Additional Temporary Extension Of Small Business Programs

Floor Speech

Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 1929) to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Amendment:

Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert:

SECTION 1. ADDITIONAL TEMPORARY EXTENSION OF AUTHORIZATION OF PROGRAMS UNDER THE SMALL BUSINESS ACT AND THE SMALL BUSINESS INVESTMENT ACT OF 1958.

(a) In General.--Section 1 of the Act entitled ``An Act to extend temporarily certain authorities of the Small Business Administration'', approved October 10, 2006 (Public Law 109-316; 120 Stat. 1742), as most recently amended by section 1 of Public Law 111-66, is amended by striking ``October 31, 2009'' each place it appears and inserting ``January 31, 2010''.

(b) Effective Date.--The amendments made by subsection (a) shall take effect on October 30, 2009.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velázquez) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Graves) each will control 20 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York.

GENERAL LEAVE

Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from New York?

There was no objection.

Ms. VELÁZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

The legislation before us will extend the Small Business Administration's broad array of critical programs until the end of January. This will allow small businesses to go on using the valuable services of the SBA while the House and the Senate continue our work to comprehensively reauthorize the Small Business Administration.

Already this year we have made important progress toward reauthorizing the SBA. In May, the House passed legislation reauthorizing the agency's entrepreneurial development programs. In July, we approved a measure to update the Small Business Innovation Research Initiative. And later this week, the House will consider H.R. 3854, a bill to comprehensively update the SBA's capital access initiatives. Passing the bill before us today will let us complete our work on these measures and conference them with our counterparts in the Senate.

The SBA clearly needs to be modernized in order to meet today's challenges. I look forward to sending legislation to the President's desk that will bring all of these various initiatives up to date. In the meantime, this bill offers the appropriate amount of time to continue our work while ensuring the agency can continue serving small businesses.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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