Small-Business Legislation Update
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Senate Fails to Advance Small-Business Legislation
Picture: IBAT's lobby team (Jim Wise, our longtime DC lobbyist, Steve Scurlock and Chris Williston) with Chairman Frank and Congressman Ruben Hinojosa. Special thanks to Congressman Hinojosa for arranging this meeting.
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Despite a powerful ICBA grassroots campaign, the Senate failed to advance legislation to establish the ICBA-advocated Small Business Lending Fund (HR 5297). The 58-42 vote along party lines (with Sen. Reid switching his vote to no for procedural reasons) was not enough to advance the ICBA-backed legislation, which would establish the $30 billion fund to spur small-business lending at interested community banks, expand beneficial SBA loan program incentives and provide targeted tax cuts to small businesses.
The Senate is expected to take up the measure again after the August recess. ICBA extends a sincere thank you to all its affiliated state community banking associations and the nation's community banks for their efforts in support of the measure and will continue working with lawmakers to pass the legislation.
Source: ICBA NewsWatch Today, read NewsWatch Today archives here.
This week the Senate will took up the Small Business Lending Fund Initiative which will make available some $30 billion dollars of new capital available to qualifying community banks. The bill cleared a major hurdle last week when the Senate invoked cloture allowing debate and final vote to proceed.
As we previously reported, the credit union lobby was working hard to attach an amendment by Mark Udall (D) Colorado that would authorize expansion of permissible commercial lending thresholds. It now appears that such an amendment will not be considered in the final bill. IBAT went on record last week co-signing a letter with ICBA and some thirty other state community bank associations supporting the bill so long as the credit union amendment was not part of the final package.
IBAT President and CEO Chris Williston and IBAT Executive Vice President Steve Scurlock held numerous meetings with House and Senate members (as well as senior regulators) in Washington last week to express our displeasure with the credit union power grab and to encourage our public officials to assist community banks in the implementation of the rules that will soon be considered as mandated by the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform legislation.
We know the credit unions will not go down easily. Chairman Frank has vowed to hold a hearing on the credit union request sometime after the August Congressional recess. So we can breathe easy for at least another month, however should you have the opportunity to visit with your member of Congress over the recess period, please reinforce to him or her the importance of this issue (details of which are in our letter) and the unfairness of allowing any tax exempt competitor the opportunity to expand into your "bread and butter" lending sweet spot.