[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 29, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5511-S5514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SMALL BUSINESS LENDING FUND ACT OF 2010--MOTION TO PROCEED
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 5297, which the
clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Motion to proceed to the consideration of H.R. 5297, a bill
to create the Small Business Lending Fund Program to direct
the Secretary of the Treasury to make capital investments in
eligible institutions in order to increase the availability
of credit for small businesses, to amend the Internal Revenue
Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for small business job
creation, and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana is recognized.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, as we continue the important work of the
Senate this week on a number of important bills, one of them being the
small business package that is before this body now, we are always
mindful, as we come to the floor with the beautiful flowers on Senator
Byrd's desk, of the great loss we are all experiencing. His colleagues
here and in his home State of West Virginia, the Nation and, as you
know, many people around the world are mourning the death of a great
Senator, a very well-known Senator, a very well-respected Senator, and
a very historic figure.
So as we all do our work today, it is with heavy hearts that we work.
I told my staff today walking into the building, it seems so empty and
particularly quiet, and it is because of the great respect this Senator
enjoyed in his life and now enjoys in his death.
But as even Senator Byrd would say if he were here, the work of the
Senate, which he loved very much, needs to go on because it is the work
of the people in a very special way. It is in that spirit that I come
to the floor to briefly talk about a bill we are attempting to move to.
It is a major piece of legislation. It has three distinct components.
It has been in shape and in the works for many months now. A part of
this bill has come out of the Small Business Committee. I am extremely
proud, as the chair of that committee, that the package we have
contributed has been built on strong, solid bipartisan support. In
fact, many of the provisions came out of our committee 17 to 0 or 17 to
1 or 18 to 0. We have had tremendous cooperation on the part of my
ranking member, Senator Snowe, who has been to the floor several times
in the last couple of weeks, joining me in talking about the importance
of focusing the congressional efforts and Congress's efforts on small
business, on Main Street.
We have spent a lot of the last year and a half dealing with the big
companies, the big companies on Wall Street, the big banks, the big
insurance companies, the big health care companies. We have had to deal
with it because it has been in a state of crisis where Wall Street was
going to collapse, the financial structures were collapsing. We had to
act quickly. The health care tragedies or stresses were clearly
visible, and we had to work our way through that. But now it is time
for this Congress, at this time, this summer, to focus on small
business, because these are the businesses on the front line of the
battle against this recession. And this is a battle. It is a battle to
end this recession, to fight and win our way back to prosperity. Much
of this can be accomplished if we would focus on the businesses in our
neighborhoods, on Main Street, on the farm-to-market road, the small
business owners driving those pickup trucks, delivering supplies and
equipment all over America, in urban areas and in rural areas.
We would be very much helped if we could get our minds and our hearts
on them, because they are going to be the ones that lead us out of this
recession. Small firms created 65 percent of all new jobs from 1993 to
2009. It was true in the early 1990s. It was probably true if you would
go back to the 1980s, probably true in the 1970s. It is true today. Job
creation is not going to come 1,000 jobs at a time. It comes one at a
time, two at a time, or three new jobs in small businesses all over
America.
What we do here on tax policy, on strengthening the Small Business
Administration, on freeing up capital for them, is going to make the
difference between whether this recession comes to an end. So I am
pleased about the work that has been done.
A portion of our bill has come through the Small Business Committee.
A portion of the bill has come through the Finance Committee. I have to
take my hat off to the Senator from Montana, Max Baucus, and his
ranking member, Senator Grassley, former Chairman Grassley, from Iowa.
They have worked nonstop and overtime on a number of bills that have to
do with our Tax Code. But they have set aside this special time for
their committee to work on tax relief, tax extensions, tax relief for
small businesses to add to this package.
So it is a portion of tax cuts and tax relief for small businesses
that is so
[[Page S5512]]
important, to strengthen the Small Business Administration programs
that we know have been effective, not just throwing money at government
programs but targeting the government programs that we know work
because we have studied them, and we have gotten reports from not just
the government bureaucrats--and there are many good ones here--but we
have been hearing from businesses: Senator, this works for me. Can you
get us more of it? That is what this bill is about.
Then finally there is a piece that has come from the leadership, from
the President himself, from the White House, through the Treasury
Department, to say: What can we do to leverage some assets of the
Federal Treasury to create a $30 billion lending pool, not for the big
banks--they have gotten enough of our money and enough of our
attention, as far as I am concerned--but the small banks on Main
Street. There are 8,000 of them. They are the ones that need a little
help, a little financing to help them, not on their bottom lines in
terms of their stability because they are quite stable. I am extremely
proud of our small banks around this country that did not go belly up.
