Letter to the Hon. Jovita Carranza, SBA Administrator - Rep. Delgado Led Multiple Bipartisan Letters to the SBA Urging Farmers' Inclusion in the EIDL Program

Letter

We write to urge your immediate attention and swift action to ensure small farmers and other agricultural enterprises can access economic injury loans and emergency grants.

We were shocked and disappointed that, contrary to Congressional intent, the Small Business Administration singled out farmers and agricultural businesses as ineligible for the economic injury disaster loan and emergency grant program. On April 2, 2020, Reps. Delgado, Brindisi and Harder led 86 Members of Congress in sending a letter urging the SBA to follow congressional intent and include small farmers in the EIDL program as Congress intended under the CARES Act.

When SBA failed to make this change, Congress passed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act and included an important provision that explicitly makes small farms and other agriculture operations eligible for SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loans and Grants.

Despite this, we now learn from the SBA that it will not be taking new loan applications from farmers due to a long list of pending applications from other small businesses. In other words, our farmers are currently eligible for EIDL in theory only, which does not address the practical realities of hardship so many of our local producers are facing day in and day out. We must ensure our farmers left out of the first round of funding have a real chance of accessing this critical support in the second round. This decision by the SBA is once again not consistent with Congress' intent to include small farms in this program.

We ask you to share a detailed plan of how you will address these concerns and how SBA plans to process new EIDL applications. We also ask for detailed information on the current number and amount of EIDL applications pending and how much of the newly provided EIDL funding is estimated be available after the SBA has processed all existing loan applications.

Thank you, Administrator Carranza, for your attention to this critical matter, and for SBA's work to address the economic impacts of this pandemic. SBA's swift action on this issue will help alleviate the concerns of our nation's family farms, which are vital to our country and our communities.

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