Mitch Landrieu: “like many in Congress, I am disappointed that we are adjourning Congress for the October recess without enacting…”

“like many in Congress, I am disappointed that we are adjourning Congress for the October recess without enacting comprehensive U.S. Small Business Administration disaster assistance reforms. As our small businesses impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year can attest, this is an agency that is in woeful need of substantive reforms to its Disaster Assistance Program. Our businesses had to wait 4 to 6 months for SBA disaster loans to be approved, and some are still waiting to this day, for loan amounts to be disbursed. For my part, I have worked for the past year to enact substantive SBA disaster reforms to ensure that 'lessons learned' from Katrina and Rita were incorporated and that businesses nationwide could count on a better prepared and more efficient SBA should a disaster strike their community. Under the leadership of the chair and ranking member of the Senate Small Business Committee, Senators Olympia Snowe and John Kerry, we sent to the Senate floor bipartisan legislation, S. 3778, which along with reauthorizing SBA programs, also enacts comprehensive SBA disaster reforms. Instead of working with us to take up and pass this important bill, the administration has frustrated this bill's passage at every turn and will not allow it to the Senate floor for consideration--almost 9 weeks after it was introduced.”