They are strong. They have money to lend. We want to give them some
additional funding to lend.
I am proud that the Independent Bankers Association has sent us a
letter, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
ICBA and 28 State Community Bank Associations Urge Prompt Passage of
Small Business Lending Fund Bill
Washington, DC, (June 15, 2010).--The Independent Community
Bankers of America (ICBA) and 28 affiliated state
associations sent a letter to House Banking Committee
Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ranking Member Spencer
Bachus (R-Ala.) today urging prompt passage of the proposed
Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010 (H.R. 5297). ICBA
said that the $30 billion in capital provided by the Small
Business Lending Fund (SBLF) could help community banks
provide as much as $300 billion in additional small business
lending.
``On behalf of ICBA's nearly 5,000 members and our state
partner community banking associations, we strongly support
the proposed Small Business Lending Fund and urge prompt
passage of this important legislation,'' said Camden R. Fine,
ICBA president and CEO. ``The nation's 8,000 community banks
are well-positioned because of their established
relationships with small businesses in their communities to
use the fund to get credit flowing.''
Under H.R. 5297, interested banks with less than $1 billion
in assets could receive capital investments up to 5 percent
of their risk-weighted assets, and those with between $1
billion and $10 billion in assets could receive up to 3
percent. The SBLF has important incentives to encourage
greater small business lending by reducing the dividend rate
community banks pay on the capital as they increase their
lending.
``ICBA firmly supports the central purpose of the program
to spur further lending to small businesses by means of
community banks,'' said Jim MacPhee, ICBA Chairman and CEO of
Kalamazoo County State Bank, Schoolcraft, Mich. ``We applaud
the new program's focus on getting funds to Main Street small
businesses using Main Street community banks. We urge all
members of Congress to vote for H.R. 5297.''
Ms. LANDRIEU. The Independent Community Bankers Association has sent
to Senator Snowe and me a strong recommendation. They say: On behalf of
5,000 members and our State partner community banking associations, we
strongly support the proposed Small Business Lending Fund, and urge
prompt passage of this important legislation. The nation's 8,000
community bankers are well positioned because of their established
relationships with small businesses in their communities to use the
funds to get credit flowing.
Under the proposal that is being brought to the floor today, banks
with less than $1 billion in assets could receive capital investments
up to 5 percent of their risk-weighted assets, and those with between
$1 billion and $10 billion in assets could receive up to 3 percent.
We know community banks are the ones that small businesses do go to,
some with more success than others, and that is a speech for another
day. But I do know there are a number of bankers who say: Senator
Landrieu, Senator Snowe, we want to lend to our small businesses, and
if you can help us with a few things, we could do a better job.
In addition, we also know that small businesses use their credit
cards for capital. We also know our small businesses go to family
members. They dig into their own savings to find the money needed to
initiate or support their business. We also know they go to their
uncles and aunts. Financing through family members has been a
traditional way that small business owners use, and credit unions.
So everything we can do now--we cannot have a relief to the great
uncle and aunt bill. That is a little bit out of our reach. But we can
help our small banks, our small business agencies. We can look hard on
credit card companies and their practices and make sure they are doing
right by businesses. We are trying to do all of that one step at a
time.
Let me take a minute or two to explain a few pieces of this bill.
This is one of the most important components. This chart is startling.
Two of the most important programs that SBA operates are the 7(a) and
504 loan programs. These are the loan programs that all of the Federal
Government--these are the programs that focus most directly on small
business loans in America. They allow a 90-percent guarantee and allow
the waiver of fees.
We did this, when the recession started, so a small business could go
into a bank and say: I have got a great idea. I want to expand; even
though my neighborhood is a little bit in the doldrums, and even though
my product is not in great demand today, I think it will be in the
future. Can I have a loan? And the bank officer says: Well, we do not
quite have money for you. But let me look in the 7(a) program. They can
get a 90-percent loan backed up by the Federal Government, and these
loans can be made without fees.
This is how low we were in 2008. We were only down to $200 million in
loans back in 2008. You can see through the recession how low this was.
When we acted, we acted back here in 2009 and started doing some
increased guarantees, reducing the fees. It worked. We spiked the
number of loans up to almost $1.2 billion.
But as you can see, Congress's actions have a direct effect on this
lending to small business. Look here. Now we are down below where we
were 2 years ago. This bill will move this number back up, and this
bill will help this number stay up. This represents thousands of loans
to small businesses, without which they cannot create the jobs that we
need and the country needs to get us out of the recession. This is a
very important component of our bill. I am very proud of that
component.
