Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, up until now, on each of these bills, I have been speaking fast, but I know that Mr. Rose and Ms. Waters are planning to get here in just the next few minutes to speak on the next two bills. Since they are not here yet, it does the House no harm for me to speak more slowly and perhaps at greater length.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1190, the Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act, sponsored by my colleague, the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Downing).

I will point out that I am uniquely unqualified to address this bill since my entire district is in an urban area, that of the great city of Los Angeles. Yet, even I recognize the importance of getting capital to our small businesses in rural areas.

I strongly support this legislation, which would require the SEC's Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation to report on capital access issues faced by small, rural businesses.

Currently, the SEC small business advocate reports on small businesses that are minority owned or women owned or in disaster- stricken areas. Yet, at present, the law does not report on businesses in rural areas. The bill simply adds rural businesses to the list covered by the entities of the small business advocate and the entities that the small business advocate will report on.

Small businesses, no matter where they are located or who they are owned by, are the backbone of the American economy. Helping small businesses should be about as nonpartisan as we can get here in Congress. Lawmakers and regulators should be doing everything they can to support them.

Those businesses located in rural areas face unique challenges. We have had other speakers on other bills talk about how so many of our financial institutions and business investors are focused on the East Coast or the West Coast or in New York, Silicon Valley, or some of the other large cities in our country.

It is important, therefore, that the small business advocate also reports on the needs of rural small businesses that are seeking to raise capital. Lawmakers and regulators should be focused on those businesses.

This is common sense, and I hope my colleagues will support it.

I commend the gentleman from Montana for bringing this bill to the floor, and I look forward to continuing to discuss this bill.

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the House has no further legislative business after we consider the bills that are before us today. The authors of the last two bills up for consideration are on their way, so should I speak slowly, or should we go into recess? Either way, we are not delaying the House.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support H.R. 1190, the Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act. It is a simple but important step to directing the SEC's small business advocate to include small, rural businesses in their reporting.

As I have noted before, the small business advocate currently reports on the challenges faced by minority-owned, women-owned, and disaster- affected small businesses. This would add rural small businesses to the list.

This is a gap we need to fix. Small businesses in rural communities face unique hurdles in accessing capital, and they deserve the same attention as the other types of businesses that the advocate focuses on.

No matter where they are located and no matter who owns them, small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They should be and are a bipartisan priority, and this bill is a step in the right direction.

With the understanding that we will be able to deal with the other bills that are scheduled to come before us even after a short recess, I urge a ``yes'' vote on H.R. 1190, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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