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▶ 0:18:52good morning everyone and I want to Now call the committee on small business to order without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time I now recognize myself for my opening statement welcome to the first committee on small business hearing of the 119th Congress uh I want to extend my gratitude to our Witnesses for being here also today and I know many of you travel to share your experiences with us and your perspectives and we deeply value your time and your voice uh the committee on small business
▶ 0:19:22is proud to represent the hardworking men and women of Main Street America here in Washington our mission today and every day is to listen learn and better understand the challenges and the opportunities impacting the American people particularly those who build and sustain small businesses Nationwide small business owners are not just entrepreneurs they are job creators Community leaders and the backbone of Economic Opportunity for millions of Americans small business ownership reflects the very essence of the American dream the opportunity for any person from any background to take a
▶ 0:19:52risk work hard and build a better future for themselves and their families our economy depends on small businesses and the workers they employ from local manufacturers to retail employees service workers and bankers they are the heartbeat of our economy shaping our communities through their dedication creativity and resilience over the past four years Main Street America has faced historic challenges stifling regulations record-breaking inflation supply chain disruptions High interest rates and a National Labor shortage despite these challenges
▶ 0:20:22the men and women of Main Street have proven time and time again their strength and ability to adapt these individuals embody the grit The Innovation and perseverance that make the nation great so this Congress alongside president Trump will once again prioritize policies that support Main Street America strengthen Economic Opportunity and create an environment where small businesses can grow and create jobs today we celebrate the critical role each small business plays in building and sustaining their communities we look forward to hearing from our Witnesses on
▶ 0:20:52how increased small business optimism and a promising economic landscape will help Main Street America there is hope on the horizon for small businesses thanks to president Trump's Pro business commitment to lowering taxes and cutting regulations it is time to turn the page on the past four years and focus on the future for Main Street America under President Trump I wanted this hearing to be the first of the 119th Congress so we could shine a light on the great contributions and sacrifices of Main Street America those who dedicate their days their resources and lives to
▶ 0:21:22make our nation strong before we proceed I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the new members joining the committee we are thrilled to have you as part of our team and look forward to working with you this Congress as chairman I'm eager to work alongside all of you as we help shape policies that put the needs of Main Street America first now with that uh yield to our distinguished and my friend ranking member from New York Miss Velasquez good morning thank you Mr chairman and again I want to express our condolences to
▶ 0:21:52you and uh you know uh we have you and your family and our thoughts and prayers thank you good morning thank you Mr chairman for holding this important hearing and thank you to the witnesses for being here today in just four short years 22 million Americans took the leap of faith and studed a small business a record height for a single presidential term our nation saw an unprecedented small business boom
▶ 0:22:23and economic comeback in the face of an equally unprecedented global Global pandemic and recession every day Americans and entrepreneurs receive essential investments from the American Rescue plan act bipartison infrastructure law chips and science act and inflation reduction act historic victories that laid a strong foundation for our economic recovery and the data shows that this Foundation
▶ 0:22:54is fruitful annual inflation is at 2.7% % and real GDP growth has accelerated to 3.1% in the last quarter Mr chairman small business is not a Democratic or republican issue it is an American issue and while we will work with our Republican counterparts to find common ground and do right by America's Main Streets we will never weaken
▶ 0:23:24our commitment to make life better for our nation small business business owners from the tech company that started as an idea in a garage to more established Main Street retailers or the local restaurant all play an important role in generating employment opportunities for our communities whether they be in rural or Urban America that is the beauty of America anyone can have a dream and
▶ 0:23:54make it a reality and that is what millions of interpret R preneurs in this country have done and many couldn't have done it without the assistant of one of the sba's programs from lending to mentoring to marketing the SBA has remained a critical resource to those with a good idea and employers H hoping to expand but there is more than this committee can do to continue our efforts to grow small business economy
▶ 0:24:24like investing in Child Care Health Care and veloping the next generation of workers that is why today's hearing is so timely it will allow us to gain valuable perspectives on how to best help entrepreneurs continue to do what they do best invest in themselves their communities and their workers while we may not always agree with each other on the best path forward it is my hope that we will work together for the betterment of small employers
▶ 0:24:55today we are joined by a distinguished panel of witnesses this hearing is an opportunity to listen to their insights into the challenges facing small businesses and specifically how Congress can prioritize their need I look forward to hearing the witnesses testimony and with that Mr chairman i y back lady y's back and now I will introduce our Witnesses our first witness here with us today is Mr Carl hutter Mr hutter's the CEO of Click Bond Inc located in Carson
▶ 0:25:25City Nevada Mr hutter joined click bond in 2000 and has held various positions within the company including vice president of sales and marketing Chief Operating Officer Chief Financial Officer also before leading the sales team Mr hutter directed the company's Business Development and applications uh engineering efforts across the Asia Pacific region Mr hutter is certified Airline transport pilot and a passionate advocate for general aviation in the Aerospace industry as well as for American manufacturing he also serves several
▶ 0:25:56industry associations such as the a Space Industries Association Board of Governors the National Association of Manufacturers and the general aviation manufacturers Association Mr hutter holds a Bachelor of Science degree in systems engineering and operations management from the School of Engineering and applied science at Wharton business school of the University of Pennsylvania he also is a graduate of pens derome Fisher management and Technology Program so thank you for joining us here today our next witness is Mr Bill new uh Mr new is the founder
▶ 0:26:26owner and president of new Industries LLC located in Morgan City Louisiana uh Mr new has led the company since its founding in 1985 prior to that he worked as an structural and project engineer for mobile exploration and production and mobile research and development Mr new is an active volunteer having served as president of the foundation for the Louisiana School for Math Science and the Arts and currently as co-chairman of the capital campaign he also has been a board member of the Catholic Foundation of Southern Louisiana and a longtime
▶ 0:26:57leader in the Boy Scouts of America where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1973 Mr new currently resides in Louisiana with his family Mr new holds a Bachelor of Science in Ocean engineering from Florida Atlantic University and completed the owner pres Management program at Harvard Business School so thank you for being here today Mr n our next witness is Miss Alice Frasier uh Miss Frasier's president CEO of pic Bank shares and uh Bank of Charles toown located in Charlestown West Virginia
▶ 0:27:27m Fraser has more than 32 years of banking experience with Cardinal Financial Corporation BB&T and middleberg Financial Corporation prior to that she worked for four years in public accounting with the national and Regional firms Miss Fraser is currently serving as Vice chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America and has previously served as their executive committee as as secretary she also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond board and is the past chairman of the Virginia Association of Community Banks Miss Frasier has a Bachelor of Science degree from Radford University
▶ 0:27:58and is a graduate of the senior of the of the stonor uh Graduate School of banking and the USC graduate uh School of Bank investing thank you for joining us today again and I look forward to hearing from all of you and now I recognize the ranking member from New York Miss velas to briefly introduce our last witness appearing before us today thank you Mr chairman I would like to welcome Miss Molly n Nel uh the founder and CEO of Molly Moon's homemade ice cream in the Seattle region Molly
▶ 0:28:28Moons open in 2008 When Miss nisel left her career as a political consultant and founder of the nonprofit music for America to follow her dreams and her sweet tooth as a main street businesswoman now Molly Moons has nine locations $12 million in Revenue accolades in National Publications and a cult following in the Seattle area Miss Nel is also a founding member of Main Street Alliance a Smalls business Coalition
▶ 0:28:59advocating for pro small business policies including Health Care Child Care investment pay Family and Medical Leave women's entrepreneurship promotion and Capital Access among others Miss Nel holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Montana welcome and thank you for today thank you and we appreciate all of you being here today again and so before recognizing the witnesses I'd
▶ 0:29:29like to remind them we got some rules around here uh that oral testimony is restricted to 5 minutes in length uh if you get over that you'll hear a little this and that means that that your time is uh your time is up and if you see the light turn red in front of you it means your five minutes have concluded and you should wrap up your testimony so with that in mind I now recognize Mr hutter for his five minute opening remarks good morning chairman Williams ranking member of Velasquez and members of the committee
▶ 0:29:59uh my name is Carl hutter and I'm the CEO of clickbond an engineered Products Company in Carson City Nevada and clickbond is a family business and one very much built on Innovation my parents founded the company in 1987 combining my dad's inventive genius with my mom's manufacturing background and business Acumen and today our adhesive bonded Fasteners are used in aviation Marine defense industrial settings around the world and even Beyond in space and like many small
▶ 0:30:29and medium manufacturers we're an integral part of the manufacturing supply chain and in our case of the nation's defense industrial base however companies like clickbond face significant challenges often stemming from Washington itself American businesses now shoulder a staggering $3 trillion dollar annually in regulatory costs disproportionately impacting manufacturers unfortunately small companies get hit twice first with unworkable regulations that apply
▶ 0:30:59to us directly and then what as well as with compliance and Reporting requirements that larger firms are forced to pass down well fortunately Congress and the Trump Administration do have the opportunity to reverse course and do that with common sense reforms such as unwinding outdated chemicals reporting requirements that Force us to look backwards in time and deep into our supply chains in preventing unnecessary EPA roadblocks in state and local permitting and enrolling back costly energy