One more chart we will show. This is a startling chart. I have used
this several times. I hope people understand the potential for growth.
There is real potential here.
Right now in America, 1 percent of small businesses export. Think
about that. We are only 4 percent of the world's population, so 96
percent of everybody else lives somewhere else. The market is very big
outside of America, although we are a very important market. So we can
help our small businesses learn to be better exporters. With the
Internet, now it becomes so possible for them to export products, with
first day, short delivery times, all on-time delivery from airplanes,
trains, trucks that can deliver products everywhere. Plus, there are so
many ideas now with services. The small business here that has a great
idea on the Internet, it becomes a great idea in Vietnam or in Korea or
a country in Africa. They can sell those products. So this bill does a
great deal, with Senator Snowe's help, where she did pioneering work in
this area to help us give technical assistance to more small businesses
and help them become experts on exporting so they can keep the money,
the profits, and the jobs right here at home.
My colleague has been good about waiting, but I wanted to share a few
of the aspects of this important bill. We are going to be voting I hope
today at about 2 o'clock or so. We hope to get the 60 votes necessary
to move to this package.
As a manager of this package, I can say Senator Baucus as well, we
are open to amendments people might want to have to perfect it. But we
believe this is a very good, solid package to bring up. It is time that
we focus on the small businesses of America. They deserve our best
efforts between now
[[Page S5513]]
and the end of the year or as long as it takes. They have not gotten
the attention they deserve. So if we can get 60 votes, we may not be
able to get all our work done this week, but we believe in the next
couple of weeks we can get the work done on this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
Gulf Oilspill
Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, yesterday I had the opportunity to be in
Pensacola, FL, to look at the impact the oilspill is having on my home
State of Florida. I went out in the morning and walked on the beach and
saw, unfortunately, the oil that has spewed across our beautiful beach
in Pensacola, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Not only
did I see the scattering of droplets of oil across the beach first
thing in the morning, I also saw what I will call not just tar balls
but tar rocks--rocks the size of grapefruit that had emulsified, almost
petrified, and found their way to the shore.
Later in the day, I also took another trip to the beach to the place
where we get naturally occurring tidal pools just a few feet from where
the ocean meets the coastline. In those pools, I could see oil that had
seeped into the sand. Now we are to the point where the oil is seeping
into the sand faster than it can be cleaned up. The fear is, as the
sand washes over that oil, it will be buried and we will continue to
discover it for months and perhaps years on end. What effect it will
have on the beaches and our ecosystem is unknown.
This spill has been going on for 71 days. Throughout this time, I
have been calling upon greater Federal response to this tragedy in the
gulf--most importantly, the need to have more skimmers off of our
shoreline. Amazingly, we have not deployed the full panoply of assets
we have in this country to protect our beaches, to protect our coastal
waterways, to protect our estuaries. One would think every skimmer in
the United States would be in the Gulf of Mexico. One would think every
foreign skimmer that has offered assistance would be deployed off our
shores. But one would be incorrect in thinking that because it is not
the case.
When I met with the President 2 weeks ago today in Pensacola, I urged
him to bring more skimmers to the gulf coast. At that time, we had
about 32 skimmers off the coast of Florida. That number fell to 24
shortly thereafter. It is now, according to the State of Florida, up to
89, according to the incident report today. That is an improvement. The
Feds say there are 130. The State number and the Fed number have never
matched, so somewhere between 89 and 130 skimmers are off the coast of
Florida.
We believe there are about 400 skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico alone.
That number may sound like a lot, but when one thinks of an area going
all the way from Louisiana to Panama City, FL, we look out on the
beach, and we don't see a single one.
How many skimmers are available to be deployed? We found out last
week there are skimmers remaining. As of June 21, in the United States,
there were 2,000 skimmers remaining. It sounds as if that is in
addition to the 400 in the gulf right now. From Texas, district 8,
through the Florida, Georgia, South Carolina district, which is
district 7, there are 850 skimmers in whole or in part not being
deployed. That makes absolutely no sense.
I have been calling for weeks now for this government, this
administration to sign an Executive order releasing all skimmers in the
United States to come to the Gulf of Mexico to clean up the oilspill.
When I talked about this issue with the President, I said to him: We
need to get all these skimmers now. If there are 2,000, they need to be
in the gulf. They need to be steaming toward the gulf now. There should
be an armada of skimmers off the beaches of Florida, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Louisiana.
The response I got was: Some of these skimmers have to stay in place
in case there is an oilspill.
That is like saying: We can't send a firetruck to your house because
there may be a fire burning someplace else. That is not much solace to
you if your house is burning down.
