SBA issues proposed size standards for NAICS Sector 22, Utilities

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has proposed to revise the small business size standards for nine industries in North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) Sector 22, Utilities. Six of those industries deal with electric power generation, distribution and transmission (NAICS 221111, NAICS 221112, NAICS 221113, NAICS 221119, NAICS 221121, and NAICS 221122) and have a common size standard based on electric output. For those six industries, SBA has proposed to replace the current size standard of 4 million megawatt hours in electric output with an employee based size standard of 500 employees. SBA has also proposed to increase the small business size standards for three industries in NAICS Sector 22 that have receipts based size standards, namely - NAICS 221310, Water Supply and Irrigation Systems, from $7 million to $25.5 million; NAICS 221320, Sewage Treatment Facilities, from $7 million to $19 million; and NAICS 221330, Steam and Air-conditioning Supply, from $12.5 million to $14 million. As part of its ongoing initiative to review all size standards, SBA evaluated all industries in NAICS Sector 22 that have either electric output based or receipts based size standards to determine whether the existing size standards should be retained or revised. This rule is one of a series of proposed rules that will examine industries grouped by NAICS sector. SBA has issued a White Paper entitled "Size Standards Methodology" and published in the October 21, 2009 issue of the Federal Register a notice that "Size Standards Methodology" is available on its website at www.sba.gov/size for public review and comments. The "Size Standards Methodology" White Paper explains how SBA establishes, reviews and modifies its small business size standards. In this proposed rule, SBA has applied its methodology that pertains to establishing, reviewing, and modifying a size standard based on average annual receipts and electric output. We invite you to review the proposed rule and submit your comments. The proposed rule explains how to submit your comments to SBA. We recommend that you comment through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov/. Follow the instructions there for submitting your comments. SBA will not accept comments submitted by email. You can read/download the proposed rule at Regulations.gov (RIN-3245-AG25); Document ID SBA-2012-0004). The deadline for submission of comments is September 17, 2012.