[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 75 (Tuesday, April 21, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2180-S2182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              CORONAVIRUS

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are ready to act and 
we will be able to pass legislation in a few moments that will help 
deal with this pandemic. Like my colleagues, I have been in 
teleconferences with different groups in Maryland, and I have seen the 
pain caused by the coronavirus. In Maryland, we are losing around 30 
citizens every day to the coronavirus. Over the last week, our Nation 
has lost over 15,000 to the coronavirus. This pandemic is with us in a 
very serious way, and we need to respond.
  I am pleased that, this afternoon, we will be providing additional 
resources to our healthcare providers, particularly those that are on 
the frontlines, in dealing with the coronavirus and that we will be 
passing legislation to establish a national strategy on testing, 
working with our States to make sure all communities have adequate 
testing so that, when we reopen our society, we can do so in a safe 
manner.
  I am also pleased that we are acting on the small business 
provisions. The programs that we passed in the CARES Act that provide 
help to small businesses was very popular and was oversubscribed. I am 
particularly pleased that we are able to pass today provisions that are 
greatly improved from when I was last on the floor a little over 1 week 
ago when the majority leader made the unanimous consent request that 
would have included only additional money for the Paycheck Protection 
Program,--$250 billion--and would not have dealt with the healthcare 
issues or the challenges that I expressed on the floor at that time in 
regards to the small business provisions. The reason that we now have a 
bill that we can be very proud of is because this has been negotiated 
with all Members of the Senate being involved through a bipartisan 
process, rather than just being brought to the floor by the majority.
  We saw that happen on the CARES Act originally. The original bill 
that was brought to the floor by the majority leader that he attempted 
to pass did not include major help for our State and local governments, 
did not include major help for our healthcare institutions, did not 
provide funds for many of our programs that are critically important to 
our local communities. We were able to improve that program because we 
worked together. Democrats and Republicans have produced a bill that we 
can be proud of.
  As I said when I was last on the floor in regards to the small 
business provisions, we have a bipartisan process.

[[Page S2181]]

Senator Rubio and I have been working closely together to develop the 
tools for small businesses. Yes, I do acknowledge the work with Senator 
Collins and Senator Shaheen because we have come together to try to put 
together a package that could work.
  What I had mentioned on the floor when the last UC was made was that 
there were problems with the original request made by the majority 
leader, and I pointed that out. Underserved communities have not been 
able to get in, in the same number as those larger small businesses who 
have relations with banking institutions. I pointed that out to the 
Secretary of the Treasury and to the Small Business Administrator on 
April 7 by a letter I authored along with Senator Schumer and the 
Democratic members of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship 
Committee. We pointed this out 2 days before we had the original UC 
request.
  Quoting from that letter to the Secretary and the Administrator:

       We believe that more can be done to reach out to and 
     authorize those lenders, such as Community Development 
     Financial Institutions, Minority Depository Institutions, and 
     mission-based non-profit lenders, which are best positioned 
     to bridge the trust gap between many underserved communities 
     and the traditional financial sector. For example, a survey 
     conducted by the Association for Enterprise Opportunity found 
     that more than half of Black respondents indicated they felt 
     unfairly treated by financial institutions, compared to only 
     26 [percent] of White respondents.

