Washington, Dec. 9 -- Representative Cory Mills issued the following press release:

Congressman Cory Mills (FL-07) today introduced the Empowering

Small-Business Ownership Participation (ESOP) Act, legislation that expands access for

employee-owned businesses to compete for critical Department of War contracts.

The Department of War (DOW) recently created a pilot program intended to bring more

employee-owned small businesses into its supply chain, known as the Employee Stock

Ownership Plan (ESOP) Pilot Program. However, the program is currently unusable for

nearly all ESOP companies because it requires participating firms to be 100% employee-

owned-a threshold far above that used by the Small Business Administration's 30%

ownership...