President Barack Obama is expected this week to sign an omnibus appropriations bill that provides $824 million for the SBA. Meanwhile, legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate that would extend the small-business stimulus provisions, specifically the 90 percent guarantee and the temporary elimination of the borrower fees for 7(a) and 504 loans.

SBA Appropriations

Following its passage in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 Omnibus Appropriations Bill was approved by the U.S. Senate this week. The legislation (H.R. 3288) provides $824 million for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)—an increase (in non-stimulus funding) of $211.7 million from FY 2009, according to the office of U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who also is a member of the Committee on Appropriations. This represents a continued and welcome increase from previous years, as less than $570 million was appropriated for SBA in FY 2008. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill into law this week.

The bill includes $113 million for Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs); $76.5 million to administer the SBA Disaster Loan Program; $14 million for Women's Business Centers; $8 million for the Program for the Investment in Micro-entrepreneurs (PRIME); $7 million for the SCORE program; $3.4 million (up from $2.38 million) for the 7(j) technical assistance program; $3 million for microloans, enabling the program to leverage more than $25 million in microloans—and $22 million for microloan technical assistance; $2.5 million for he Veterans' Programs; $2.2 million (up from $2.15 million) for the Historically Underutilized Business Zones program (HUBZones); and $2 million for the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program, the program’s first appropriation since 2004.

The bill also appropriates $10 million for the new Entrepreneurial Development Initiative—which seeks to expand entrepreneurship in regions of high unemployment and in areas poised for growth, such as the clean-energy industry—and grants the SBA with the authority to back $3 billion for the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.

The Omnibus also includes—for the first time since 2004—a subsidy ($80 million) aimed at preventing an increase in 7(a) loan borrower fees of approximately 45 basis points. While a welcome addition, NSBA is hopeful that this provision will be unnecessary and that Congress soon will extend the stimulus provisions eliminating borrower fees through FY 2010.

Legislation Introduced Extending Small Business Stimulus Provisions

Legislation has been introduced in both the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives to extend critical small-business provisions passed in the stimulus bill. Sens. Landrieu and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the ranking member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship recently introduced S. 2869, the Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act, which contains a number of provisions favorable to the small-business community and supported by NSBA.

Specifically, the bill would extend the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s authorization of a 90 percent guarantee on 7(a) loans and the elimination of borrower fees on both 7(a) and 504 loans through December 31, 2010. The legislation also would increase the loan limit on 7(a), 504, and micro loans. The loan limit for 7(a) loans would increase from $2 million to $5 million; 504 loans from $1.5 million to $5.5 million; and micro loans from $35,000 to $50,000.

S. 2869 also allows the 504 loan program to refinance short-term, commercial real estate debt into long-term, fixed-rate loans and directs the SBA to create a website identifying SBA lenders for small-business owners seeking loans. The Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship is slated to markup the bill on Thursday.

An identical bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.). NSBA urges Congress to enact these critical measures swiftly and thanks Sens. Landrieu and Snowe and Reps. Abercrombie and Lowey for their leadership.