[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 18, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2569-S2570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I take this time to review with my 
colleagues S. 4008, the Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022--
legislation that Senator Schumer has set up for action tomorrow.
  I want to start by saying that this bill--and the underlining bill 
that it deals with, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund--was a 
bipartisan product in which Democrats and Republicans worked together 
to help an industry that was in desperate need, the restaurant 
industry. It provided relief for their revenue losses, and we were 
proud that we were able to get that passed.
  The challenge was that after it was enacted, we provided $28 billion 
for the restaurants under the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. In 
reality, that was not enough money to cover the demand, and we found 
that where close to 100,000 restaurants were able to qualify and 
receive funds under that program, 170,000 were shut down through no 
fault of their own.
  So we went to work, Democrats and Republicans, in an effort to 
rectify that inequity and help an industry that was in desperate need.
  We filed legislation in August of last year. And I am proud that it 
was bipartisan, joined by many of my Democratic colleagues and 
Republican colleagues. I want to single out Senator Roger Wicker, who 
has been the real champion on making sure that we worked in a 
bipartisan manner. We were joined on the Republican side by Senator 
Murkowski, Senator Ernst, Senator Cassidy, Senator Hyde-Smith, Senator 
Collins, and Senator Blunt. And others have joined us during the 
process.
  But I want to take you back a little bit before we filed that bill in 
August of last year. There was legislation filed that would replenish 
the funds at $60 billion because we thought $60 billion was going to be 
needed in order to complete the funding. I think Senator Sinema led the 
effort in filing that legislation.
  The difference between the bill that was filed for $60 billion and 
the bill that we are going to be considering tomorrow is the bill 
tomorrow is $48 billion less. We were able to reduce the amount of 
dollars that were needed in order to carry this out. Some restaurants 
have closed. We have tightened up the rules.
  And we can not only do that for $12 billion less than it was 
initially thought was going to be possible when we had bipartisan 
support last summer, but we are now able to expand it to other related 
industries--all of which have had bipartisan legislation in this body--
to provide relief. These are industries that were shut down as a result 
of COVID-19. They had tremendous revenue losses and incurred tremendous 
debt in order to stay in business.
  So we provided in this bill--for the same $48 billion, we include 
help for our gyms. We include help for Minor League Baseball, 
professional leagues. We provide money for music venues. We provide 
money for border businesses. We provide money for the bus industry. We 
were able to do all that, and we are still less money than the original 
bill that was filed last summer.
  We did a couple more things in order to make sure this was done in a 
very fiscally conservative way. We were able to find some offsets. 
There were no offsets in those other bills. We found about $5 billion 
of offsets that we put in this bill.
  We did something else that was not in the original act. We required 
the SBA to bring in all the applications before they allocate any 
money. Now, we had them already in the restaurants. These are ones that 
qualified before. But in the other areas they will receive all the 
applications, and before they issue any checks, they have to make sure 
they have adequate resources. If they don't, there is a pro rata 
reduction so there is no further need for us to be concerned about 
replenishing the funds.
  All those are improvements that were made on the original bipartisan 
legislation that was filed that is more considerate of the needs, less 
costly, and more efficient.
  Now, we have other protections that are built into this legislation. 
A restaurant cannot double dip. They have to subtract the moneys that 
they received under the Paycheck Protection Program, either first or 
second round of funds, from what they would otherwise be qualified to 
receive. They have to have a revenue loss that they can document. So 
there are protections in the bill.
  But I want to go to what is the major issue why we really need to 
make sure we get this done. Because of the way that this was 
administered, partly as a result of a court action, you had two 
restaurants side by side, identical in their needs, filing their 
applications on the same day. One was funded; one was not. The 
restaurant that was not funded, if it is still in business today, it is 
very likely that that restaurant owner is taking out loans in order to 
stay in business and is still trying to be competitive to that 
restaurant that is next door.
  It is very possible that restaurant is having trouble getting help, 
as all restaurants are having trouble getting help, but cannot compete 
in salary with that restaurant that got the help and now has to compete 
and try to get workers, even though they didn't get the same financial 
assistance. So it is a matter of basic fairness.
  I want to go one step further. We in the Congress tried to prioritize 
those restaurants in underserved communities and traditionally 
underserved small business owners. We set up a priority line for them 
to be able to get their help under the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. 
The court blocked

[[Page S2570]]

that line, and we now have small business owners who are literally 
discriminated against because they were veterans or in underserved 
communities.
  So as a matter of fairness, we really need to get this done. The need 
is there. We all know how restaurants are operating at less than full 
capacity today. They are still hurting as a result of COVID-19. This is 
going back and helping them in regard to their first year of losses--
something we should have done a long time ago but something that is 
desperately needed to get done. So I just really wanted to explain that 
to our colleagues, why we need to get this done. We finally have an 
opportunity.

