From Sen. Mark Warner’s office:
WARNER PUSHES FOR BIPARTISAN BILL TO GET SMALL BUSINESSES IMPACTED BY HELENE IMMEDIATE RELIEF
~ Since lapse in SBA funding, tens of thousands of businesses are waiting on Congressional action ~
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) today spoke on the Senate floor to advocate for a bipartisan bill that would allow the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to continue paying out disaster assistance loans to small businesses. On Oct. 15, SBA announced that they had run out of funding in their disaster loan program shortly after Hurricane Helene devastated small businesses across the Southeast, leaving tens of thousands of businesses approved for loans but without any funding. The bipartisan legislation to refill the fund was blocked today by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). After the legislation was blocked, Sen. Warner said:
“While I’m deeply disappointed my colleagues blocked us from doing our duty and reauthorizing this essential funding for small businesses devastated by Helene, I’m as committed as ever to fighting for impacted communities across Southwest Virginia. We absolutely must pass support for small businesses and a broader supplemental aid package that will meet the needs of businesses, farms, and families that were hurt by Helene. If we don’t get this done soon, communities across Southwest Virginia will see businesses permanently shutter and an even longer path to recovery. I’m going to keep fighting as hard as I can for every federal resource available for Southwest Virginians.”
In the 48 days since Hurricane Helene devastated Southwest Virginia, Sen. Warner has pushed for federal emergency disaster declarations, immediate action to reauthorize federal aid, and a full supplemental package to meet the needs of impacted communities across the country. In his remarks today, Sen. Warner told the story of his visit to Damascus, a community along the heavily-impacted Creeper Trail, and the long and essential road to recovery to get the trail operational and support the communities and businesses that rely on it.
A copy of the remarks as delivered are available here:
Let me thank my friends from North Carolina, Senator Budd and Senator Tillis. And let me acknowledge on the front end, you guys got hit the hardest. But we got hit as well in Southwest Virginia. And we got communities that without this relief are going to die.
I want to echo what both my colleagues have said. You know, this relief package… it’s bipartisan. It is what we do as a matter of course, when an entity like the SBA runs out of money. Since October 15, 34,000 businesses across the country have applied for SBA relief. In response, many of them got approved, but they get a response that says, we’ll give you your money when Congress does its job. This is done as a matter of course.
And frankly, the SBA screwed up a little bit on not getting better numbers before we broke before the election.
I want to take one moment and tell you about a community in particular in Southwest. Damascus, Virginia was an old town… and basically the economy had disappeared. It came back because there’s something called the Creeper Trail. [It has] biking and hiking… I’ve biked this trail. And, Senator Tillis, parts of that trail are gone now.
There were 34 trestles, 18 of them were damaged or gone. We’ve got part of our road that gets to the top of the mountain gone as well. I went to Damascus, I went to ten jurisdictions across Southwest Virginia, but in this little town, every business and home was affected. One guy had three businesses: two restaurants and a bed and breakfast. He paid out of his pocket to try to keep his workers on, even though it’ll be months before anything happens. Even if the money was there. We owe it to the folks in Damascus, across Southwest Virginia and North Carolina and across all of the jurisdictions in our country that have been hard hit to do our job.
Just like folks in western North Carolina, folks in Southwest Virginia are proud. You had an enormous amount of self-help, but this kind of assistance, whether it’s FEMA dollars or SBA loans, is not charity. It is their right as Americans. It’s what we pay our taxes for.
Instead, thousands of Virginians who asked for that right to apply for this loan have gotten a note saying, we can’t send you the money until Congress does its job.
We have a chance today for unanimous consent to take this bipartisan piece of legislation, pass it through, and get those businesses the funds they deserve. And I thank my colleague and yield back to the senior senator from North Carolina.
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