  We knew we had to do something to bridge that gap. When the request 
was made 10 days ago, it did not include any help for these minority 
businesses or the rural areas or women-owned businesses that have been 
shut out in great numbers to the first requests under the Paycheck 
Protection Program.
  What this bill that we now have on the floor does corrects that. It 
corrects that by providing $60 billion, in addition to the $250 
billion. We are now up to $310 billion more going into the Paycheck 
Protection Program; but $60 billion is dedicated to dealing with 
minority communities, rural communities, and women-owned businesses by 
having more funds going out to the community banking institutions and 
minority banking institutions and mission-based nonprofit lenders so 
that we can get more of the funds into the hands of those small 
businesses that are in desperate need: the smaller small businesses.
  I have numerous examples. I will just use one, if I might, from a 
business in Maryland, e-End Frederick, that writes to us and says that 
thanks to this program--this employer has 20 employees. This is a small 
business, 20 employees. What he says basically is: I was looking to how 
I could transition my employees to unemployment because I couldn't 
afford to continue to keep them on payroll, but now, thanks to the 
Paycheck Protection Program, I am able to keep my employees on the 
payroll. He says, ``That's the best thing about the PPP.''
  I couldn't agree more. That is what we are trying to do. It is 
paycheck protection--keep workers employed so small businesses don't 
have to go back out when this virus is over and try to find a workforce 
in order to be competitive. They can keep their workforce in place and, 
by the way, keeping the pressure off our unemployment compensation 
system.
  We were able, through the change we were able to make--and I applaud 
Senator Schumer and Speaker Pelosi for sticking to the principle that 
all small businesses needed to be included, and as a result, this 
package now includes these allocations that will get to our minority 
and underserved communities.
  There is a second issue I raised on the floor 10 days ago, and that 
is the Economic Injury Disaster Loans, the EIDL loans. It ran out of 
money before the PPP program ran out of money. It was not part of the 
unanimous consent request by the majority leader, as well as the grant 
program that was created under CARES.
  Smaller small businesses use these disaster loans. Why? Because it 
gives them working capital so they can stay in business. PPP covers 
payroll, but they need more than payroll. These are longer-term loans 
with no payments during the first year so that businesses can stay 
afloat after a disaster, and we qualify the coronavirus as one of those 
disasters. This is a critically important program in our State and in 
our Nation. We added to it by providing a grant program up to $10,000 
in grants, not loans, to small businesses.
  In my State of Maryland, we had 12,000 small businesses that applied 
for that grant. We had 26,000 apply for the PPP. I am just pointing out 
how popular this program is. The grant program is $10 billion. The PPP 
program is $349 billion. It ran out of money before the PPP grant 
program. We need to put more money in that grant program. The unanimous 
consent agreement didn't do that. Thanks to the negotiations of Senator 
Schumer and the Democrats, we were able to get $50 billion put into the 
EIDL, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which will be able to 
leverage about $300 billion of additional loans under that program that 
will help the smaller of the small businesses. We were able to get $10 
billion put into the EIDL grant program so that they can open, once 
again, applications from small businesses that want to get the cash 
grant from the Small Business Administration. These loans and grants 
are made by SBA, not by financial institutions, so all small businesses 
have access.
  I did some rough calculations, and if my math is correct, in 
Maryland, the average size of the business that qualified for the EIDL 
grant was between four and five employees. These are really the 
smallest of small businesses, and that is the group I hope we would 
want to help. The original UC did not have that. We now have funds in 
it. This package is much better to reach those small businesses that 
desperately need help.
  I brought this to the attention of Secretary Mnuchin shortly after 
our conversations on the floor last time, and I want to thank Secretary 
Mnuchin. When I explained to him the EIDL program and I explained to 
him how these programs work for smaller small businesses, he showed 
interest, and I am glad that we were able to negotiate with him the 
additional $60 billion going into those programs. It is a better 
package thanks to the bipartisan process.
  I do want to mention one additional issue that we need to deal with, 
and that is accountability. We need to get information on how these 
programs are working, and I would hope we would get bipartisan support 
for that.
  On April 17, I authored a letter with Senators Schumer, Wyden, and 
Shaheen to Secretary Mnuchin and Administrator Carranza in which we 
asked for the PPP to give us the numbers and amount of loans disbursed 
to small businesses, including a breakout of loans by State, 
demographics, industry, and loan size; the number and amount of loans 
disbursed to businesses under the NAICS 72 exception--that is the one 
for restaurants and the hospitality field; including a breakout of 
loans by State, demographics, and loan size. Give us a number of loans 
provided to nonprofits--nonprofits were for the first time eligible for 
these 7(a) loans--and religious institutions, including a breakout of 
the loans by State, industry, and loan size; and the number of loans 
disbursed by lending institutions, so we could find out what the 
concentration is of these loans. We asked for similar information in 
regards to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, the numbers, et 
cetera, giving us that information, including those who received the 
grants.
  Lastly, we ask for information about the loan forgiveness program 
because there is another program under the CARES Act that allows for a 
6-month forgiveness of repayment of existing 7(a) or 504 loans, and we 
need information on that in order to carry out our responsibility of 
accountability. We have a responsibility to make sure the money is 
getting to the right places.
  I had a communication with Senator Rubio this week in which we both 
agreed that we are concerned that we might be seeing some large chains 
getting more money than we think we intended under the act. We intended 
there would be a $10 million cap; yet we see reports where certain 
businesses were able to find a way to get more than $10 million. We 
also had self-certification that there is need. You have to show that 
you were damaged by the coronavirus. We think we should examine whether 
there was any false certification.

[[Page S2182]]

  The first thing we want to do on the Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship Committee on a bipartisan basis is do our oversight to 
make sure that, if there is abuse, that we put a spotlight on it and 
correct it to make sure that the moneys go to the small businesses that 
we intended to receive help.
  We need now to work on the next stimulus package. I was glad to hear 
the President talk about this. Senator Schumer talked about it. Yes, 
our first priority should be the health and welfare of the American 
people in dealing with the coronavirus itself, and we need to do more. 
We clearly need to do more with State and local governments. That is 
going to be a critical part of the next package. But we also need to 
look at improvements in the small business package. We know that, 
through this 8-week period for repayment, many of us have heard that 
they need additional flexibility. After all, how do they predict when 
they can reopen if government has told them they have to stay closed? 
We need to give some degree of flexibility in the 8-week period.
  We have different small businesses that want us to consider their 
eligibility. What happens after 8 weeks? If we are still seeing our 
economy not up to full speed, we need to talk about how we transition 
after 8 weeks to make sure these small businesses can succeed.
  The lessons learned on the CARES Act, the lesson learned on this 
legislation we are taking up this afternoon is, when we work together, 
when we negotiate together, when we do a bipartisan package which the 
American people expect us to do during this national emergency, we get 
a better product, and we can do it quicker. I urge us all, as we move 
on to the fourth stimulus package, let's start from the beginning in a 
bipartisan way so that we can get the very best product for the 
American people and deal with this national crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from Kentucky.

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