▶ 0:31:30and labor mandates these policies would go a long way toward lifting barriers on manufacturers and their growth in additionally comprehensive permitting reform must be a priority a predictable streamlined permitting process will unlock manufacturing growth and drive new job creating Investments across this country so just as with regulations our industry is facing significant uncertainty cost and burden thanks to expiring tax
▶ 0:32:00policies to say the least 2017 tax reform was rocket fuel for clickbond the new 21% corporate tax rate allowed us to raise wages for our production employees invest in Capital Equipment strengthen our employee tuition support program and accelerate the timeline for constructing a new facility the new 20% pass through deduction likewise empowered our suppliers and partners to reinvest in their businesses readying them to support our growth but the key tax Provisions
▶ 0:32:31began expiring in 2022 and 2023 and this is already harming manufacturers it's now more expensive for clickbond to conduct R&D the very lifeblood of both our product and our process Innovation it's more expensive for us to purchase Capital Equipment the very tools that will unleash the productivity of our team and it's more expensive for us to finance job creating Investments such as that state-of-the-art sustainable manufacturing facility and more tax hikes are looming at the end of this year including the having
▶ 0:33:01of the estate tax exemption which will force many family businesses to hold back on investments or contemplate selling pieces of their company to satisfy an unjust tax bill recent National Association of Manufacturers research found that failing to extend pr- manufacturing tax policies could cost the US nearly six million jobs and $1 trillion in Lost GDP and that's an outc Mr chairman that we can't afford if Congress wants to
▶ 0:33:31preserve American innovation Ingenuity and competitiveness in action is simply not an option so look despite these challenges I want to remain very optimistic as I am about the future of clickbond and Manufacturing in the United States particularly for our small businesses at clickbond we're ready to seize this moment translating the pace of innovation and the strong Global demand for Aerospace products into job growth and export opportunities the same story holds true for the
▶ 0:34:01the small and medium manufacturers across our supply chain as a family business we're ready to invest and to reinvest in growth R&D and Capital Equipment to generate excellent careers that lift our communities while deploying modern sustainable manufacturing processes and finally as a member of our nation's defense industrial base we are proud to do this work in service of strengthening our country's security and its readiness Congress has a critical opportunity to rightsize the
▶ 0:34:31regulatory landscape put an end to permitting delays and protect manufacturers from devastating tax increases I encourage you to seize this opportunity Empower manufacturers and strengthen America because when manufacturing wins America wins thank you and I look forward to your questions thank you very much Mr hutter Right On Time thank you and now I recognize Mr new for uh your 5 minute remarks thank you Mr
▶ 0:35:01chairman uh ranking member of alisz and members of the committee I appreciate the opportunity to testify today this is uh my first time testifying in front of a congressional committee so I may stumble a little bit about public speaking is not one of my strong points uh but I'm Bill new I'm the founder the owner and the president of new Industries we're a south Louisiana based uh steel fabricator we uh we build Process Equipment for the oil and gas industry uh subse equipment
▶ 0:35:31for producing and deep water uh we also build pressure vessels and things used for and processed plants uh refineries petrochemical and we also build some agricultural processing equipment as well so uh basically we cut Bend and wed steel and uh you know I've been at it I started the company in 1985 quit my job working for an oil company I was 28 years old as most of us are when we're 28 years old we
▶ 0:36:01think we're bulletproof and we know everything about two years later I figured out didn't know anything but at that point it was too late so so uh been at it ever since uh you know I think a big misconception about the oil and gas industry for most people the general public certainly is that when they think of oil and gas they think of the Chevrons and the exons and the shells and the BPS but for all those great big compies and they're all customers of mine you know there's a whole lot of companies like new Industries
▶ 0:36:32you know small businesses that fabricate to build equipment that provide services both onshore and offshore and that's really the heart of the oil and gas industry is the small businesses that uh make it all happen the old companies comparatively don't actually employ that many people they spend the money uh but sometimes they're almost more like Bankers than uh than actually operators and so it's very important to uh you know
▶ 0:37:02encourage oil and gas you know it's we've been through a period of the last four years of uh issues with permitting with lease sales and already the new administration's already turned some of those things around uh but it just takes time you know and the projects typically a lot of projects we work on have Horizons of five and 10 years from the time they discover even before they discover drill the first well until it's production
▶ 0:37:33and spend billions of dollars and if we don't have consistency in Leasing and consistency in regulation those projects never get started because if you if you award a lease to one of the major oil companies today in deep water it'll be at least probably three years before they actually drill a well because there's a lot of preliminary work to be done and then once that well is drilled assuming that it's a it's a discovery then it'll be several more years
▶ 0:38:04uh getting it develop building the equipment building the facility and so that consistency of Regulation is so important to the industry and certainly important to new Industries same thing with tax policy you know we certainly took advantage of the accelerated depreciation when that was uh there we we spent a lot of best a lot of money and Equipment big equipment cranes plate rolls you know big pieces machinery and but it's a
▶ 0:38:34lot easier to pay for them when when uh I can uh deduct the full cost of depreciation in the first year certainly helps pay for them so I I urge you to just continue along this path and I'm looking forward to the next four years our customers are much more optimistic since the election project that have been on hold I hear it now suddenly we're going we're talking about moving forward and uh so you know we're a Project
▶ 0:39:05based business if our customers are not drilling new wells developing new facilities building new process plants adding on the process plants there's no work for us you know I'm not like Walmart I can't generate uh incremental sales with price and I can't put welders on sale this week and sell any more me if my customers need one you know they'll buy it if they don't need it it doesn't matter what my price is and so we're uh we're looking forward to the next four years I think it's
▶ 0:39:35pretty exciting time to be in our industry you thank you very much and I now recognize Miss Frasier for her five minute opening remarks thank you chairman Williams and ranking member of alasas and members of this committee I am Alice Fraser CEO of Bank of Charlestown 154 year old Community Bank with 800 77 million in assets serving markets in West Virginia Maryland and Virginia I testify today on behalf
▶ 0:40:05of the Independent Community Bankers of America where I am Vice chairman this hearing is well timed for the new Congress and administration which I can assure you has brought New Hope for the communities I serve the optimism is unmistakable small business loans are almost 90% of our portfolio and in agregate Community Bank Banks extend a disproportionate number of small business loans especially in smaller markets we serve small businesses with customized
▶ 0:40:35products and personalized services that can only be provided by locally based on the ground lenders we lend based on firsthand knowledge of our customers and our communities that is what sets us apart from larger outof market competitors and importantly my bank is a small business as defined by the SBA and within this jurisdiction of this committee we are a small business helping small businesses the same is true a thousands
▶ 0:41:05of Community Banks many of which are family-owned just like the local coffee shop on Main Street many Community Banks like my bank are also SBA lenders and we share with this committee a commitment to protecting the Integrity of the SBA guaranteed loan programs with stability in its products and services today I want to talk about the remarkable resilience and the new optimism I'm seeing in our markets and focus on a couple of proposals from our agenda for the
▶ 0:41:36new Congress which is attached to my written statement you see the phones are ringing again with small businesses in my footprint eager to expand with Community Bank credit my written statement contains a compelling story of a restaurant supply company seeking credit to meet demand from new and upgrading restaurants it's an example of growth based upon business optimism and our small business lending capacity could be further enhanced by Regulatory and
▶ 0:42:06tax relief today's market optimism is based upon an expectation of new policies that will spur economic growth and job creation it's our job to deliver on that expectation top of mind for Community Banks and small business Borrowers is the destructive impact of section 1071 of Dodd Frank act which requires Community Banks to collect granular and invasive data on small business loan applicants small business
▶ 0:42:36lending is not and should not be a commodity underwriting is based on numerous borrower characteristics and Market variables and Loans are typically customized to give borrowers the best chance of success the data collected under 1071 will not reflect the full scope of underwriting and may suggest discrimination where none exist Bank examiners are really best positioned to make this judgment and the application
▶ 0:43:07of fair lending and CRA laws section 1071 is simply the wrong tool for this job lenders will respond by standardizing loan features to protect themselves from charges of discrimination but please keep in mind minority and women borrowers whom this role is supposed to help often benefit from that customized lending with the new Congress and administration you have an opportunity to revisit and this time fully repeal
▶ 0:43:37section 1071 icba strongly supports and thanks chairman Williams for his 1071 repeal to protect small business Lending Act we ask members of this committee to support this critical Bill a few other icba priorities for this Congress include updating regular atory thresholds so that Community Banks are not subject to regulations designed for the largest of Banks and doing so will create regulatory relief
▶ 0:44:07that will allow us to better serve our customers and in the coming tax debate we urge permanent extension of the deduction for pass through business income under 199a the loss of this deduction would amount to a steep tax increase for the vast majority of small businesses in including nearly 1,500 sub chapter S Community Banks thank you for allowing the Community Bank perspective and I'm happy to answer any questions you may
▶ 0:44:38have thank you very much and I now recognize Miss Moon Nel and I heard when the ranking member introduced you $12 million worth of ice cream that's a lot of ice cream so I'm anxious to hear about that okay thank you chairman chairman Williams ranking member of Vasquez and members of the committee I'm I'm honored to be here today my name is Molly moon Nell CEO of Molly Moon's homemade ice cream in Washington state I'm also a founding member of the Main Street Alliance which represents over 30,000
