Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, praised letters from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), America’s Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC), and the National Association for Equal Opportunity (NAFEO) supporting Rubio’s bipartisan effort to comprehensively reauthorize the Small Business Act for the first time in nearly two decades. Yesterday, Rubio praised additional letters of support from small businesses and advocacy groups supporting the reauthorization effort. Last week, Rubio released the Chairman’s mark, the SBA Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019, which is the bipartisan product of the committee’s eight legislative hearings and includes 15 individual bills from committee members.
 
“America’s small businesses now face an unprecedented threat from the Chinese government and Communist Party’s systematic industrial espionage and coercion, large-scale subsidies, and sweeping obstruction of market access,” Chairman Rubio said. “We have an opportunity to transform the Small Business Administration into a tool that not only empowers individual- and family-owned businesses, but into one that will fortify these firms against foreign abuse and galvanize America’s economic development in the 21st century. I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues in working towards this reauthorization and I look forward to the full committee voting on the Chairman’s mark.”
 
“On behalf of NFIB, the nation’s leading small business advocacy organization, I am writing in support of Title IX of the Chairman’s Mark of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019. Title IX focuses on regulatory reform and includes multiple bipartisan provisions requiring agencies to consider the impact regulations have on small businesses,” NFIB President & CEO Juanita D. Duggan wrote. (July 24, 2019)
 
“The Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA) commends your leadership of the SBA Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019 (“SBA Reauthorization”) and applauds the Committee’s collaborative, bipartisan efforts to improve the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program. We encourage the committee to advance this legislation through the process,” SBIA President Brett Palmer wrote. (July 24, 2019)
 
“America’s SBDCs, the association representing the 63 small business development center (SBDC) networks and their nearly 1,000 centers, wishes to express its support for the Small Business Administration Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019. This bill is both timely and necessary to rejuvenate and restore vital programs and services delivered through the Small Business Administration,” ASBDC President/CEO C. Edward Rowe III wrote. (July 24, 2019)
 
“On behalf of the richly diverse community of 156 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs) that are our members, the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), extends its profound appreciation to you for key provisions you are poised to include in the SBA Reauthorization and Improvement Act (SBA RIA) of 2019, that will create new opportunities for HBCUs and their service communities,” NAFEO President, CEO & Counsel Lezli Baskerville wrote. (July 22, 2019)