One word can change everything.

Thousands of businesses nationwide are wondering, today, whether they just lost their competitive advantage because a five-letter word was replaced with a three-letter word.

Federal Computer Week explains it: "Acquisition officials are no longer required to check for companies in Historically Underutilized Business Zones before awarding a contract."

Until recently, Federal Acquisition Regulation subpart 19.13 read, in part, "A participating agency contracting officer shall [emphasis mine] set aside acquisitions exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold for competition restricted to HUBZone small business concerns," when at least two qualified HUBZone businesses offered reasonable bids on a contract.

Because of a change Congress made late last year, today, that same part reads, "A participating agency contracting officer may [again, mine] set aside acquisitions."

So, simply put, a set-aside category is no longer mandatory. It's possible that some of the biggest prime contractors are breathing a huge sigh of relief over the possible demise of the program, too. In September, INPUT researchers polled primes, and told us that sixty percent of prime contractors were unable to find HUBZone-certified companies to partner with.

Why the sudden pushback against the HUBZone program? Possibly because it has been subject to a round of bad press recently. The Wall Street Journal reported, back in November, that the SBA had stepped up its efforts to root out fraud in the program. HUBZone-certified companies, you see, self-certify that they are, in fact, headquartered in an actual HUBZone. In 2008, SBA investigators knocked on the doors of fewer than 100 companies to ensure that they were where they said they were. Last year, the agency burned through a lot more shoe leather, knocking on more than 1,000 doors.

It may have been too little, too late. Now, Congress has gutted the HUBZone program by making preference optional. This may be just the first sign of a wave of new Congressional scrutiny toward SBA programs. Federal Computer Week, in a separate story, notes that new House Small Business Committee Chairman Rep. Sam Graves (D-Mo) recently said the SBA "may need an overhaul because officials had not aggressively dealt with... abuses," like those affecting the HUBZone program.

Graves, of course, frames his efforts as an attempt to help small businesses. But only time will tell if that one-word shift was just the first in a series of actions that will force us to ask – if we are really focused on small businesses, why are we cutting and scrutinizing the one agency whose mission is to push forward those interests?

In fairness, not all small business efforts are under attack. A new program aimed at assisting women-owned small businesses has just launched, and Guy Timberlake, CEO and chief visionary officer at the American Small Business Coalition, told FCW, "I believe current environmental factors at play still favor service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses."

The HUBZone Council argues that the program can still succeed. Ron Newlan, chairman of the council's advocacy group, told FCW that "Contracting officers know about the program and have used it for years. I’m sure they’re going to continue to do so."

He may be right. Thousands of HUBZone companies hope he is, because they've just lost a major competitive advantage thanks to the substitution of one one-syllable word for another.