Providing for Congressional Disapproval of the Rule Submitted By the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Relating to ``Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)''

Floor Speech

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Madam Speaker, the beginning of so many great American stories is built around starting a small business in your family name, becoming a foundation in your local community--making it in America.

Small businesses are major drivers of wealth creation in our overall economy. They account for two-thirds of net new jobs and nearly half of our U.S. economic activity.

For many of them, that dream starts with going to a bank and getting a small business loan. For many Americans, the sound of their name, the color of their skin, the language that they speak or who they love can doom that dream if a bank says that they are at risk.

This isn't hypothetical. I, too, was born and raised in south Texas. I can tell you that when I go home and I see some businesses that have closed, I ask my family whether it was due to the pandemic, or no demand for the cost of services that they had. I am told that they just had trouble with finances and they couldn't get a loan.

In some small rural areas, because I did grow up in rural south Texas, there aren't credit unions everywhere like there are in the city of Houston where I live now. In the city of Houston, many small businesses during the pandemic in round one couldn't even get a PPP loan. We had to go in and do a carve-out to literally force the banks to provide loans to small businesses.

I am glad that one of my colleagues was openhearted and gave people a lot of loans. I just hope that that included some to minority small businesses.

Madam Speaker, this is real. It is not hypothetical. We know that minority-owned small businesses were less likely to receive a loan during the pandemic compared to White firms.

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Ms. GARCIA of Texas. Regrettably, Madam Speaker, racism and discrimination flourish in the darkness. We need to shine a light and allow the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make lending more transparent.

Madam Speaker, a transparent market will be a competitive market. With transparency in lending, banks are driven to compete and offer better terms.

With this resolution, extreme MAGA Republicans are protecting the secret discriminatory practice of banks and lenders. Repealing this rule would harm all those who stand to benefit.

We want to put profits over people. We want to put light over darkness.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against this resolution.

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