Washington (February 26) – Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler condemning President Trump’s executive orders that could undermine efforts to combat historic discrimination and provide a level playing field for all small business owners. In the letter, Ranking Member Markey seeks clarity on how SBA intends to implement Trump’s executive orders, after hearing concerns from small business owners and private partners about the potential adverse impact on their business operations.
In the letter, Ranking Member Markey wrote, “President Trump’s executive orders declaring war on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) policies are reverberating throughout America’s small business community...To date, SBA has not issued detailed plans on how it intends to implement the Trump administration’s anti-DEIA executive orders. Small business owners deserve answers now — answers that show how SBA will comply with anti-discrimination laws passed by Congress that are the law of the land and that no mere executive order can undo.”
Ranking Member Markey continued, “These concerns arise in the context of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency claiming that more than 85 DEI contracts and contract awards exceeding $1 billion have already been cancelled — another way of saying that the federal government has reneged on its contractual obligations with private companies, many of which are small businesses, on the President’s whim.”
Last week, a federal judge blocked the implementation of some of the most harmful aspects of the Administration’s anti-DEI executive orders, citing violations to free speech and due process rights. This includes ordering the Administration to not “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate any awards, contracts or obligations…” Yet on February 24, SBA Administrator Loeffler released her day one priorities stating that SBA has “paused grants across the agency that do not comply with President Trump’s executive orders.”
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