(Washington, D.C.)—Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) today issued a statement after the Senate passed a government funding bill that appropriates $998 million for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), including $177 million for disaster assistance funding.

“As the global marketplace becomes more complex, small businesses, with their narrow margins and small workforce, need more support, not less,” Ranking Member Cardin said. “I am pleased Congress rejected the Administration’s proposed program eliminations, funding cuts, and fee increases, which would have placed new and unfair costs on entrepreneurs, and deprived them of important development resources. Instead, this bill makes critical investments in SBA’s entrepreneurial development, business loan, and trade assistance programs that will help SBA reach more entrepreneurs, especially those in underserved communities.”

The funding bill passed today is a rejection of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget, which undermined small business programs. The bill blocks the Administration’s effort to saddle borrowers and lenders in SBA’s loan programs with hundreds of millions in additional fees, and it rebuffs the Administration’s attempt to slash $67 million from SBA’s entrepreneurial development budget, providing an additional $13 million instead. The bill also increases funding to the Microloan program—ignoring the 17 percent cut requested by the Administration.