other 

 programs. If we are trying to do a good job, we need the support 

 to serve the small businesses. 



Chairman Torkildsen. Let us follow on that because that is al- 

 ways an important part when we are talking about Government 

 awards. What do you think the cost or your best estimate of the 

 cost of administrating the program for both Energy and for NASA 

 would be Dr. Norwood? What is the cost of administering this pro- 

 gram, as it is coming out of your budget now, given that you do 



