On September 26, the House approved, by voice vote, a bill (H.R. 6159) to extend any program, authority, or provision authorized by the Small Business Administration (SBA) that is scheduled to expire on or after September 30 until February 2, 2007, under the same terms and conditions as are currently in effect. The Senate approved the bill on September 30, by voice vote.
The SBA was last reauthorized in 2004 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 (P.L. 108-447). The Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee approved a bill (S. 3778) to reauthorize the SBA on July 27, but no further action was taken (see The Source, 7/28/2006).
Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-IL) said, “Many of the programs of the SBA do not operate under a direct appropriation…Passage of this bill will make it absolutely certain that there is no legal ambiguity as to whether or not the federal government can continue to guarantee these critical loans and debenture programs during the period of time covered by a continuing resolution. In addition, this bill would extend the authority of the SBA to operate several smaller programs, including grants to Small Business Development Centers to participate in the Drug-Free Workplace program; sustainability funding for Women Business Centers; a pre-disaster mitigation pilot program; the New Markets Venture Capital program; and BusinessLinc. It would also extend SBA’s cosponsorship and gift authority, which enables the SBA to accept private donations to help put on events or print publications, thus saving the taxpayers precious dollars…It contains the exact same language, with only the dates changed, that was signed into law four times in the 108th Congress when this House confronted the same problem two years ago in attempting to pass a comprehensive SBA reauthorization bill into law. Unfortunately, we are at an impasse today for nearly the same reasons.”
“It is unfortunate that after two years, and nearly 50 hearings in the committee, that the only legislation to address the issues at the SBA consists of eight lines of text,” said Rep. Nydia Veláquez (D-NY). “While this extension may not include any program changes, it in no way should reflect that the agency is without its problems. In fact, over the past two years, many of the issues at the SBA have been exacerbated by a combination of budget cuts, mismanagement and the inability to adequately respond to the needs of small businesses. In the last few years, SBA loan programs have grown more expensive to borrowers because of an increase in fees that are being paid by small businesses…At a time when small businesses are faced with an economic environment that is less than certain, I believe that we should be doing more to help these entrepreneurs. The SBA has a role in improving the climate for small businesses, and Congress has a duty to give them the tools to do just that. While this legislation will ensure that many of the successful programs can continue to operate, it does fail to extend key provisions that serve veterans and low-income populations. We should be extending all of the initiatives, not picking and choosing.”