▶ 0:45:08small businesses Nationwide and a proud member of moms rising at Molly Moons we employ about 200 people across Ice Nine ice cream shops and our products are sold across our region next week we'll begin construction on three more locations in part funded by SBA we are a growing thriving business today we've been asked to highlight some of the real challenges facing small businesses and what you all can do to improve the health of the small business economy
▶ 0:45:39but the title of this hearing Hope on the horizon and this committee statement that President Trump's policies put America First are at odds with the reality that the president's current and proposed actions are gutting the engine of the American economy Main businesses his policies have disadvantaged small businesses against our larger competitors in the tax code of the US economy but there are concrete ways this committee can support Main Street America First our tax code isn't working for Main Street
▶ 0:46:09businesses we need to fix the tax cuts and jobs act to Target 199a deduction relief to smaller operators not just big corporations and the IRS must be fully funded not gutted in order to enforce the law and ensure the giant companies and the wealthy people people who run them pay their share second let's use the revenue from Fair enforcement of the tax code to invest in a national Child Care System Paid Family and Medical Leave and Affordable
▶ 0:46:40Health Care at Molly Moons we invest $11,000 per month toward child care for each employes child and the returns have been tremendous since launching this program we've seen a rise in parents able to work full-time and apply for promotions into management because they can now afford the child care to work during our busiest hours we've even had babies brought into this world because women who work for us realized they could afford to grow their families with reduced child
▶ 0:47:10care costs factored in the ROI on this Workforce stabilization has been huge and the babies are real cute but as much as I love leading on this issue we do it because Congress has failed to create a child care infrastructure that supports our nation's Workforce third every small business owner I know and every business in America is incredibly concerned about a global trade War and the general chaos creation policies we've seen in the federal government
▶ 0:47:40in the last few weeks being so worried about what's coming next and trying to safeguard against it has negative impacts on our operations profits and communities small businesses depend on each other and many other businesses around the world we depend on a functional small business administration and sound economic policies but any tariffs and even the threats of them will increase costs raising prices even higher for families raising inflation again
▶ 0:48:11this is the opposite of the of President Trump's and many Republicans campaign promises to America as just one example a quarter of all the produce consumed in the US is grown in Mexico and an ice cream shop restaurant or grocer store will be devastated by a 25% tax on those fruit and vegetable costs extrapolate that one example over all small businesses most of whom operate in the global economy for ingredients parts or their whole product and we're driving
▶ 0:48:41toward recession we don't need a global trade War to destabilize our economy or more tax cuts for the biggest corporations we need a fair tax code stable economic policies and a healthy available Workforce so that Main Street and small businesses can Thrive with your help I hope a bright future for small business is possible thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions from the committee lady y's back uh we'll now move to the member questions
▶ 0:49:11under the five minute rule uh I recognize myself for five minutes Mr Frasier uh I'm Sorry Miss Frasier uh small businesses have faced unprecedented economic challenges such as inflation and Rising interest rates and which threaten their ability to access Capital as you all well know uh access to Capital is essential to any growing aspiring business so yet instead of helping Main Street America under the Biden Administration the cfpb implemented the 1071 rule which you mentioned which put an even
▶ 0:49:42heavier burden on small financial institutions that were struggling to keep up with Rising interest rates so I recently introduced the 1071 repeal to protect small business Lending Act which would immediately repeal cfpb's small business killing rule how would an immediate repeal of the 1071 rule ensure that Community Banks can continue providing affordable lending options to small owners thank you Mr chairman I can give you an example of the impact there's over 81
▶ 0:50:12different data decision points that we would need to collect and and decide upon in evaluating or just taking the application and when I think about my bank and the number of loans that were small businesses in the past two years it was over 237 loans for $140 million multiply that each one by 81 points that we need to First make a decision upon and collect and then report upon and so the only way that that could be
▶ 0:50:42possible is to continue to evaluate technology and use of AI which then doesn't Focus us on the conversations or building the relationships or giving the advice and counsel many smalla businesses need so I I hope those give you some illustrations of what that impact would do for us absolutely uh Mr new uh in the final days as president uh President Biden sought to ban and offshore oil and gas leases in vast offshore areas if not for president Trump issuing several executive orders
▶ 0:51:12on his first day in office to appeal these efforts the band would have covered more than 625 million Acres representing the largest withdrawal of offshore oil and gas lease in US history so uh how will president Trump's actions help your industry thrive and meet the demands of the offshore oil and gas sector uh thank you Mr chairman um you know it's really about having access to lands to Where to drill uh unlike on Shore where a lot of the uh oil and gas production is on
▶ 0:51:42private land uh in the federal offshore Waters it's all federal lands so it depends on the federal government to basically be the the land owner the judge the jury and the Executioner so when uh when there's Le not leases available our customers my customers don't have opportunities to drill and you know like I say it's it's a pipeline so it's not just the lease today if you lease today it's going to be you know it may be 10 years
▶ 0:52:12before there's production but there's a lot of activities that have to go on to get to that stage and if we're not leasing today we're not going to have those activities over the next 10 years and that production I got a limited amount of time so Mr hutter let me just ask you a short question here can you explain how dangerous and overbearing regulations have impacted your business so I think that one of the things to all remember
▶ 0:52:43uh for our smaller businesses particularly is certainty uh goes a long long way and well I think you know we don't argue against uh regulations that make the rules clear and um you know work toward goals of making our people safer and the impacts that we make on our communities only positive ones I would say generally regulations need to be thought of um in in terms of their Clarity in terms of their workability and in terms of making
▶ 0:53:13sure we don't put in uh constraints on things that get out over the skis of Science and let me explain real quickly on that one when it comes to things like materials uh pasas restrictions for example I think is a good one there are things in our defense supply chain that simply don't have substitutes and the healthcare sector sector would be similar to the ethylene oxide uh restrictions that are being considered right there's no similar disinfectant gas and when you talk about products that have a certific certification
▶ 0:53:43cycle that lasts the better part of a decade having a sudden need to swap a key component or material in your product um and then put the recertification and test requirements on top of that that are necessary to ensure that well if you're making something that's going to an aircraft engine to a civil airliner uh that we're all safe and secure aboard that airplane look there are things that uh make that nearly impossible so I would just really say that it's important to be very clear on what the reality
▶ 0:54:13Science and Technology wise is before we go and put forward a regulation demanding the impossible thank you my time is up I now recognize the ranking member for five minutes of questions thank you thank you Mr chairman Miss Nel um president Trump re-entered office on promises to immediately lower egg prices however in the past week the national average Warehouse delivery price for conventional large white EG Rose to
▶ 0:54:456.70 per dozen from 5.87 on January 20th when he took office um any comments on yes egg prices have risen there's also an egg shortage in America um the instability in food prices is only going to get worse as we understand um more about the trade war and restaurants
▶ 0:55:15and ice cream shops and grocery stores operate on the thinnest margins of most Main Street businesses we simply can't afford prices to increase in any of our cost of goods thank you on Saturday president Trump enacted a 25% tax on goods from our trade allies Canada Mexico and a 10% tax on goods from China the nonp partisan Peterson uh Institute reports that this taxes will spike out
▶ 0:55:45our inflation and cut our GDP over the next few years Mr chairman I request unanimous consent to enter the report into the record Miss Nel you that these tariffs will cost you a 100,000 extra on ice cream cups and containers alone will you be forced to pass this cause onto consumers yes if these tariffs go through I will have to raise my prices and we all know that two business hours into Monday
▶ 0:56:15president Trump post his tarff on Mexico was that chaotic for your business and how harmful was that chaos yeah that that was very chaotic we are wondering where fruit and paper products are going to come from and how um how we will make up the costs Miss Nel president Trump is placing the richest man in the world and the owner of several large Tech corporations Elon mosque
▶ 0:56:46in charge of the federal government without the guardrails of typical federal employment do you think this will make federal agencies pay more attention to the needs of small businesses like yours or bigger corporations it will absolutely make the federal government pay more attention to bigger corporations and Mr mosque had the highest ranking civil servant at the treasury Department removed from their reluctance to give
▶ 0:57:16him unrestricted access to a sensitive payment system used to pay out more than $6 trillion dollar a year in Social security Medicare government contract payments and tax reforms are you comfortable letting this unelected man have this data on federal payments to you and your fellow Americans no every person I have talked to in the last two
▶ 0:57:46weeks and especially the last two days every American is scared of Alon musk being given the keys to our government thank you and the federal government has increasingly used continuing resolutions to fund vital programs rather than more stable yearly budgets as a small business owner who receives services from the SBA is this approach to Public Service funding helpful no
▶ 0:58:17why not I wish that Congress could work together to pass real budgets that are longer term and um intentional with the priorities of Main Street businesses at the heart of the concern so here we are we always say that certainty is so important for small businesses in order to plan ahead and yet the federal government cannot provide that
▶ 0:58:51certainty regarding uh the type of uh IM rants who have uh work permits the president issue a a an executive order to deport those immigrants what effect will that have on small businesses Main Street small businesses losing farmers who have work permits in the United States will devastate
