24 



Mr. Little. I think what I heard is quite reasonable. Even now 

 when you submit a proposal, you have to indicate whether you are 

 submitting the same proposal elsewhere. On occasion, we have 

 been awarded the same proposal twice from two different agencies 

 and had to turn it down. I have not heard quantitatively how big 

 a problem that is. I heard one flagrant example, but I do not know. 

 I am surprised it is a significant problem. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Mr. Bassilakis. 



Mr. Bassilakis. From my perspective, as a new startup com- 

 pany, I do not really have much to add in this particular area. 

 However, I am confident that I can state, in behalf of all small 

 business firms, that unscrupulous firms should be permanently 

 barred from future participation in the SBIR Program. 



Chairman ToRKiLDSEN. The need for some type of better defini- 

 tion of what is similar or duplication is important. Under the pro- 

 gram as it is now if, for instance, DOE funds a program that may 

 be mostly basic research, some commercial possibilities, but that is 

 a particular program and then NASA decides that they need the 

 same type work done, is there a program by which NASA can read- 

 ily find out that DOE has already completed the work? Is that part 

 of this overall program? If anyone can respond to that, Mr. Neal 

 or Dr. Barish or Dr. Norwood? 



Mr. Rezendes. The SBA has a requirement in its policy directive 

 that in the solicitation of each agency, a company is asked to iden- 

 tify in its proposal whether it has submitted the same or essen- 

 tially the same proposal to any other Federal agency and Mr. Little 

 just commented that Spire does that. What the agencies do is after 

 they choose proposals for awards, they look in that section and 

 they see, as the company has said, it has done the same, it has 

 submitted something elsewhere, or it has not. If it has not, we stop 

 that. 



The problem in the GAO report is there have been several exam- 

 ples that companies have said they have not submitted it elsewhere 

 and that is not true. If the company has submitted elsewhere, then 

 we check the status of that proposal with another agency to make 

 sure that it is not being funded twice. 



Chairman Torkildsen. Understand looking at that from an as- 

 pect of making sure that we are stopping fraud, my question from 

 the opposite tack and not assuming a fraud case, but let us say a 

 legitimate company applies to Energy, but does not apply to NASA, 

 can NASA find out what else is out there, what work is being done, 

 if per chance the company that is doing work for Energy just did 

 not apply to NASA? Is there some procedure? 



Mr. Rezendes. Yes, it can, but the time delay is somewhat sig- 

 nificant and SBA is trying to develop a system to reduce that time 

 delay, so it will be more current and more accessible. 



Chairman Torkildsen. Will the real time computer system that 

 SBA is working on provide information of that nature as well? 



Mr. Neal. The real time system is designed to allow the agencies 

 to look in and where there are instances where it appears to be du- 

 plication, that will prompt them to go and inquire at the other 

 agency that may have made the award to get into more detail as 

 to find out whether or not this is actual duplication. So, it sort of 



