56 



the program. 



The delegates to the currern: (June 1995) White House Conference 

 on Small Business have indicated strong support for the SBIR 

 prograrn in the state conferences (56 of the 59 state conferences 

 have been held as of this date) . The Committees on Technology 

 and Information Revolution for virtually every state have 

 supported continuation and/or expansion of the SBIR program as 

 one of their top recommendations in the working groups. It is 

 reasonable to expect that the elected and appointed delegates 

 will include some indication of support for the SBIR program in 

 the 1995 Conference report."* 



The resulting Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982 

 (Public Law 97-219) had broad bi-partisan support in Congress and 

 was signed into law by President Reagan. The SBIR program thus 

 has its roots in the hearings and findings of this Committee and 

 in the grass-roots efforts of the small business community. 



As with any major initiative, we had our share of critics who, 

 lacking faith in the capabilities of small businesses, were 

 certain that the program would result in: 

 Lowered quality of research, 



"* White House Conference Motes , America On-Line^", placed 

 on-line by the staff of the White House Conference on Small 

 Business, 1995. 



