Kelly Joins Warnock, Democratic Colleagues in Effort to Protect Small and Minority-Owned Businesses

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) joined Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and 31 other colleagues in demanding the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Secretary Sean Duffy reconsider efforts to dismantle the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (ACDBE) programs that help drive job growth and the nation's transportation economy.

The DBE program is a historically bipartisan federal initiative administered by USDOT that helps small and disadvantaged businesses compete for federal transportation contracts. The ACDBE program specifically targets contracting with DBEs for airport concessions, requiring airports to set goals for DBE participation in concession operations.

In October 2025, USDOT declared the programs unconstitutional and issued an interim final rule (IFR) to rewrite these programs. As part of the IFR, USDOT paused the program until each previously participating small business can complete an impractical recertification process.

"If the Department proceeds with its murky implementation of the IFR, it will be solely responsible for the chaos that follows," said the senators. "As long as DBE and ACDBE small businesses remain sidelined, hardworking Americans will be faced with higher costs from reduced competition, increased traffic, longer commutes, and an incomplete transportation system that limits physical, social, and economic mobility."

The lengthy and subjective process of recertification has effectively sidelined 50,000 high-performing small businesses, at a time when transportation construction costs continue to outpace inflation, and workforce shortages are the leading cause of project delays. This decision by USDOT breaks decades of judicial precedent that sustained the DBE and ACDBE programs, as well as the necessity of a race and gender-conscious remedy to address ongoing instances where small and minority businesses have been discriminated against.

In addition to Kelly and Warnock, the letter was co-signed by U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Corey A. Booker (D-NJ), Christopher A. Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibran (D-NY), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeffrey A. Merkley (D-OR), Patty Murray, (D-WA), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Adam B. Schiff (D-CA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mark R Warner (D-VA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The full text of the letter can be found here.