Rick Larsen: “If this amendment passes, we will strip away one of the main tools that we have in the defense budget to ensure that…”

“If this amendment passes, we will strip away one of the main tools that we have in the defense budget to ensure that small businesses continue to be part of the defense industrial base. {time} 1520 The Rapid Innovation Fund was created a couple of years ago in order to ensure that small businesses that had technology, that had resources to help the war fighter could get funding to develop that technology to develop those resources and get service to the warfighter sooner rather than later. In 2011 alone, over 3,500 white papers were submitted and evaluated-- proposals for the Rapid Innovation Fund--3,500. Two hundred final proposals were invited. Out of that total 3,500, 177 awards were made, 95 percent of which went to small businesses, 80 percent to current or prior SBIR participants; and the average product value of $2.2 million, awards to companies in 32 States and in the District of Columbia. This is an important program to help small businesses continue to be part of the defense industrial base. We should not strip RIF funding out of the bill. If we are going to deal with operations and maintenance, let's do what everybody on the committee wants to do: let's stop the sequester, replace the sequester with something more balanced to ensure that the O&M accounts, as well as great programs like RIF, are funded. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.”