▶ 0:59:22the food system in America we need those workers in order to feed our families and our children thank you I back uh thank you Mr lasis she yields back and now I now recognize Miss vany from the great state of Texas for five minutes thank you very much Mr chairman and I want to thank all of our Witnesses for joining us today um Mr chairman I asked for unanimous consent to submit for the record that the prime minister of Canada's statement announcing border Protections in direct
▶ 0:59:52response to president Trump's proposed tariffs we've heard some conversations this morning how bad tariffs are but the fact is is that what we've seen over the last several days is that we've had uh countries Canada um um Mexico uh Colombia that have actually agreed now to help us uh the United States with a number of different things from securing our borders to preventing fentanyl deaths I think those are really important as opposed to just uh a looking at how much we're going to be able to save on a
▶ 1:00:22grapefruit um you know I've heard some conver some criticisms this morning on on musk and how he's not running um our our typical federal government programs I'm going to ask anybody have our typical Federal programs and how we've typically been running the federal government helped any of your businesses or has it gotten us into
▶ 1:00:56appreciate the additional $11.4 trillion of extra money that businesses are having to spend including and especially small businesses we've also heard how dangerous it is that uh Mr musk who is an advisor to an elected president how dangerous his regulations are and because he's an unelected um um person does anybody know how many bureaucrats in our government and our agencies that are making these decisions how many of them are elected
▶ 1:01:29Moon he's not been confirmed by Congress um he's an adviser to the president he is not it's not part of the cabinet not necessary for confirmation but even people who are confirmed are not elected but what we have seen is so many of these bureaucrats over and over again are making the decisions and a lot of times we pass laws but the regulations that these that these agencies are putting don't even reflect the intent and in sometimes are in direct conflict with our laws and none of them are elected
▶ 1:01:59and I think what you have seen is the American public is sick of it they want to have a difference in how government is typically run for those exact reasons I appreciate you being here look I love ice cream and I'm happy that you're you're contributing you know to our our economic growth but I think we also need to get real heal and as we kick off the 119th Congress we we have an incredible opportunity right now to undo many of the harms that has been done to small businesses by the Biden Harris Administration and we can enact meaningful
▶ 1:02:30progrowth reforms and you know we saw a recent report from the National Association of Manufacturers that revealed that if the tax the Trump tax cuts are not renewed that in Texas 24th district alone that 27,000 jobs and $2.6 billion do in wages and 5.3 billion dollar in GDP just in Texas 24th district are at risk so Mr Hunter as the CEO of a Manufacturing Company what tax policies are most important to small businesses
▶ 1:03:00like yours sure now thanks for the opportunity I I think I would choose to focus first on something we that demands immediate attention because it's already expired and it's the inability to no longer expend the abil inability to any longer expense uh research and development it's important for everyone to remember that R&D where we tend to think about that as being the research behind the amazing new products that America is famous for it's really also about the amazing new processes that America is famous for and
▶ 1:03:30one of the things that we are absolutely best at and makes this country the most competitive is our Innovation around manufacturing and so at a time when we really are enjoying low unemployment and we have an opportunity to get even greater value deployed for our country through the amazing talent on our teams what do we need we need to have the ability to invest in Capital Equipment that makes unleashes their capability and puts new productivity in the hands of our people and we need to have incentive
▶ 1:04:01or at least the the removal of disincentive to invest in that very research and development that creates the new processes that will utilize that equipment those tools and enable that Talent the the the upshot of all this is not just continuing to preserve and strengthen American competitiveness economically supporting our defense industrial base always something I'm happy to talk about but most importantly of all it's an opportunity to raise to actually raise the value of the work the Great American talent is doing well I I love that and and nowhere
▶ 1:04:31in there did I hear you say that we needed to have more regulations uh in response to concerns that I've heard from small businesses in in north Texas and actually around the the country I reintroduced yesterday small business regulatory reduction act um and I'm looking forward to looking at those cost regulations to small businesses and require that the SBA ensure that the regulations are cost neutral and with that I yield back lady Yo's back I now recognize Mr Garvey from the great state of Kentucky for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman I appreciate that Mr chairman let me also start
▶ 1:05:01off by offering my my condolences and our prayers to you and everything you're going through we've been thinking about you a lot it's good to be back here um Miss Moon appreciate you being here today uh in 1942 it was Winston Churchill who wrote to the British wartime minister of food that Americans are quote great addicts of ice cream which is said to ride drinks I'm born and raised in Kentucky and I just say why can't
▶ 1:05:31we love uh but I think there's been a lot of really good points brought up here today and I want to address a few of those because in this particular instance I do think there is a link between what you're experiencing with your ice cream business and what we are seeing at our distilleries in Kentucky as a result of the Trump tariffs and the chaos that he has thrown the economy into um there is in Kentucky right now we see it
▶ 1:06:02bourbon has to be made in America 95% of the world's bourbon is made in Kentucky but it just has to be made in America we also get 100% of the good stuff um but it's not going to incentivize new Manufacturing in America to do this we saw this in the first round of tariffs the retaliatory tariffs placed on American products like bourbon cost hundreds of millions of dollars to my these don't just impact a company's Bottom Line This is everybody from the farmers who grow the corn the Coopers who put it in the barrel
▶ 1:06:32the union workers who put it in the bottle the truck drivers who take it to the store the stores like yours that sell the product the consumers who buy it it is harmful to everyone down the line and what we're seeing right now with these tariffs and what they've resulted in throwing our economy into work it's not over it's not over it's just a pause right now uh there are people who are going to bed in Kentucky going what is going to happen to the economy what is going to happen to our business and what do we get for
▶ 1:07:02it all the reports are really modest not much uh Donald Trump has erased billions of dollars in market capitalization he's thrown districts like mine into chaos with these tariffs but there's not a lot of actual real new behavior from a place like Canada Canada seized 43 pounds of fentel On the Border last year uh the Canadian papers and other places are are sort of running that that we lost the deal on this um what we want in this committee and what
▶ 1:07:32I've enjoyed about the nature of this committee is is the bipartisan nature of it that we actually want our small businesses to flourish what every congressional district here has is an economy that is driven by small businesses we want those to work so when we talk about these tariffs and the impact that they have on small businesses you started to hit on this I know you get a lot of your your products locally sourced from the Northwest but you can't get it
▶ 1:08:02all from correct correct a and so do you have to buy coffee or or chocolate or or things from other countries we buy sugar chocolate coffee and tea and paper products from outside of the United States and and you said this would have a $100,000 imp on your business alone in selling ice cream that's just the if there were tariffs on our paper products yes just on
▶ 1:08:32the paper products expanded beyond that it's going to be even more of an impact correct a question I I honestly don't know the answer to do you think this you talked about you'd have to pass this on to the consumers what does that actually do to your business do the consumers absorb all that cost yeah so when food prices are higher in America it makes people go out to eat less often I am very dependent on people going out to dinner and then walking down to the ice cream shop afterward
▶ 1:09:02the small business economy is especially intertwined with each other so vegetable costs at the restaurants down the street matter just as much to me as my own cost of goods and I'm extremely worried about restaurants yeah and so I think we see the impact the the ripple effect this has and will have on your employees and of course I love what you're doing with child care I truly wish we were doing more with child care in Congress we knew too that is absolutely an
▶ 1:09:33economic development tools as well as a crisis that we have in this country not having enough child care but when this impacts a business like yours it impacts other businesses impacts your employees impacts the child care you're providing uh and I think we see the ripple effect so appreciate that and hope we can continue to provide some relief for small businesses up here Mr chairman I back gentlemen yelds back I now recognize Mr Elie from the great state of Texas for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and I uh send my condolences to you and your family as well
▶ 1:10:03uh for the loss of your of your bride um Mr hutter uh Welcome to our to our hearing as a Aviator myself would you tell me what ex let let's say what is your what is your premere part that goes into an aircraft that we would all know when we manufacture um about 5,000 Parts uh that go into the engine the cells of every U Boeing 737
▶ 1:10:34and Airbus A320 Boeing 78 787 a350 uh of course it contains and surrounds the engines and you created this part and are the sole proprietor of it for as a as a small business nobody does what you do correct you we're proud to have H quite a few things that have been both IP protected but also trade secret protected and we maintain those positions by just being the best okay so what is an example of the regulation that's held back your business from growing uh because this Aviation is highly
▶ 1:11:04regulated because it's all about safety we're not going to discuss what has happened the last week uh but that's why the regulations are so high are they cumbers are there some that are unnecessary and too cumbersome for you yeah know it's a great question of course um you know thank you for the reference to the tragedies of the last week it was a reminder why uh regulations not only are not all bad uh they're really critical for us to deliver the safety record that we have in this country but there are some that as I mentioned earlier um just don't make sense
▶ 1:11:35or are pretty unworkable if not impossible for small businesses um you know our our businesses are small but they're great ones too if we can be allowed to get to the work that we've been set out to do and there are a great number of uh regulations and I'm thinking of some that even are born of SEC regulation okay previously we had the conflict minerals uh Source tracing uh we have the opportunity to potentially see something similar in some of the
▶ 1:12:05greenhouse gas emissions regulations is the chance that let's you know get this stuff right and and do it in a way that is workable and where I'm headed here is you've got regulations that are uh targeted at and um made the responsibility of publicly traded companies or large companies like our customers and whether they are right wrong or indifferent at that level here's what happens at my level the reporting requirements the data collection requirements that come rolling down through the supply chain and 60 to 70% of the