  Now, what are we going to be doing? We are going to be working on the 
motion to proceed. Now, this is not unprecedented. Let me remind my 
colleagues that the original bill that funded the restaurant fund was 
emergency funding. So it patterned itself after the relief we gave to 
the general small business community under the Paycheck Protection 
Program, which was also emergency funding.
  The original bill, under the Paycheck Protection Program, was also 
underestimated by hundreds of billions of dollars. And we came back--
Democrats and Republicans--in a bipartisan way and replenished that 
fund literally overnight--hundreds of billions of dollars--as emergency 
funding without offsets.
  And now we are trying to finish what we started in regards to the 
restaurants. It should be--no question about it--emergency funding; but 
we are, again, trying to be as careful as possible, so we have even 
found some offsets in order to make this easier for our economy.
  There are some who say they worry about what impact it is going to 
have on our economy. I think keeping small businesses open is pretty 
important for our economy. But we can tell you the Restaurant 
Association has informed us that a large part of these funds are going 
to be used to pay off debt that small business restaurants had to take 
out in order to stay afloat. So we are going to keep restaurants open. 
And they are going to be able to pay off their debt, and they are going 
to be able to add to our community. That is what is at stake here, and 
that is why we are so protective of making sure we try to get this 
done.
  Now, this is a motion to proceed. I have listened to debate on this 
floor about how we have to have the Senate work. This is a bipartisan 
bill dealing with small business on a motion to proceed that will allow 
us to have the debate on the floor of the U.S. Senate. I don't 
understand any of my colleagues believing that this is appropriate to 
filibuster and not give us the 60 votes we need on a motion to proceed. 
There are a lot of my colleagues who are always talking about reforming 
the rules in this place. OK. I understand, when we are getting to an 
emotional issue, it gets difficult for us to work together; but if we 
can't work together on a small business bill that was developed by 
bipartisan Members--Democrats and Republicans--that is consistent with 
what we have been doing in helping small businesses generally, and we 
now have an opportunity to bring it to the floor for a debate--it will 
be open to amendment. Those who say: Well, gee, are there other ways we 
can make this more affordable? Well, come forward.
  We have been working on this for a year--close to a year. And, yes, 
that is why we have gotten good suggestions from Democrats and 
Republicans in order to try to make this work. But if you don't allow 
us to debate the bill on the floor of the U.S. Senate, I really don't 
understand that. If you profess that you want to see this place work 
and there is not a philosophical problem here of helping small 
businesses, why can't we move forward?
  I don't even know why we need a cloture motion. We should be able to 
pass a motion to proceed on this bill and have a debate and go to 
amendments. And Senator Wicker and I have made it clear that we will 
act as traffic cops; we will try to figure out the best way to consider 
this bill in order to make it work for all.
  Madam President, small businesses have a special way of filling our 
cities and towns that make them irreplaceable when they are gone. I 
think we all recognize that. They drive our local economies. They give 
our neighborhood character. They make us proud of where we come from 
and where we live. If we allow them to disappear through inaction, they 
will leave holes in our community that we cannot easily fill.
  If we cannot pass one last round of aid, it will mean certain 
restaurant owners who have pending loans are going to close their doors 
forever. Those holes will exist in our community, and we will not be 
able to fill them.
  I ask my colleagues--all of us understand the importance of small 
business. We understand they are the growth engines in our community 
and innovation engines in our community. We made a commitment to help 
them through COVID-19, and we have honored a large part of that 
commitment. This is the last chapter to complete that commitment, and I 
hope my colleagues will join us in allowing us to have this debate on 
the floor and support the help for our small businesses that are in 
desperate need.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.