News
From theCommittee on Small Business
Nydia M. Velázquez, Chairwoman
News
From the
Committee on Small Business
Nydia M. Velázquez, Chairwoman
For Immediate
Release
March 1, 2007
CONTACT: Kate Davis, Austin Bonner (202) 225-4038
There is Still Much Work to Be Done for Gulf Coast Small Businesses
WASHINGTON – Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez issued the following statement regarding President Bush’s visit to the Gulf Coast today:
“Just last week the House Small Business Committee held a hearing to evaluate the administration’s progress in responding to the 2005 Gulf Coast Hurricanes. What we found is that a year and a half later, there is still a lot of work to be done. SBA continues to deal with a backlog of loans – in fact, of the nearly 423,000 applications submitted, only 22 percent have been fully funded. That same day the GAO released a report which raised question as to whether or not the administration is even prepared to handle another Katrina.
“Democrats on the committee will be introducing legislation later this month to address the problems in the disaster loan program. From allowing lenders to help process the loans, to ensuring the agency has a trained, qualified staff and a sound plan for dealing with future large scale disasters. This bill aims to ensure Gulf Coast small businesses, and entrepreneurs that will be impacted in the future, are able to access the assistance they need. The legislation will also look at ways to address the problems with the Road Home grants, so that the government is not taking money away from small businesses when they are trying to recover their ventures.
“With so much rebuilding still left to do in the Gulf Coast, the local businesses should be given the first opportunities to do this work. The Committee will be traveling to New Orleans this spring to conduct a hearing on this issue. We need to ensure that local small businesses are being given opportunities to work on these recovery contracts, and an opportunity to help revitalize their own communities.
“Solving these problems takes more than visits from the president, and claims of improvement. It takes commitment, work and solutions – and that is what we are working towards today. There is a lot of work ahead of us and I can assure you that we will be doing all we can to help the small businesses of the Gulf Coast recover and rebuild.”
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