▶ 1:12:35Aerospace supply chain civil and defense is not at those big names that you see on the the stock ticker they're a companies like ours small businesses and just the effort to go get the data and feed it back Upstream to serve those compliance needs requires you know a a team that I don't have and the people that would go to do that kind of analytical and research work are the very same Talent on my lean mean team that are would otherwise be focusing their efforts on improving our production and scheduling
▶ 1:13:05our reliability our economy maybe even our direct impact uh to our employees around safety or around environmental responsibility instead they're off on this you know research project supporting a regulation that I don't even know that the government knows what it's going to do with the data and they don't know the second second third order effects if you go out of business we don't make 737s it's as simple as that no sir and I think that that reaches across some of these things like availability of certain materials uh the stability of energy Supply
▶ 1:13:36we better understand what we're doing before we shut off the tap on something that could bring things to a stop real fast sounds a lot like the banking for the Community Banks I mean if you just change the wording just a little bit it sounds exactly the same way and Mr new we're just about out of time so it sounds like I know in your industry the same kind of same kind of uh regulations uh have have an effect uh Miss nitel I want to thank you for being here I am an addict of ice cream I can't wait to try the yeti I just want to point out that um
▶ 1:14:06you're talking about a shortage of eggs the Trump Administration has been in power for less than two weeks there's no shortage of eggs because of Donald Trump it's bird flu and uh the requirement uh to kill a lot of chickens that has caused a shortage that has been ongoing for several years in the United States now has nothing to do with tariffs which I might add are not actually in effect it was a negotiating point but I'd also like to add let's be clear I I mean I'm I am
▶ 1:14:36ex extremely impressed with your with your desire to uh start a business I wish I could start an ice cream business but keep in mind there are consequences for choices that you make for instance you know you don't do you allow police in your store if armed I do you do but you didn't in 2020 correct correct okay well there are consequences for not allowing cops in the chop area which ended up devastating your business so I think we ought to keep in mind cause and effect in
▶ 1:15:07small businesses and some of those choices you made uh Prov to to harm your own business so thank you gentlemen E's back I now recognize Mr mver from uh New Jersey for five minutes thank you uh so much chair and to ranking member and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today and Mr chair I offer my condolences to you and your family as well and my prayers to you all um we all know that small businesses are the backbone of the American
▶ 1:15:37Workforce and the driving force behind the American dream uh we've heard many of our uh Witnesses talk about that today and many uh members of Congress talk about that in my district alone thousands of small businesses Thrive employing tens of thousands of hardworking individuals many from women and immigrant communities just two weeks ago one of my small businesses experienced an unjust rid by Ice agents resulting in the arrest of three employees and the detention in questioning
▶ 1:16:07of several others this raid created widespread fear within the entire Community disrupted business operations and imposed undue hardship on the establishment um and the dedicated workers there I spoke to this community this morning the leader one of my council members and a mayor of this community and they indicated to me that about 25% to 30% drop they've seen in the small business um and the small businesses you know folks coming in to support small businesses and shops
▶ 1:16:37and the locals there which which this is a very thriving community on small businesses um it's a definitely a hardship I mean it's it it's created so much of a a fear that people are scared to come outside in this community um and Miss n so you talked about it when our ranking member asked you about what does it mean when you know immigrants are not showing up to work on farms and they're not coming to work and you talked about the you know the the impact it would have on our food systems but can you elaborate
▶ 1:17:08a little bit more on um what the profit margins would be the impact on the profit margins itself um for small businesses because of such if Farmers can't get their employees to come to work because they're so scared of ice raids then restaurants and grocery stores and ice cream shops won't have the produce that we need to make our products if we don't have what our customers want like that Yeti ice cream
▶ 1:17:38we're not going to have customers walking in our doors it will bring the entire small business economy to a halt correct thank you for that and I'm sure like I mentioned about my East War community in the city of nework already experiencing that uh when folks are not coming into shop and support small businesses I just want us all to think about this uh from both sides of the ows as we begin our work here um in this new Congress uh that seems like it's already been 25 years in this new Congress already but only a
▶ 1:18:09couple of weeks in that it's imperative that we you know prioritize the protection of all businesses and the individuals who contribute their success um contribute to their success safeguarding their well-being is essential to maintaining the strength of our local economies and preserving the opportunities that small businesses provide so thank you so much and with that I yield back lady y's back I now recognize Mr Alford from the gra state of Missouri for five minutes uh thank
▶ 1:18:39you Mr chair again our sympathies to you and your great family down in Texas running a great small business there for the loss of your Patty uh thank you to our Witnesses for being here today appreciate that this committee stands as a staunch advocate for Main Street America if we do not Champion Main Street interests we risk losing the small businesses that are integral part of the fabric of America small businesses spent the last four years under attack from a lethal combination of inflation and overregulation
▶ 1:19:09this committee is here to assure small business owners that these attacks are over the Trump Administration and a unified Republican Congress are here to fight for you to ensure that everyone can live the American dream throughout President Biden's term federal agencies finalized more than 1,000 regulations costing small businesses more than 1.7 trillion that's
▶ 1:19:39the same as the entire Federal discretionary budget for fiscal 23 it is unacceptable that federal agencies can put this burden on the taxpayers of this country and with Elon Musk in charge of the Department of government efficiency we will in the federal government's attack on businesses through a letter dated February 3rd and here in this very committee room ranking member Velasquez and committee Democrats have raised concerns about Doge being granted access to small business
▶ 1:20:10administration systems well with all due respect to the ranking member who is now leaving this committee room this is exactly what Americans voted for last November 5th the American people are sick and tired of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats wasting billions of dollars taxpayer dollars the PPP and Idol programs wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent covid loans estimates vary but most agree that over
▶ 1:20:40$200 billion was fraudulent the American people elected president Trump to clean up the corruption and waste in Washington maybe just maybe if committee Democrats joined the majority last Congress in investigating sba's LAX fraud controls and nearly non-existent efforts to reclaim taxpayer dollars then Doge would not need to now go inside the SBA I'm also enthused
▶ 1:21:10that President Trump has ordered federal workers back to their desks in the offices just down the street here as we saw on our visit to the SBA more than a year ago employee attendance was eager at best as chairman of the subcommittee on oversight I'll be working with ranking member Tran to ensure maximum efficiency and transparency by the SBA with two minutes left Miss Moon Nel a couple of questions for you how
▶ 1:21:40much is the price of an ice cream cone in your shop a small one let's just start with a small one a single scoop is 6.95 695 if the tariffs go tariffs go into effect what does the estimated price increase you will have to make on that product I have no idea because you take a guess nope 725 is it going to go up a dollar could be a dollar do you know why the tariffs are being used right
▶ 1:22:11now uh as a tool by President Trump is to shut down the illegal and illicit fitel that is coming to our country from Mexico and Canada that's killing more than 300 of our fellow citizens each and every year all 43 pounds of it from Canada I would submit to you that the threat of a tariff to stop this illegal drug trade and yes most of it is coming from Mexico is worth the added cost of an ice cream
▶ 1:22:41cone in America Miss Moon Nel do you hire any aliens I don't know you don't know you could be hiring illegal aliens we check the paperwork as per the regulation but you think some of them might be illegal here illegally I don't know why should uh any employee or any illegal alien uh be working in America to begin with every American deserves a job
▶ 1:23:11every US citizen or every person who lives in the Americas every American deserves a job sir I will take that as a US citizen why should anyone who is uh here with legal status be fearful of any ice raids the fear and intimidation of these ice raids reaches to every American citizen as well as well I I think legally you have no reason to be fearful and I do
▶ 1:23:42believe that a small increase in the price of ice cream is life is worth an American life so thank you and I you back gentleman yields back I now recognize Mr cisos from great state of California for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and uh I as well want to send along my sympathies uh to you and your family um for your loss thank you um January 24th the SBA updated its small business Contracting
▶ 1:24:12goals for the fiscal year 25 uh under President Trump SBA requires agencies to award at least 5% of all contracts to small disadvantages disadvantaged businesses that's a down 15% from the uh Biden Administration other Trump administrative trades include 5% or I should say targets include 5% for all federal uh Prime contracts going to women-owned small businesses and 5% to all federal Prime contracts going to
▶ 1:24:42service disabled veteran-owned small businesses 5% of all uh Prime contracts going to HUB Zone historically under uh underutilized business zones uh 3% um you know these Hub zones are are in my district including the cities of Almani Cina uza lente and more so Miss Frasier given these decreased targets what advice would you have for a small business small disadvantaged business looking to secure Capital uh as well as for
▶ 1:25:12veteran-owned small businesses and women small owned businesses thank you I would like to think that their opportunities continued Beyond maybe just those contract s uh we actually are u a bank for government contractors many of them do take advantage of the 8A and are able to use that to grow their revenues and some also partner up with some that are not AA to be able to use this um deliver their services and their products from that perspective so while
