Aaron Glantz, New America Media

Since President Barack Obama signed his stimulus package into law in
February, the U.S. Department of Transportation has handed out more
than $150 million in contracts to companies for street, highway and
bridge construction.

New statistics released this week by the Transportation Equity Network
(TEN) show that from that pot of money not a single dollar had been
allocated to any African-American owned business.

"Stunning," is how TEN's media director Stephen Boykewich described his organizations' findings.

"What we're seeing all over the country is that in spite of stated
language in the stimulus bill that this was supposed to go to
disadvantaged communities hit hardest by the recession, those
communities are having incredible difficulty gaining access to those
funds."

TEN, a 22-state network of more than 300 community organizations
fighting for an equity-based national transportation system, crunched
numbers publicly available on-line at the Web site of the government's
federal Procurement Data System (www.fpds.gov) in making their findings.

The federal Department of Transportation had so far given out $163.8
million in direct contracts, they found, and of that only $16.8
million, or about 10 percent, had gone to all minority-owned
businesses; $4.7 million, or about 3 percent, had gone Hispanic-owned
businesses. Not a single black-owned firm had received a contract from
the DOT.

In Washington, a DOT spokesman refused to comment for attribution for
this story and wasn't able to offer an explanation of the statistics
assembled by the Transportation Equity Network.

He added that the DOT's Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program
doubled in size over the last year. and he forwarded a press release
stating the agency "has participated in many national events" and
organized "workshops, presentations, and DBE Days" to increase the
amount of minority contracting.

Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood also sent a letter to every
governor in the country December 7 urging them to "take advantage of
existing equal opportunity programs and resources and to create
innovative strategies to provide opportunities for the
under-represented" with transportation infrastructure dollars they
administer under the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act.

Richard Copeland, the African-American owner of Thorn Construction in
Minneapolis, says those efforts haven't been successful because LaHood
is only offering suggestions and not enforcement.

"You've got to put teeth in it and be willing to withhold the stimulus
money if it's not being enforced," he said. "Unless you mandate and
enforce it, it's not going to work.

"It's asking for voluntary participation and voluntary cooperation, and
power is not conceded using those types of methods," he said. "You've
got to mandate that money goes into communities of color and then
follow up.

Copeland, who is the immediate past president of the Minority
Contractors Association in Washington, DC, said the small number of
minority firms receiving stimulus contracts is a partial cause of the
Depression-like unemployment levels that now plague the
African-American and Latino communities.

In November, the Labor Department reported the seasonally adjusted
unemployment rate of 15.6 percent for blacks and 12.7 for Hispanics. It
is 9.3 percent for whites.

"We know that 60 percent of the employees of minority firms are people
of color," Copeland said, "so if none of us get contracts, people in
our communities won't get jobs."

The Transportation Equity Network believes the best way to solve this
problem is to create a 30 percent set-aside of work hours for
disadvantaged workers as part of any new jobs bill that passes the
House in the coming month, as well as stronger accountability and
transparency in tracking the use of all federal funds for economic
stimulus and job creation.

In the meantime, the Boykewich, pointed to Missouri as a state where significant progress is being made.

Missouri's Department of Transportation recently agreed that low-income
construction apprentices would make up 30 percent of the work force on
a $500 million highway project that was just completed. Working with
trade unions and community groups, the department also agreed to use
$2.5 million of the project's federal funding to train low-income
residents in construction work.

"And the best part was the project came in on time and under budget," Boykewich said.

Boykewich said he's cautiously optimistic after seeing LaHood's
letter's to the governors. The Obama administration is moving in the
right direction, he said, even if communities of color have yet to see
any results.