Byron Dorgan: “I rise to briefly discuss the nomination of Hector Barreto to head the Small Business Administration. I note that…”

“I rise to briefly discuss the nomination of Hector Barreto to head the Small Business Administration. I note that Senator Kerry, the chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, supports this nomination. I plan to support the nomination as well. I think he is a good appointment. He will serve our country well. I look forward to working with him in his new role as Administrator of the Small Business Administration. As he begins his tenure at the SBA, I did not want this moment to go by without pointing out to him, and to the SBA, that we face, in my judgment, a rather severe challenge about an issue that concerns me greatly. Let me describe the issue. The SBA has packaged up a series of loans that it has made, including disaster loans, and sold them with deep discounts to financial companies around the country. The representation to the American people was that this would not impact their loans at all, and it is just a matter of selling them so that the SBA does not have to do loan servicing.”