▶ 1:25:42the numbers may be down I think the opportunities for revenues continue to grow well but the likelihood is is that if if if these small dis small disadvantaged businesses are not going to receive as many contracts banks are probably going to be less likely to lend to them right the same thing as well as are women-owned businesses and Veteran owned businesses if if they're not going to get as much government contract business as they did in the past possibly there is that possibility as well I think the loans that they apply for are also relevant
▶ 1:26:13to the size of their business at that time and so sometimes all government contractors EB and flow with their revenues and the contracts that they win and so loan sizes also increase in decrease relative to that well but I think again right as it goes the least likely of their business decreasing because as we said right they're going to get Less business the chance of them kind of having to downsize means POS the possibility less capital for the businesses but with that I'll move on uh Miss
▶ 1:26:43Nel um I just want to commend you for your um your commitment to child care uh the investment that you have made with your business to benefit your employees I think should be commended and it should really be a model for other businesses so how could we as a committee how can we as a congress help you and other businesses like you that are making this investment uh and and as you stated in your your testimony I do think we need to do invest in in child
▶ 1:27:13care across the country but how can we help small businesses like you help their employees to make them better businesses you can help by creating a national Child Care Program that is cost-saving because of scale I uh putting a child in daycare in Seattle costs between $2500 and $3,000 a month that's far more than most of my employees pay in rent or mortgage payments so me investing $1,000 a month isn't even
▶ 1:27:43covering their costs but if we had a national child care system that provided subsidies or a robust child care you know facility system like most other developed Nations we could scale the lower the costs per child scale the program and stabilize the entire American Workforce allowing more women in particular to fully participate in the American economy thank you for that answer and as you stated also
▶ 1:28:14the the tariffs uh the negative effect it's going to have on your business uh with the raising of prices in my state of California and my community Comm down in Southern California has been devastated by fires uh many of the businesses one of the businesses in my district relies on products that have they have to come from other countries that they one of them being Canada others being Mexico um this is going to hurt their business uh Lumber a large amount of lumber that
▶ 1:28:44is now going to be needed to rebuild Southern California the cities of Altadena Pacific Palisades that's going to hurt the builders and with that I yield back gentleman yels back I now recognize Mr finstead from the great state of Minnesota for five minutes thank you chairman Williams uh for holding this important hearing today and thank you to the witnesses for taking time and being here I'd also like to take a moment uh Mr chairman to extend my condolences to you on the loss of Patty and just want you to know that
▶ 1:29:15continue to pray for you and and your family I'm honored to serve here on the small business committee for the 119th Congress as a small business owner myself and one of the very few real Farmers that gets to serve in Congress I know firsthand the impact that heavy-handed burdensome regulations have on our small business owners over the last four years Main Street businesses have been fighting to keep their doors open dealing with the impacts of inflation misguided regulation supply chain issues in an admin in an administrative state that does not put their priorities
▶ 1:29:45first I'm looking forward to the opportunity to make lasting changes that will allow our communities in southern Minnesota and across the country thrive with that being said uh Mr huter you talked in your testimony about uh the regulatory State permitting reform possibly needed and uh last Congress I was proud to have led the passage of a bipartisan uh bill called the prove it act which gives our small businesses a seat at the table and and a voice in the regulatory process do you feel like right now you have
▶ 1:30:15a voice in that process do you have an opportunity as you know we pass these well-intended laws in Congress the uh administrative state implements their rules and regulations and they they come to you and say Here's the hoops and Loops you have to you know jump through and walk through and hide under to to to uh comply do you have a voice in that process do you have an opportunity to ex ex express your additional cost and the burom burdensome regulatory state that that puts on your business do you have a voice at that table well
▶ 1:30:45first off I apologize I'm not familiar with the ACT but it sounds uh it sounds like a good one in the sense of giving that input we really uh rely largely on our manufacturers associations our Aerospace Industries Association to um try to be the interlocutor uh we would love to have more of a of a direct line of sight to that um and I think a good place where that shows up are things where we see that expansion and that roll out of more and more on the regulatory side um we're keeping
▶ 1:31:15c a close eye I should say on some of the EPA regulations particularly around the new source review and I just choose that one because as we look to revolutionize and modernize and grow um you know our manufacturing processes you have a scenario that traditionally was pretty lean and mean where um these types of small emitter permitting would happen at the at the local level at the municipal level and now we're seeing potentially the EPA knows Under the Tent to get involved in things that are only going to add a federal layer to that as
▶ 1:31:46well in a scenario that seems completely unwarranted so there's an example of something I would raise my hand and say is this really a good idea yeah thank you for that and uh so as you know business owners across the country have been tasked to comply with numerous regulations and it's had a major impact on their bottom line uh has been stated earlier $1.7 trillion over the last uh four years uh affecting small businesses with your business specifically can you give us a rough estimate of how much time and resources have you had to allocate towards uh compliance efforts
▶ 1:32:16in the last four years well uh the irony of course being that taking even more time to calculate that uh just puts bad on top of bad but it's hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and I say it's not just the time it's not just the dollars it's the scarce resources for talent who have to be redeployed to doing these these you know I call them intern projects if you will as opposed to uh really working on the business uh but you know for a company our size it actually we say over the last four years ranges into the millions to be sure
▶ 1:32:47yeah so as a small business owner uh myself you know I don't have a stable of lawyers or compliance officers or regular at experts to help me through that so it definitely cost uh our family business uh money so with what you've just stated what would you do uh in your small business with those dollars if you were able to deploy them in other ways well that that's pretty simple um we're heavy Believers in reinvestment and those dollars that uh weren't going to
▶ 1:33:17hiring an outside consultant or distracting our folks to go run the compliance activity would be going into direct imp for either our team and our business actually working on improved safety working on improved quality working on improved productivity and efficiency that's going to win tomorrow so um the dollars would be put you know as direct lead on target for the things that matter to make us more competitive and more successful in our mission yeah thank you for that and uh Miss Nel I just have to say thank you on behalf of the Dairy Farmers in southern
▶ 1:33:47Minnesota and across this country keep selling ice cream and Mr chairman this body was built on ice cream and bad decisions so with that I yield back from what I can see I think you're right next I'd now recognize Mr Tran from the grace State of California for five minutes thank you Mr chairman um and I too would like to share my uh condolences with you and your family and loss I look forward to uh working on this committee
▶ 1:34:17with under your leadership and the ranking members leadership and uh working with my colleagues here on this commit I grew up uh with a a small business background my parents had their own um Corner Market so the small business uh and being part of this committee is very important to me uh so important that you know I I believe that small businesses are the heart and soul of our community and the Heart and Soul of our uh economy
▶ 1:34:47uh I started a pharmacy and my own law practice as small business before coming to Congress so um appreciate being on this committee so my first question goes to uh Miss Nell uh access to healthcare is still a barrier to entrepreneurship in America for Americans uh looking to take a leap of faith and start a small business how would you expand Health Care through Medicaid and the ACA uh how do you think that would help Inspire entrepreneurs to join the business Community thank
▶ 1:35:17you for the question I do a lot of mentoring of young women and young people in general looking to start their own companies and a huge barrier to starting Innovative and helpful new businesses in our economy is that the entrepreneurs who have the great ideas can't leave their jobs because of health care if we had a national single Single Payer system that took care of every American it would free up that intellectual
▶ 1:35:48and inspirational um sort of heart of the American dream thank you uh Miss Frasier can you discuss what your financial institution is doing to help close racial and gender disparities in access to small business Capital oh I'd be happy to thank you um in we actually work together with three other financial institutions to start what we called a banking on diversity Loan program and uh well it actually ended up only being three institutions not four
▶ 1:36:18altogether one was was purchased ultimately we put out into the marketplace $1.5 million of zero interest rate loans to help minorities and those that were early stage businesses um overall so revenues were under a million most of the businesses were under a year old and to date um I'm really excited at the success of that program and how those businesses have grown thank you for that uh Mr hutter you've uh previously spoken about the shortage of skilled
▶ 1:36:48workers in this country and your firm has partnered with local community colleges to operate jobs training programs can you discuss the importance of Career and Technical education in addressing addressing that shortage sure absolutely and it's part of our our story of really being a high-tech manufacturer coming to Northern Nevada uh in the late 80s and um a community that's you know built its economy on gaming and tourism at that time and it we've been proud to be part of that Revolution and part of the key to making that happen
▶ 1:37:18has been the partnership with our local educational institutions and I will say as as important as it is is and our business to have you know bachelor's degreed and advanced degreed folks particularly in the technical side of things it is even more fundamental to have folks with the skills uh to be able to serve um at the tech you know kind of the technician level and we really turn to those Partnerships with our local community colleges for that and they're essential thank you as a followup to that do you think that more investment is needed in trade education stem education to
▶ 1:37:48maintain and expand the workforce yes I I do believe that that is uh is critical and it can come from a few different directions um but a key aspect of that is really um being done in a context of Engagement with industry so we make sure that the investment in curriculum and the investment in in Laboratories and whatever it may be actually matches the needs of business and we've found that to be a really great partnership but uh we definitely support that thank you so much Mr hutter Mr newu uh Miss Frasier
