HR4549-119

What This Bill Does

The Office of Rural Affairs Enhancement Act rewrites section 26 of the Small Business Act. It requires the SBA Office of Rural Affairs to be led by an Assistant Administrator in the competitive service who has education, professional experience, or knowledge in rural affairs and experience providing development assistance to rural small business concerns. The bill shifts the office from merely providing information to actively promoting SBA programs and other federal agency programs that assist rural small businesses.

The bill updates an obsolete tourism reference by replacing the former United States Tourism and Travel Administration with the National Travel and Tourism Office of the Department of Commerce. It directs the Assistant Administrator to host webinars and outreach events in multiple U.S. regions for rural small business concerns and to invite SBA district offices, resource partners, federal agencies, state agencies, and other interested persons. Resource partners are defined to include Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers, SCORE chapters, and Veteran Business Outreach Centers.

The SBA Administrator must report within 180 days after enactment and annually thereafter to the House Small Business Committee and Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, and must post the report publicly. Each report must identify the Assistant Administrator, the office budget, staffing, activities, number of webinars and outreach events, analysis of SBA lending programs serving rural small businesses, and information gathered from outreach.

Who Benefits and How

Rural small business concerns benefit from a dedicated SBA office with leadership qualifications, regional events, webinars, and promotion of SBA and other federal assistance programs. Rural entrepreneurs seeking SBA loans, rural tourism businesses, rural manufacturers, rural Main Street businesses, Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers, SCORE chapters, Veteran Business Outreach Centers, SBA district offices, state economic-development agencies, and National Travel and Tourism Office staff benefit because the bill creates a clearer outreach network and annual public data on rural SBA lending and office performance.

Who Bears the Burden and How

The SBA Office of Rural Affairs, the SBA Assistant Administrator for Rural Affairs, SBA district offices, SBA reporting staff, participating resource partners, federal agency outreach staff, state agency outreach staff, House Small Business Committee staff, and Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee staff must comply with new webinar, outreach, invitation, data-collection, public-reporting, staffing, budget, and lending-analysis requirements.

Key Provisions

• Amends the SBA Office of Rural Affairs leadership qualifications to require rural-affairs and rural small-business development experience.
• Requires the office to promote SBA and other federal programs for rural small business concerns.
• Requires coordination with Commerce's National Travel and Tourism Office for rural small businesses.
• Requires regional webinars and outreach events for rural small business concerns.
• Requires SBA to invite district offices, resource partners, federal agencies, state agencies, and other interested persons to outreach events.
• Requires annual public reports on office operations, budget, staffing, activities, webinars, outreach, rural lending, and information gathered from events.