Rural America encompasses about 72 percent of the Nation's total land and about $46 million residents.

It was not until the middle of last year that the office received a director, essentially going over 20 years without any attention whatsoever.

I represent Maine. I have the second most rural district in the House of Representatives and the largest east of the Mississippi River.

I think it falls far short of what that office should be capable of doing to help small businesses.

Maine is I think per capital one of the least diverse, whitest states that we have in the country, very large, very rural.

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Page 47, after line 15, insert the following new subsection (and redesignate the subsequent subsection…

When I took the oath of office in January, I entered Congress prepared to work with President Trump whenever possible and to stand up to him whenever necessary. In my first year, I have ranked among the top five of 235 House Democrats in…

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I would just ask that you commit yourself to that transparency for consumers.

I think that the growing distrust out there in the general public is about this concern about information and who has control over it.

Just to be clear, not products but sellers.

This is also on Congress. It has been since the 1990s when this program was put forward and, you know, oversight is our role.

Sometimes just because you can do something does not mean you should.

I wanted to ask, does Amazon use algorithms that favor sellers who use Fulfillment by Amazon over those who chose to do Fulfillment by Merchant?

There is a lot of information flying around about them, and there is I think a growing distrust.

People's concerns about the government having control over individualized information.

I would appreciate that very much. And obviously, that would be important to avoid that kind of unfair bias.

Sometimes they do get it right.

That just seems like a common, that you can hold yourself to the standard you would hold other, some of your clients to would be important.

The sad thing is, as I often hear as I talk to small business owners, well, did you ever think about reaching out to SBA about this?

I guess we have heard from some people back home in Maine who are concerned that that may not be the case.

Good. Good. That just seems like a common, that you can hold yourself to the standard you would hold other, some of your clients to would be important.

I appreciate that very much. And obviously, that would be important to avoid that kind of unfair bias.

I do want to encourage you to look into ways that you can push forward, access to capital for those types of investments.

One thing that I always hear from my constituents is a concern in particular about individual information.