Last week, the Finance and Tax Subcommittee of the House Committee on Small Business completed mark-up of SBA capital access reauthorization legislation. That is a good start on the self-imposed October 31st deadline established by the most recent continuing resolution. In fact, the subcommittee passed a whopping eight bills up to the full committee following this markup session. Among the bills passed up to the full committee, of course, the bill that will get the most attention is the first, which reauthorizes the SBA’s flagship 7(a) program. But it is the second item on the list that is specifically directed to the financing needs of microbusinesses. It appears from this legislation that Congress finally intends to launch a real expansion of the Microloan program, something the Bush Administration flirted with before they decided instead to try getting rid of it.

The bill assists Microloan Intermediaries with credit reporting agency reporting, eases program qualifications by permitting a prospective Intermediary to hire an employee with a certain amount of relevant experience (even if the organization lacks direct service experience), increases authorized appropriations amounts and fund capitalization loan caps, and provides for some fairly extensive reporting so that lawmakers have a better idea of how the program is doing and who it is helping. Over in the Senate, Small Business Committee Chairwoman Mary Landrieu (D-LA) held a roundtable to examine SBA lending programs at the very beginning of this month. So far, no relevant bill has emerged from the Committee and, even when it does, it is doubtful that there will be eight of them. Given their basic differences, it’ll be interesting to see whether these two committees finish their business by the end of the month.