There is some good news. We have found out that as of yesterday, the
Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard, along with the
Environmental Protection Agency, have issued an emergency order. The
order is signed by Admiral Papp from the Coast Guard and Lisa Jackson,
Administrator of EPA. It is a temporary suspension of certain oilspill
response time requirements to support the Deepwater Horizon oilspill,
the urgently needed immediate relocation of nationwide oilspill
response resources to the Gulf of Mexico. It also calls upon the Navy,
with which I met earlier last week, to release assets it has.
There are legal restrictions that require these skimmers to be in
certain places around the country if there is a certain amount of
traffic--for example, commercial traffic, the ports, or whatever. We
need to keep skimmers in place. This order, which we have been calling
on for weeks, releases those skimmers. It says it is done because there
is an urgent need. It is not so urgent when we do it on day 70. It is
welcomed, but it wasn't done urgently. It says, on page 9 of this
order, that this was done in response to a memorandum Admiral Watson of
the Coast Guard did on June 16 saying there was an urgent need to
reallocate skimmers. I am glad to see that because that is the day
after I met with the President in Pensacola. I am glad the President
got the word out to the Coast Guard and got them to start working on
this order. We got it done. So we hope we will now see skimmers from
around the country making their way to the gulf.
I have a list today of these 2,000 skimmers and where they are
located. I am going to come to the floor every day we are here and
track these skimmers to make sure they are getting where they need to
go. It is only through efforts by myself and others in the Senate who
have called this out, who have said: Where are these skimmers, that we
have gotten the sense of urgency to get them there, albeit not so
urgently when it has taken 70 days. That is the issue of the domestic
skimmers. Help is on the way. The rule has been signed. We are
appreciative of that. We will see if those skimmers make it there
anytime soon. We need them there because the oil is washing up on the
shores. It is not only oil washing up, it is failure. It is failure
because these skimmers were not in place earlier.
I wish to talk about a second topic, which is international
assistance. I came to the floor last week with a picture of this
vessel, the Swan. It was offered on May 6 to the United States from a
Dutch company, Dockwise. It had the capacity of soaking up 20,000 tons
of oil a day, nearly 6 million gallons of oil a day. The Federal
Government never got back to this Dutch company. Instead, an American
ship was used. We are glad to see that. We want American ships used.
But that ship only had one-twentieth the capability of this ship. My
response is, use all of them. Use every one we can. Our country in our
goodness is the first to respond when there is a disaster someplace
else. Whether it is a typhoon, an earthquake, America, through the
goodness of the hearts of our people, goes forward and gives help. When
other countries are offering us assistance, even when we have to pay
for it, we should be taking it. This ship never got used. How much oil
would have been sucked up by the Swan if it was in the gulf doing its
job? How much oil would have been off the beaches of Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Louisiana if this ship was doing its job? This is an
emblem of an opportunity missed. Now this ship is no longer available.
There were something like 56 offers of assistance from foreign
countries and associations, and only 6 were accepted by the government.
They tell us the Jones Act--a law that prohibits foreign flag ships--is
not the reason we are not getting these ships in. They tell us the
Jones Act only applies to 3 miles in, coastal waterways. Therefore, it
is no prohibition to bringing these ships in. One, that is not what
these folks think because they didn't get their ship in, and two, I
don't care what the reason is, whether it is the Jones Act or some
other law, these ships should be here. This is not a Republican issue
or a Democratic issue; this is an issue of competence. These ships
should be there.
Let me show you the next ship we have a chance at, and hopefully we
won't mess this up. The Swan was a
[[Page S5514]]
very big ship. This ship is aptly named ``A Whale.'' It is the world's
largest skimmer, if reports are correct. It is making its way from
Virginia to the Gulf of Mexico. The skimming capacity of this ship is
at least 250 times that of the modified fishing boats currently
attempting to skim the gulf. This one ship can skim as much as 250 of
the skimmers that are in the gulf now in a single day. The vessel's
capacity is sufficient to draw in as much as 500,000 barrels of oil.
The Swan could do 20,000 barrels. This is 500,000 barrels of oil per 8-
to 10-hour cycle. This is the mother of all skimmers. It is like the
size of an aircraft carrier. We do not know yet whether this ship is
going to be allowed in the gulf to skim up oil. It is beyond belief, it
is beyond comprehension that we would not use this ship and ships like
it to get the job done.
