ANNAPOLIS — Bills intended to give businesses owned by women and racial minorities a better shot at state contracts were signed into law yesterday by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele said the legislation also will benefit small businesses by setting aside 10 percent of state contracts for companies with 50 or fewer employees.
The changes in the minority business enterprise law were the result of a report produced by a commission led by Mr. Steele, whom Mr. Ehrlich had entrusted with making the state law more effective.
Under the existing minority business law, companies owned by women and members of racial minorities are supposed to get at least 25 percent of the value of state contracts.
Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican, said the law was “something everybody loved to talk about, but no one took seriously.”
The law was “to some extent phony” and was not doing what it was supposed to do, he said.
Mr. Steele said one of the major problems was that minority firms would be listed as subcontractors, but be replaced by others when work got under way.
“The history has been that they got kicked off the contract” after it was awarded, he said.
The lieutenant governor said one important change in the law is that minority subcontractors will have to be included in the original bid, not added later.
The new law also for the first time directs state agencies to ensure that small businesses with 50 or fewer employees get at least 10 percent of state contracts. That would include all small firms, irrespective of whether they are owned by minorities.
“They can compete with each other on a smaller level,” instead of having to go up against bigger companies with hundreds or even thousands of workers, Mr. Steele said.
Among more than 160 laws signed yesterday was legislation proposed by Mr. Ehrlich revising the state law that governs development of polluted industrial sites, known as brownfields.
Kendl P. Philbrick, secretary of the environment, said the brownfields law will streamline the state program to encourage more developers to get involved in cleaning up abandoned industrial sites and returning them to productive use.
“The whole aim of this was to increase activity in the program,” Mr. Philbrick said.
The law encourages developers to restore brownfields by offering them protection from legal responsibility for pollution caused by previous owners if they follow an approved plan to clean up the sites.
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