WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Yesterday, Chairman Roger Williams (R-TX) led a full Committee on Small Business hearing titled “Hope on the Horizon: Prioritizing Small Business Growth in the 119th Congress.” Chairman Williams issued the following statement regarding yesterday’s hearing.

“Burdensome regulations, record-breaking inflation, and many other challenges have plagued small businesses. It is time to turn the page on the past four years and focus on our mission: to represent the hardworking men and women of Main Street America,” said Chairman Williams.  “Thank you to our witnesses for shining a light on the sacrifices of Main Street America and the newfound hope and certainty that comes with a pro-business Administration. This Committee, alongside the Trump Administration, will once again prioritize Main Street America, ensuring policies that strengthen opportunity and create an environment for small businesses to grow.”

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Watch the full hearing here.

Below are some key excerpts from yesterday’s hearing:

Rep. Bresnahan: “I come from a small business background. My family was very involved in a community bank, and something that really allowed our small business to grow was because of our relationships with small community banks, having the lending officer, the person who truly understands your business, and what you’re going through during the good and the bad. What are the biggest risks to community banks right now that you would see?” Ms. Frazier: “The ongoing regulations. A couple of the points I’ve talked about are just the impact of not recognizing the differences between the banks and the ones that you just mentioned, that were so important. That tiered regulation is critically important, 1071. While I have touched on the data points, I have touched on the separation of the decision, it just forces those loans to be put into more of a database, an AI decision and, commoditizing them. Which I think is really, really impactful and hurtful to small businesses because we do spend quite a bit of time coaching, counseling, and helping many of them grow from the infancy of an idea all the way through to something much larger.”

Rep. Finstad: “So, as you know, business owners across the country have been tasked to comply with numerous regulations and it has had a major impact on their bottom line, as stated earlier: $1.7 trillion over the last four years, affecting small businesses. With your business specifically, can you give us a rough estimate of how much time and resources have you had to allocate toward compliance efforts in the last four years?"  Mr. Hutter: “Well, the irony, of course, being it taking even more time to calculate that just puts bad on top of bad, but it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And I say, it’s not just dollars. It’s the scarce resources for talent who have to be redeployed to doing these – I call them intern projects, as you will – as opposed to really working on the business, but for a company our size it actually, over the last for years, ranges into the millions to be sure.”

Rep. Downing: “Unleashing American energy production is a priority for the Trump Administration, and I look forward to working with them to do just that. So, my first question to Mr. New – and thank you for being here. Over the past four years, how have you seen a decline or a slowing of growth in your business due to the anti-oil and gas leasing policies of the Biden Administration?"  Mr. New: “Certainly, you know, our customers have slow walked projects. They’ve canceled some projects because they couldn’t get permits. They were uncertain about the future and wouldn’t invest. Just this morning, I read one of our customer’s project that they’ve been talking about for about five years now. They just announced that they’re probably not going to go ahead with that project now because it dragged out so long that their main customer for this, was an oil export terminal, their main customer bailed out because it was taking so long.” Rep. Downing: “So would approving more leases for oil and gas production in the Gulf of America, as the Trump Administration has promised, improve your potential for growth?” Mr. New: “Absolutely. Our customers must have access to leasing.”

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