I will be doing everything I can to make sure A Whale or any other
ship of this size can be in the Gulf of Mexico to help us. We want the
domestic assets. We want the small skimmers we have now. The ones
coming from the Navy can fit on the back of a truck or fit in a plane
or on a railcar. They are small. We are happy to have them, but they
pale in comparison to the size of A Whale, reportedly the world's
largest skimmer. I ask the President, why aren't we letting this ship
in the gulf to skim up the oil? It is beyond belief. It is beyond
comprehension.
I will continue to come to the Chamber every day we are here to talk
about this issue, about foreign ships that can help, about domestic
ships being deployed, until we stop the oil from spilling on the bottom
of the gulf, until we clean up all the oil that is in the gulf right
now. It is impacting the lives of Floridians. When I was in Pensacola
yesterday and talked to everyday Floridians, I could see the anguish in
their eyes. I could see the stress and hear it in their voices. People
move to Florida because they love the water. Ninety percent of
Floridians live within 10 miles of the water. They have more
recreational boaters than any State in the Union, more coastline than
any State in the continental United States. It is part of our way of
life. Every resource available should be used to keep this oil from
coming ashore.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.
Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Kaufman are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
In Praise of Eileen Harrington, Lois Greisman, Allen Hile, Stephen
Warren, Carolyn Shanoff, and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman
Mr. KAUFMAN. Mr. President, I wish to talk about some other great
Federal employees. Many of the great achievements I have hailed from
this desk concern grand challenges relating to our national security,
domestic tranquility, or our economic recovery. Today, I wish to
recognize a team of highly skilled, highly motivated Federal employees
whose achievement has positively affected the daily lives of average
Americans.
In 2003, six outstanding employees of the Federal Trade Commission
worked together to implement the National Do Not Call Registry.
Americans used to be plagued--I can remember it always seemed to happen
around dinnertime--by telemarketer solicitations, which always seemed
to come just when you least wanted them. The six men and women I am
honoring today brought relief to families across the country by
implementing the Do Not Call Registry. Led by Eileen Harrington, the
team consisted of Lois Greisman, Allen Hile, Stephen Warren, Carolyn
Shanoff, and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman. They all brought to the table a
strong background in a number of fields, including law, marketing, and
business.
The FTC's Do Not Call Registry launched 7 years ago this week quickly
became a hit. Within the first 4 days, 10 million Americans registered
their phone numbers. Just a year after it launched, a poll found--this
is incredible--91 percent of adults had heard of the registry and--can
you believe it--over half had already signed up. When Eileen and her
team won the 2004 Service to America medal for citizen services, the
registry had nearly 60 million numbers. That was in 2004. Today, that
has risen to over 150 million.
To turn a good idea into a great program, the team spent several
months designing and implementing the Do Not Call Registry as part of
the FTC's rulemaking process. It required the participation of many at
the Consumer Protection Bureau, the Economic Bureau, and the General
Counsel's Office. Information system experts and legal minds worked
closely together with senior executives, and they were joined by
financial analysts and congressional relations staff. Once the policy
had been crafted, there was a period of public comment, which saw over
64,000 suggestions on how to improve the registry, many of which were
adopted in the final program.
In the 7 years since the Do Not Call Registry was launched, it has
become one of the most successful government programs in terms of the
number of Americans it has affected positively in such an incredibly
short period of time.
I am also proud to share with my colleagues that all of the members
of the FTC's ``do not call'' team are still serving in the Federal
Government.
Eileen Harrington remained at the FTC for a few years and in 2009 was
appointed as the Chief Operating Officer for the Small Business
Administration.
Stephen Warren served as Chief Information Officer at the FTC until
2007, when he moved over to the Department of Veterans Affairs as
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology.
Lois Greisman leads the FTC's Division of Marketing Practices within
the Consumer Protection Bureau, and her responsibilities include
enforcing the rules against telemarketing fraud and online investment
schemes.
Also with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection is Carolyn Shanoff,
who today serves as the Associate Director for Consumer and Business
Education. In this role, she has been instrumental in the fight against
identity theft.
Allen Hile and Lawrence DeMille-Wagman are also still at the FTC.
Allen serves as Assistant Director, and Lawrence works as an attorney.
We are all very fortunate that accomplished men and women such as
these choose to stay in government and continue working on behalf of
the American people. I hope my colleagues will join me in recognizing
the great work of the FTC ``do not call'' team and thanking them on
behalf of all Americans for their important work. They are all truly
great Federal employees.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming is recognized.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank
the Senator from Delaware for those comments in his weekly update on
Federal employees and the great job they are doing. In the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, we know quite a few of them
who are doing outstanding work, even something that would surprise
America; that is, cooperation between agencies that is outstanding. So
I thank the Senator for his efforts.
____________________