[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 74 (Tuesday, May 22, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3428-S3429]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mrs. SHAHEEN (for herself and Ms. Ayotte):
  S. 3218. A bill to improve the coordination of export promotion 
programs and to facilitate export opportunities for small businesses, 
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 
Affairs.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, this week we celebrate National Small 
Business Week. Small businesses are so important to job creation in 
this country. So much of the innovation that takes place in this 
country happens as the result of the work of small businesses. Two-
thirds of the jobs we expect to be created to lead us out of the 
recession and through this recovery are going to be created by small 
businesses.
  It is important that in this Chamber we do everything we can to 
support small businesses. I am pleased that I have been able to be a 
member of the Small Business Committee. I applaud the leadership of 
Senator Landrieu and Senator Snowe, the chair and ranking member, for 
all of the good work they have done for small business.
  I can tell you from my own personal experience just how important 
small businesses are. My husband and I started our married life and for 
8 years ran a family business. It put us both through graduate school 
and gave us a downpayment on a house. It employed a number of young 
people for 8 years. It taught me a lot about meeting a payroll and 
making sure we could take care of our employees, help make sure they 
had good jobs. So I have had that personal experience to make me 
understand just how critical small businesses are to our economy.
  I am here on the floor also to talk about bipartisan legislation that 
my colleague from New Hampshire, Ms. Ayotte, and I are introducing 
today to boost small business exporting.
  Just as small businesses are the backbone of so much of this 
country's economy, they are clearly the backbone of New Hampshire's 
economy. It should come as no surprise to all of our constituents in 
New Hampshire that both Senator Ayotte and I serve on the Small 
Business Committee because we know how important those businesses are 
to our State. We both recognize how critical it is for us as a 
delegation to work across the aisle and across Chambers when possible 
to help the small businesses in New Hampshire provide the good jobs the 
residents of New Hampshire need.
  So I am glad Senator Ayotte and I are working together to introduce 
legislation to help remove barriers to exporting for small businesses 
in New Hampshire and across the United States. The bill we are 
introducing today, the Small Business Export Growth Act, is the result 
of a Small Business Committee field hearing that we hosted together in 
Manchester, NH, last August. We held that hearing because we recognized 
that exports offer a tremendous opportunity for small businesses.
  Unfortunately, for so many small businesses, those foreign markets 
have remained an untapped resource for most of them. Over 95 percent of 
the world's customers live outside of the United States, but only 1 
percent of our small businesses export. That is a particularly shocking 
number when we compare to it large businesses because over 40 percent 
of large businesses sell their products overseas. So we have to do more 
to help our small businesses get into those international markets.
  At our field hearing we heard about some of the barriers our small 
businesses face when they try to go global. Our legislation is an 
attempt to remove some of those barriers so that small businesses can 
access new sources of revenue and create jobs. One of the problems we 
heard about is that navigating the Federal bureaucracy can be a special 
challenge for small businesses that wish to export. I know the 
Presiding Officer and I can both appreciate that because we know how 
hard it is for us to navigate the Federal bureaucracy.
  Senator Ayotte and I heard from two such New Hampshire companies that 
rely on State and Federal offices to help them export. I want to talk 
about one of those companies specifically. It is a company that is 
called Secure Care. Secure Care has developed a technology that 
protects Alzheimer's patients who may wander away from

[[Page S3429]]

their home or their place of residence. It also protects newborns who 
are still in the maternity ward.
  Grace Preston, who is the international sales manager for Secure 
Care, told us that the company has significantly expanded its growth by 
selling overseas. Grace also told us that Secure Care could not have 
done that without Federal and State export programs working together. 
In New Hampshire, we are very fortunate because our State and Federal 
export services work seamlessly, and that has been important in helping 
our businesses grow their exports.
  In 2010 New Hampshire's exports grew about 40 percent. That was 
almost twice the national average and the most of any State in the 
country. So it has been very critical to our small businesses.
  But we also heard that State and Federal agencies don't always have 
that same collaborative relationship in other places across the 
country. According to our former New Hampshire trade director, Dawn 
Wivell, these services sometimes, in some places, can overlap or, even 
worse, sometimes there are agencies that refuse to work together. Our 
bill attempts to require better coordination to make more successes 
like Secure Care a reality across the country.
  Our bill also encourages the Federal Government to do more to promote 
the opportunity of exporting and to get the word out about Federal 
export programs.
  Foreign markets can be daunting for small businesses, but that should 
not stop our innovators from trying to compete. Our small businesses 
must be assured that the Federal Government will help them when 
considering exporting. Part of our responsibility is to try to do 
everything we can to put into place policies that help small businesses 
when they want to try to export.
  I thank Senator Ayotte for her cooperation and for the work we have 
done together. I thank both Senator Ayotte and her staff, along with 
mine, for working on this issue. I look forward to advancing this 
legislation in the Senate and to continue to recognize the important 
role that small business plays in our economy.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Mr. President, I am pleased today to join my colleague 
from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen, in introducing the Small Business 
Export Growth Act, which would help small businesses better navigate 
the complex process of promoting and selling their goods abroad.
  Senator Shaheen and I serve together on the Small Business Committee, 
and as she mentioned, we held a field hearing in Manchester, New 
Hampshire, last August to examine the role of exports in small business 
growth and job creation. We heard testimony from key national and New 
Hampshire-based stakeholders about ways to improve coordination among 
regulatory agencies, and how to ease the burdens faced by small 
business owners seeking to grow and export their products to foreign 
markets. The Small Business Export Growth Act represents a commonsense, 
bipartisan response to the issues identified at that hearing.
  This legislation makes improvements to the operational efficiency of 
the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, TPCC, and improves 
Congressional oversight of the TPCC's activities. The bill also gives 
the Small Business Administration a larger voice in developing export 
policy and facilitates more networking opportunities for small 
businesses.
  New Hampshire companies export to 160 countries and our exports are 
increasing at the fourth highest rate of any State. In fact, New 
Hampshire is leading the ten northeastern states in exports. Since 
2003, New Hampshire exports have risen three times faster than the 
State's economy. Small businesses comprise over 96 percent of all New 
Hampshire firms, and it is imperative that we empower them with the 
tools they need to grow and hire. Opening markets around the world for 
our small businesses is an area in which we can find bipartisan 
agreement.
  During the Manchester Small Business Week Forum I attended yesterday, 
I heard first-hand about the challenges small business owners are 
facing as they try to grow and create jobs in this tough economic 
climate. Exporting represents an enormous opportunity, not only for New 
Hampshire small businesses, but for small businesses across the 
country. The Small Business Export Growth Act will help smaller firms 
to compete in the global marketplace.

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