News from U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe
Chair, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
For Immediate Release: December 28, 2005
Contact: Chris Chichester, 202-228-5843

SNOWE: IG R EPORT ON 9-11 LOANS "TROUBLING"

(Washington, DC) - U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, responded to the Small Business Administration's announcement today that its Inspector General did not discover abuses in the Supplemental Terrorist Activity Relief (STAR) program, which was passed by Congress in January, 2002 to provide assistance to those Americans whose lives and businesses were economically damaged by the September 11th attacks.

"As the Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have deep concerns regarding allegations that the STAR loan program's implementation may have been seriously flawed, which is why I asked the SBA's Inspector General to conduct an investigation.

"According to the IG report just completed, 'most lender files did not contain sufficient information to demonstrate that borrowers were adversely affected by the September 11th terrorist attacks and their aftermath. As a result, eligibility could not be determined for 85 percent of STAR loans reviewed.'

"These initial findings are troubling and the Committee intends to thoroughly review the IG's report, and will continue with its own investigation of the STAR program to get at the truth and inform Congress for the future. If abuses are discovered many questions must be answered by the parties involved, beginning with: How and why was this allowed to happen?"

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