Today Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) issued the following statement in reaction to President Bush's Gulf Coast visit. Kerry is the lead sponsor of bipartisan legislation to overhaul the government's disaster loan program which the Bush Administration has been blocking since September 2005.

"Long term recovery for the Gulf Coast requires a whole lot more than 18 months of empty promises. Businesses that were once the heart of the Gulf Coast economy are now hanging on by a thread. Yet the bipartisan proposals in Congress to get these businesses back up and running have been blocked by the Bush Administration at every turn. On his last visit to the Gulf Coast, the President predicted a bright future for the region's entrepreneurs. Yet in the six months since that visit, nothing's changed. While the Go Zone legislation represented a good first step, we still need fundamental reform of the government's disaster loan program to permanently remove delays and red tape that have prevented businesses from getting timely financial assistance," said Kerry, Chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

The Small Business Disaster Response and Loan Improvements Act of 2007 (S. 163) would:
  • Establish a Private Disaster Loan (PDL) program that allows banks to make loans directly to victims after meeting SBA criteria. The SBA will provide an 85 percent guarantee for these loans;

  • Require the SBA to draft rules within one year that would create a new "expedited disaster assistance business loan program." These short-term loans would have low interest rates similar to regular disaster loans. This would provide businesses with short-term assistance while they await other forms of federal assistance or insurance payouts following future disasters. It specifically addresses one of the major issues following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita – a lack of access to immediate capital to keep businesses afloat;

  • Create a new presidential declaration of "Catastrophic National Disaster," which will allow the SBA to issue nationwide economic injury disaster loans to small businesses affected by a large-scale disaster;

  • Allow the SBA to provide relief to fuel-dependent small businesses when energy prices increase at extraordinarily high rates.

  • Provide key tools for processing disaster loan applications more quickly by authorizing the SBA to enter into agreements with qualified private contractors to process disaster loans and requiring the SBA to analyze and report to Congress on how the disaster loan application process can be improved; and

  • Increase the maximum size of a Small Business Administration (SBA) disaster loan from $1.5 million to $5 million and allow non-profit groups to be eligible for disaster loans.