▶ 1:38:18Miss ditel thank you so much for being here with us and with that Mr chairman I yield back the Gent Yi I now recognize Mr Downing from the great state of Montana for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman um and thank you to our uh um Witnesses here so over the past four years montanans have watched as the Biden Administration did everything it could to put energy producers in our state and around the country out of business you know they almost succeeded you coal oil natural gas producers have been
▶ 1:38:48holding on by a thread as radical Green New Deal activists in the EPA and BL M revoked leases for mines and extraction facilities they closed off vast swaths of federal land uh to energy production and introduced rules and regulations specifically tailored to shut down these companies now this anti-energy stance had a negative impact outside of the energy sector small businesses especially in manufacturing you know require reliable access to cheap energy to make their products
▶ 1:39:19and operate successfully now we're entering into a brave world is cryptocurrency blockchain artificial intelligence integrate further into every sector of the economy our energy infrastructure and production capacity are nowhere near the size they need to be to manage this technological expansion Now unleashing American energy production is a priority for the Trump Administration and I look forward to working with them to do just that so my first question Mr new and thank you for being here you know over the past
▶ 1:39:49four years now have you seen a decline or a slowing of growth in your business due to the anti- oil and gas leasing policies of the Biden Administration yeah certainly uh you know our customers have slow walked projects they've canceled some projects uh because they couldn't get permits uh they were uncertain about the future and didn't wouldn't invest and uh today just this morning I read one of our customers a project that they've been
▶ 1:40:19talking about for about 5 years now uh they just just announced that they're probably not going to go ahead with that project now because it drug out so long that their main customer for this was an oil export terminal uh their main customer bailed out right because it was taking so long so would approving more leases for oil and gas production in the Gulf of America as the Trump Administration has promised improve your potential for growth absolutely if our our customers have to have access to
▶ 1:40:49leasing okay Mr new access to capital is significant issue for many small businesses especially in the energy energy sector now have you seen a decrease in Capital Access for your business or others in the energy sector due to a lack of regulatory certainty certainty and and if so how has this regulatory uncertainty affected your business yes I've seen it directly in uh particularly in some of the larger Banks Banks that I've done business with for many years basically
▶ 1:41:20told me that you know Bill we love you we love your business you do a great job but you're in the oil and gas business we can't lend to you anymore yeah thank thank you sir uh Mr hutter thank you for being here uh Joe Biden and Gary gendler's SEC and woke reinsurance companies have tried to shut down companies through the back door rather than the front door using ESG to restrict access to Capital at the expense of small business now how has this harmed your business and how can Congress make
▶ 1:41:50improvements um I'm not really in a position to comment on that directly because we haven't experienced uh the effects of that I know that we have small businesses smaller than us by far in our supply chain and I would just broadly say that um their access to Capital and their access to uh the things that make them successful are uh critical to me as well so um no direct experience well well thank you I I just as a a former Securities and insurance regulator have seen a lot of this happening so I appreciate that so I just
▶ 1:42:20want to thank you all for your testimony you know the past four years have been a Relentless struggle for American energy energy producers but with the Trump Administration prioritizing domestic energy dominance there is uh a reason for renewed optimism and you know the testimonies today have made it clear energy security is economic security uh it's National Security and moving forward we must cut through the regulatory red tape stifling small business especially those
▶ 1:42:50in manufacturing and energy production now I look forward to working alongside my colleagues in Congress uh in the Trump Administration to get this done uh thank you I yield My Time gentleman yields I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland Mr oeli for five minutes thank you very much uh I first want to just join this committee uh and all the members in sharing my condolences with the chair um and surrounding he and his family in our our prayers um thank you all for making the time to travel uh Miss Nel I'm looking forward next time for you bringing samples for
▶ 1:43:20us to have while we're here please um I I just want to open I've had a chance to listen quite a bit just two quick observations I know there's been a lot of back and forth about unelected bureaucrats um both Democrats and Republicans have have leveraged here I just hope that as we go about our work that we can agree on things like congress's fundamental power of the purse our legal authority to establish uh change and eliminate departments and I just hope that as we have those conversations conversations that I welcome uh that we do it through the
▶ 1:43:50wellestablished Democratic processes that this this country has been founded on for a very long time as it relates to tariffs I just want to remind especially relative to Canada we're talking about in fiscal year 24 1.5% of all apprehensions at the border were on the northern border just 1.5% um the last three fiscal years the amount of fentanyl that came from the northern border was less than 1% of all fentanyl seized and so if we're willing to change uh exchange a 25% increase on goods for that um I guess we should expect those
▶ 1:44:21numbers being zero uh and the coming year but we'll see what happens there um Mr hutter I I know on uh Congressman trans question uh you spoke about and I really appreciate your engagement with community colleges and stem and job training programs uh clearly you see the value in those Investments um I really appreciate also your uh conversation about engagement with industry uh prior to coming to Congress uh as Baltimore County Executive we both made our community colleges absolutely free to any family
▶ 1:44:51making $150,000 or less uh we also partnered with the uh nursing and healthc Care industry to create a pipeline a nursing pipeline program that actually for Democrats we would say we knocked down barriers to opportunity we invested in things like Child Care Transportation and housing perhaps from a republican perspective you can say we help people pull themselves up by their bootstraps um but would you say that if we engage in those conversations and find those gaps those are the kinds of Investments that we and Congress might want to continue to make to help
▶ 1:45:21more opportunities for your Workforce yeah I I think I think yes and I would want to make sure to capture that this is as much or more uh also an obligation responsibility of business itself and it has been very much that Partnership of the investment we put into our own training and development for folks and I think it's a key piece that differentiates us and makes us a great place to work and attracts the best talent but that happens uh in a context where we want to hire from our
▶ 1:45:51community versus draw people in from far and Far Away uh we want to build our community as we go and so I do think that uh you know it's all in the doing right um but from a concept standpoint of course um having a strong commitment in the uh Community to the education and um you know the training and I would say the overall uplift in the tone around the nobility of skilled trades uh is really critical that's great I appreciate that question hope to bring that forward
▶ 1:46:21uh as my time here and Congress continues uh and then miss Nel I just will conclude with a question for you um congratulations on the new shops that are coming uh I know that they as you've testified are funded in part with SBA Loans I just wanted to to give you a minute minute and a half here to any feedback that this committee might have in terms of what your interaction has been like what we might want to know to help make sure that other businesses who are looking to do similar work um can have access to it um this was my first time using this
▶ 1:46:52SBA Loan program I have been um I started my company with sort of friends and family investors and have just gone through a community bank without the guarantee of the SBA to grow my company for the last 17 years so this is my first experience and it's been fine I was listening to miss Fraser's testimony and thinking there are opportunities I think for us to chat about ways that both Main Street Alliance and um
▶ 1:47:22Miss Fraser and her banking organization could talk about bipartisan ways to maybe make it a little smoother it has been a very complicated process and I loved uh her comment about the 81 data points I have felt each of those 81 questions deeply um but the access to the capital and a stable SBA have been critical to my business's next phase of growth it's great well welcome the opportunity to work with both of you if we
▶ 1:47:52can can find those improvements in the years ahead with that I yield thank you the gentleman yields I now recognize Miss King Hines from the beautiful Northern Mariana Islands for five minutes thank you Mr chairman and I join the members in expressing my condolences to chair to the chairman um thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony today and for making time to be with us under SBA definitions all businesses in my district the Northern Mariana Islands are small businesses that is why I'm so grateful to serve on this important committee
▶ 1:48:22so I can speak about their challenges here in the 119th Congress businesses in my district operate in one of the most remote parts of our country this geographic isolation drives up operating costs limits access to customers and capital and in recent years we've seen a growing sense of hopelessness some would say straight up despair because our primary industry which is tourism has yet to recover from the impacts of covid-19 testimonies today cited
▶ 1:48:53a 2023 study of the National Association of Manufacturers which found that Federal Regulations cost an estimated 12,800 per employee across all sectors of the US economy and this highlights some of our challenges to put that figure in perspective in my district that would suggest that the cost of Regulatory Compliance in the northern Marianas is 38% of our total gross domestic product and 25% of all business Revenue made in the islands what makes
▶ 1:49:23this so challenging is despite the many one-size fits-all regulations there is no one-size fits-all application of benefits for small businesses in my district for example while SBA has made significant investments in the cnmi and response to natural disasters in the pandemic in programs like the sba's restaurant revitalization fund my district had the lowest approval rate in the nation with nearly 90% of applications denied despite the D need for
▶ 1:49:53Capital among entrepreneurs participation in sba's Flagship 7A loan guarantee program is far below National averages it is clear that the federal government must do more to recognize and address the realities of businesses in isolated communities like mine National policies already create challenges for small businesses but for places like the cnmi these challenges are magnified as this commit looks to support president Trump's effort to unleash small businesses in our community I ask that we take a critical look
▶ 1:50:23at how Congress can do more to support the unique needs of these businesses in areas like the Cami and do our part to break away from one-size fits-all policies on funding Capital Access labor and Market access it is around 2 a.m.
