Clarifying the Small Business Runway Extension Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOLDEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Clarifying the Small Business Runway Extension Act, a bill that I am proud to lead alongside the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. Speaker, Americans expect our government to work efficiently and to follow through. They believe, and I agree with them, that when Congress passes a law, Federal agencies should implement it.

Our goal with this bill is quite simple: to make sure that the Small Business Administration respects the will of Congress as expressed in the Small Business Runway Extension Act of 2018, a law that was enacted in December 2018.

The bipartisan law was designed to ease the transition for businesses between SBA's small and other-than-small categories for the purposes of determining Federal contracting preferences.

Prior to the law, SBA evaluated eligibility by looking at 3 years of a business' gross receipts. In the law, SBA was instructed to extend that period to 5 years. The idea is that year-to-year changes in a small business' receipts will now be less likely to create a sudden loss of eligibility for this important contracting preference for small businesses.

As I have heard many times from small business owners in Maine, certainty is key to growth, and that is what the 5-year calculation is designed to provide.

Unfortunately, SBA has dragged its feet implementing the law, claiming that the fact that the law lacked an explicit effective date meant that SBA did not have to implement it immediately. Aside from being a questionable reading of the law, SBA's delay has created a lost opportunity to improve the ability of SBA-eligible small businesses to transition and grow in a predictable and sustainable way.

As chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure of the House Committee on Small Business, Congressman Stauber and I heard firsthand from experts and small business owners at a March hearing about the uncertainty that has been created by this delay in SBA's implementation of the 5-year change.

While we followed up on that hearing with a letter to SBA in April, we have yet to resolve this issue, so we are turning to a legislative solution. Our Nation's small businesses should be able to access the contracting opportunities that they deserve.

The bill will require SBA to issue implementing regulations no later than December of this year while creating a transition period for businesses to grow and compete.

Mr. Speaker, I recognize Mr. Stauber, as well as Chair Velazquez and Ranking Member Chabot, for their bipartisan work on this issue.

I particularly thank Congressman Stauber. I think the opportunity to work together in our subcommittee has been a great one. I appreciate his bipartisan focus and his desire to push through a real solution for small businesses. I had a great time, as well, out in Minnesota, having field hearings about small business issues. I can't wait to have him up in Maine in the near future.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill. Let's make sure there is no doubt about Congress' intent in this area.

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