Jay Inslee: “My fellow Members, we know that small businesses have been leaders in job creation and are the dynamic growth center for…”

“My fellow Members, we know that small businesses have been leaders in job creation and are the dynamic growth center for the American economy, and now they are poised to become the leaders in our green building revolution. We know that we have challenges on energy security, we know we have challenges to deal with on global warming, and we know that small businesses have challenges to receive capital to help in their programs to make their businesses more efficient, less costly for energy consumption, and less emitting of greenhouse gases. Our amendment would create the ability of the SBA to provide capital to our small businesses across the country to do thousands of things that they want to start doing, items like putting additional energy-efficient equipment into their businesses, building green roofs that can prevent energy loss, installation of renewable energy sources like photovoltaic cells and energy equipment heating and cooling systems. The list is endless. I would like to think of a little small business called the Snoqualmie Ice Cream Company, which is some of the best ice cream in the world, but they used an SBA loan essentially to put impervious concrete and build a green roof, which helped their business operations and helped the environment to boot. So we would propose that we expand the SBA purposes to allow our small businessmen and women to be on the cutting edge of green building and green businesses across the country.”