(a) Procedures. The recipient must comply with the six steps described in 40 CFR 31.36(e)(2) to ensure that MBEs, WBEs, and small businesses are used whenever possible as sources of supplies, construction, and services. Tasks to encourage small, minority, and women's business utilization in the Superfund program are eligible for funding under Core Program Cooperative Agreements.

(b) Labor surplus firms. EPA encourages recipients to procure supplies and services from labor surplus area firms.

(c) “Fair share” objectives. It is EPA's policy that recipients award a fair share of contracts to small, minority and women's businesses. The policy requires that fair share objectives for minority and women-owned business enterprises be negotiated with the States and/or recipients, but does not require fair share objectives be established for small businesses.

(1) Each recipient must establish an annual “fair share” objective for MBE and WBE use. A recipient is not required to attain a particular statistical level of participation by race, ethnicity, or gender of the contractor's owners or managers.

(2) If the recipient is awarded more than one Cooperative Agreement during the year, the recipient may negotiate an annual fair share for all Cooperative Agreements for that year. It is not necessary to have a fair share for each Cooperative Agreement. When a Cooperative Agreement is awarded to a recipient with which a “fair share” agreement has not been negotiated, the recipient must not award any contracts under the Cooperative Agreement until the recipient has negotiated a fair share objective with EPA.