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Small Biz Straight Talk (7/24/09)
Washington,
July 24, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009 News from Ranking Member Sam Graves and Committee Republicans: • Ranking Member Sam Graves helps to defend small business from health care mandates on the House floor today. Must-Reads from the Week: • NPR: Small-Business Support Sought On Health Care Review of House Activity: • On Wednesday, the House passed pay/go legislation that requires any new mandatory spending bills or new tax that would add to the deficit be offset. This legislation passed 265-166. Republicans argued that pay/go legislation will make it easier for Democrats to raise taxes and will do nothing to reduce the deficit because there are no restrictions on discretionary spending. • The House Energy and Commerce Committee delayed a markup of health care legislation over differences in opinion among Democrats. According to reports, the Blue Dog Coalition, a fiscally conservative wing of the Democrat party, has real concerns with the cost of the bill and has requested an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office before moving forward. • On Thursday, the House passed the Transportation and HUD Appropriations Act by a vote of 256-168. This marks the 10th appropriation bill out of 12 to pass the House this year. The $123.1 billion dollar measure funds various transportation and housing measures. Republicans argued that this level of spending is irresponsible considering the large amount of funding these programs received in the stimulus bill. • Today the House passed the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Act by a vote of 264-153. The package costs $730.5 billion, making it the most expensive of the 12 appropriations bills considered so far this year. This bill funds the Labor and Education Departments, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Ranking Member Graves offered an amendment to prohibit any official or agency funded under the bill from enacting a small business health insurance mandate. Unfortunately, the Rules Committee did not make the amendment in order. For more information on this years appropriations bills, please visit the appropriations website. Legislation and Letters Circulating Around the House: • Express Support for Offshore Energy Leasing- Please join Chairman Price (R-GA), Chairman Bishop (R-UT) of the Western Caucus, and House Natural Resources Ranking Member Hastings in sending the attached letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar regarding the draft proposed plan for the development of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). One of the first actions by the new Administration was to delay work on the U.S. Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) “Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Plan for Oil and Gas Leasing Program 2010-2015” (DPP) by extending the public comment period from two to six months. By extending the comment period for an additional four months, the Secretary has delayed the completion of the new five-year plan that would allow access to new energy resources on the OCS. Since the announcement of this delay a federal court has subsequently vacated the current 2007-2012 OCS plan, leaving America without a valid program in place for leasing our OCS resources. Please respond to Bruce.Miller@mail.house.gov by Friday, July 24, to sign. The RSC can provide your office with a sample press release to communicate your activities to your constituents. Review of Senate Activity: • The Senate passed its Defense Authorization bill late Thursday night, setting up a conference with the House to resolve several difficult issues. The measure passed 87-7 and the Senate took two weeks to debate various contentious amendments that will surely resurface in conference. Two issues of note include a hate crimes provision that was added to the Senate bill, and the removal of the F-22 fighter jet program from the Senate bill that is part of the House passed legislation. The Obama administration has threatened to veto any bill that would authorize more F-22s. In addition, Senator Landrieu added S. 1233 to reauthorize the SBIR program and the STTR program as an amendment to the bill. House Small Business Committee hearing summary this week: Federal jurisdiction over our nation’s waters has been a hotly debated item since the inception of the Clean Water Act in 1972. Courts have broadened and narrowed definitions leaving the agricultural and small business community unclear on how to comply with the law. A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision finally brought some clarity, but reaction from Congress, in the form of the Clean Water Restoration Act, has raised serious concerns over how broadly the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency would interpret the proposed legislation. Ranking Member Graves, speaking in clear opposition to the bill, highlighted his concerns with the difficulties small businesses and the agriculture community would have meeting the new requirements. “Expanded federal jurisdiction over the waters of the United States would mean a significant increase in permit applications for people with as little as a puddle on their property. These costs and delays will slow down a host of economic activity including agriculture, real estate development, electric transmission, transportation infrastructure development, and various energy related tasks, such as mining and energy exploration,” said Graves. The Clean Water Restoration Act eliminates the term “navigable waters” entirely from the Clean Water Act and replaces it with “waters of the United States.” It further defines, among other things, all interstate and intrastate waters. This small change has resulted in an expansive list of business and agriculture groups expressing opposition to this legislation, fearing that the federal government will try to regulate anything wet: ditches, gutters, puddles of waters, and private ponds. Charlie Kruse, President of the Missouri Farm Bureau, testifying on behalf of the American Farm Bureau, said, “The compliance cost associated with an expanded Clean Water Act regulatory program can be summarized in the following manner: Broader scope will result in an increase in permit requests, litigation will lead to delays, higher compliance cost, lost productivity and financial burdens for small business.” Other groups testifying in opposition to the Clean Water Restoration Act included the Associated General Contractors, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Northeast Dairy Farmers Cooperative and the National Utility Contractors Association. • On Thursday, the Subcommittee on Finance and Tax of the Committee on Small Business held a hearing entitled, “Legislative Proposals to Reform the SBA’s Capital Access Programs.” The witnesses for the hearing were: Mr. William Humphreys, President and CE), Citizens Banks, Corvallis, OR for the American Bankers Association; Ms. Carol Wayman, Federal Policy Director, Corporation for Enterprise Development, Washington, DC; Mr. Joseph Robson, President, The Robson Companies, Broken Arrow, OK for the National Association of Home Builders; Ms. Zola Finch, RMI Certified Development Company, Jefferson City, MO for the National Association of Development Companies; Mr. Steve Swartzman, Partner, C3 Capital, Kansas City, MO for the National Association of Small Business Investment Companies; and Sterling Ransone, MD, Deltaville, VA for the American Academy of Family Physicians. Mr. Humphreys testified that the legislation being considered by the Committee would benefit smaller banks by requiring the SBA to perform outreach to help community banks participate in the 7(a) loan program. Mr. Humphreys also supported the requirements in the legislation to improve the guarantee approval process and the quality of the guarantee. Both points were echoed by Ms. Finch, who also called for the SBA to improve the liquidation procedures available to certified development companies. Ms. Finch also supported efforts in the legislation to increase the size of debentures that certified development companies could issue. Ms. Finch, finally, concurred with the legislative efforts to codify more stringent legislative standards for certified development companies. Ms. Wayman supported the legislation that would improve the operation of the Microloan program. Specifically, she thanked the Committee for increasing the maximum loan amount made available to intermediaries, an increase in the loan amount for individual borrowers from intermediaries, and improvements in the credit reporting process for borrowers when they repay their loans. Mr. Robson testified that the legislative changes, while worthwhile, would not do enough for home builders. Home builders need loans in excess of those available under the 7(a) loan program and also are hampered by the inability to use the loans for real estate development. Mr. Robson thought that any changes should include modifications to help in those areas. Mr. Swartzman testified that the small business investment company program was underutilized as a result of licensing problems at the SBA. Mr. Swartzman supported changes to that would make serial licenses from the same group of small business investment company managers much easier. Mr. Swartzman also called for even more changes to the initial licensing process. Dr. Ransone strongly endorsed legislation providing physicians with loan deferrals for the implementation of health information technology. Dr. Ransone noted that health information technology will save doctors money and improve patient care, but that physicians transitioning from paper and pen to electronics have a significant learning curve in which their productivity is reduced so that a deferral will be beneficial to them. Looking Forward:
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