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The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) DBE Program seeks to ensure nondiscrimination in the award and administration of DOT-assisted contracts in the Department’s highway, transit, and airport financial assistance programs and to create a level playing field on which DBEs can compete fairly for DOT-assisted contracts. The FTA Office of Civil Rights is responsible for monitoring FTA recipients’ DBE programs …
The Federal Railroad Administration, unlike DOT, doesn’t have an established program to award contracts to Disadvantaged Business Enterprises. Part of the promise of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure act recently signed by President Joe Biden is that it will be inclusive of minority and women-owned businesses. For example, the act establishes a Minority Business Development Agency within the Department of Commerce …
Minority- and women-owned businesses face discrimination and other hardships while trying to obtain federal passenger rail contracts, the owners of several such companies told a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee on Tuesday. There’s a concerted effort by large prime contractors and owners to keep Black contractors out of federally funded infrastructure and the rail industry, said Kenneth Canty, who operates …
AUSTIN – U.S. Attorney Ashley C. Hoff of the Western District of Texas announced today that Muniz Concrete and Contracting, Inc. (“Muniz Concrete”) and its owner, Jose Juan Muniz, have agreed to pay $188,879.59 to resolve allegations they violated the False Claims Act by falsely certifying their compliance with certain requirements of the Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (“DBE”) …
On November 9 and November 16, at 12:00pm ET, the U.S Department of Transportation (USDOT) will host virtual public meetings related to the Justice40 Initiative. During these interactive meetings, participants will hear from USDOT leaders about the Justice40 Initiative and be asked for input on it. Advanced registration is required (Register for session #1, Register for session #2). BACKGROUND The …
FTA will host a listening session at 2 p.m. ET Thursday, October 14 to gather information from Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) stakeholders about how to improve the program. The session is part of an FTA initiative aimed at improving the DBE program to reduce barriers faced by women- and minority-owned small businesses in competing for FTA-funded contracts. Following an introduction …
Based on a disparity study recently conducted, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) submitted the overall Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Goal and Methodology Proposal to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) pursuant to 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 26.45, for federal-aid highway projects for Federal Fiscal Years (FFYs) 2022-24. For FFYs 2022-24, Caltrans proposes to implement an overall DBE …
The Transportation Research Record published a paper, entitled “Public–Private Partnership and Social Equity: An Empirical Study of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program.” The paper examined the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program to assess whether delivery methods play a role in the participation of minority- and women-owned firms in federally assisted transportation contracts. A sample of 134 contracts from the US …
On July 12, 2021, Spectrum Painting Corp. (Spectrum), entered into a civil settlement agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Spectrum agreed to pay $400,000 to resolve allegations of fraud connected to contracted painting work on the Federal Highway Administration–funded Brooklyn Bridge Rehabilitation Project and the Federal Transit Administration–funded Queens Plaza subway station painting …
Transportation Today released an article on the support of a DBE program within the Federal Railroad Administration. “A total of 58 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, including the Congressional Black Caucus, recently sent a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging the agency to support a disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program within the Federal Railroad Administration.” Read …