Current Issues Facing the DBE Program

The United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program was enacted in response to the well-documented history of race and sex discrimination in the market for USDOT-assisted contracts. The program regulations at 49 C.F.R. Part 26 for Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and 49 C.F.R. Part 23 for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contracts are designed to ensure that small firms owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals have full and fair opportunities to compete for FHWA-, FTA- and FAAassisted contracts. Revisions to the regulations since 1999, have codified the legal standards governing raceand gender-conscious programs and provided best practices so that the program achieves its objectives without unduly burdening non- DBEs. The result has been that Part 26 has been repeatedly and unanimously upheld by the federal courts.

Three key challenges remain for the program in 2019: uniformity of practice; program resource allocation and oversight; and counting DBE utilization toward contract goals.