▶ 1:50:38now from where the people that I represent live we are 15 hours ahead of Washington DC and when the sun comes up in the mainland it's nighttime back home in many ways our Horizons are different I have seen the data that many businesses in the United States have rebounded from the pandemic and have grown Beyond it unfortunately the same cannot be said for the northern Marianas I do believe however that hope is on the horizon and I ask for this committee's partnership to make sure that despite the distance
▶ 1:51:08and the obstacles When Hope does make it over the horizon it's something that we can all celebrate so I'm here trying to be a better Champion for the people in my community and I I guess I'm I'm looking to um Champion policies that address uh rural isolated communities like mine and so this question is to you Miss Frasier um one of the biggest issues for businesses in my district is access to Capital traditional
▶ 1:51:38banking models often struggle to serve high cost low volume markets in sparsely populated areas like CI in your experience how can Federal policies better support Community Banks and small populations Center so they can extend Capital to businesses that are viable but geographically disadvantaged well thank you for that question I'm going to answer that with two fronts if I may and you you spoke about the one-size fits-all regulation and how it impacts the small businesses
▶ 1:52:08and it impacts us when banking regulations are one- siiz fits-all and it puts us in boxes and makes us have to operate very similar to much more out of Market larger competitors where you you what you've indicated is your businesses need that personal relationship they need that ability to have a banker that they can work with and help them with a customized product SBA with a guarantee or not it's how do those cash flows come into that business
▶ 1:52:39how can the bank help them support it when they need it the most so the tiered regulation recognizing thresholds would be critically important for us and I'm going to go back to the 1071 because if applied the way way it's intended or the way it's now currently written forget the 81 data data points it says that we have to separate the person from the decision and so the person that is actually working with the client understanding their business is not part of the decision and that
▶ 1:53:09can really impact the ultimate outcome thank you that um so one of the going back to these um one siiz fits-all regulations do you see a disproportionate impact with regards to rural banks in your experience I do you know I have the great benefit of visiting several States over the past year and meeting a lot of bankers and I've met Bankers that are running
▶ 1:53:39off of seven employees imagine trying to implement these regulations with seven employees but they're serving a tiny tiny Community with all that they need and so I it's it's unbearable for them to to bear that all right thank you thank you Mr chairman gent ladies time has expired I now now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey Dr Conway for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and thank you uh Witnesses for presenting yourself to us today um as I've listened to the uh comments today
▶ 1:54:09I have to say I'm a little bit surprised about uh the criticisms of the PRI Administration with respect to job growth uh we have uh 21 million businesses that were created the largest number in any single presidential term um 440,000 establishments per month uh 90% faster than during the pre-pandemic era we have uh growth and I know this is a concern to some of the administration that in fact a business owners among black households
▶ 1:54:40doubled uh 30-year high in business ownership for Latinos a 30-year High uh in business ownership for asian-americans as well um and uh we have seen that um while certainly inflation was a challenge um it is um well you have to accept food and energy now uh we're getting down to more normalized um more normalized um inflation uh in in this country as well so things are pretty strong when you compare us us to Europe we're
▶ 1:55:10well ahead of them where our economy is the Envy uh of the world when you compare it to other people and in fact China is experiencing deflation now uh and so um I think certainly we want to make sure that um uh our small businesses continue to thrive 90% of the jobs created by small businesses in this country they are we hear it all the time uh the backbone of our economy um 40 6% of all employees um um and um are
▶ 1:55:41employed by small business probably more than that and um and certainly a great um contribution to to new job growth so a small business is rightly the concern of the American people and certainly rightly the concern of the Congress I wanted to um make a comment we heard about tariffs this morning as well um and um you know tariffs whether they've gone into effect fully yet or not uh we've already seen that businesses have uh taken steps some have raised
▶ 1:56:11prices uh because of the instability caused by the back and forth over tariffs and indeed the threat of them has has um and those prices of course um you know Drive inflation we've heard already from our Witnesses today and others uh who have spoken from the de about uh the costs of inputs that will go up uh California needs to be rebuilt we heard that from now the the vice ranking member um uh about the need to rebuild California and the wood and the materials that are going to be needed to get that job accomplished
▶ 1:56:41under a system of the tariffs that are proposed if they go through are going to raise the cost of housing once again of course housing inflation was a huge issue uh for Americans uh in this last uh issue in my own State alone when you look at um our relationship trading relationship with Canada Canada is responsible for 17 a half billion uh uh uh to our economy in New Jersey it's it's a huge uh through the bilateral uh trade agreements um and and interaction with Canada each
▶ 1:57:11year in New Jersey alone so a tariff on on on Canada which will certainly impact our economy in the state of New Jersey and we don't want to we certainly don't want to see that um um and indeed we have um not quite as much with Mexico but we know tariffs um do little are little more than attacks on the American people will raise costs at a time when they're very concerned about costs they want to see cost down this was a promise I think you don't want to talk about what people voted on this last um election they voted on the promise of of
▶ 1:57:41a of the government taking on inflation I don't know how you do that exactly an economy that's not controlled but anyway that's the promise that was made people voted on that let's just hope that we uh as we move forward in these next four years keep the job growth going and and get inflation uh under uh control um Miss uh Nel uh can you um speak to us and you've probably done some of this already and and I'm sorry if uh if I'm repetitive here but um
▶ 1:58:12you run a small business you get inputs from uh from in country and over sees uh can you um uh perhaps elaborate more or um rehas emphasize uh the impact of tariffs tariffs on your own business and the cost of your inputs yes I have spoken a little bit about that but as I said um our paper products all come from uh overseas as do sugar coffee chocolate another concern that I have is our
▶ 1:58:43the dairy farm where I buy all of our milk and cream is a fantastic family-owned farm that is so far north that when I go visit those cows my cell phone connects to the Canadian cell towers they grow some of their feed for those dairy cows and they trade constantly with Canada our farmers in the Pacific Northwest have wonderful longlasting relationships trade relationships
▶ 1:59:14with our friends and allies to the north thank you Mr uh chairman thank you the gentlemen's time expired now recognize Mr bresenhan from the great state of Pennsylvania for 5 minutes thank you Mr chairman and to uh ranking member Val uquiz who um I'm so elited to see that finally cares about uh egg pricing in the United States on day 16 um but my first question actually is a little bit off of the cuff and is for Miss Moon Miss Moon
▶ 1:59:44you made reference earlier um about the amount of fentanyl that was seized at the southern border what was that number again the the northern border 43 lb from Canada sir are you aware of how many people would be killed if they consumed 43 pounds of fentanyl this isn't about fentanyl with Canada it's about bullying and Chaos creation well to me it's about the 12 million people that 43 lbs of fentanyl would kill which
▶ 2:00:14is more than the population of the state of Ohio specifically coming from someone who lost a 16-year-old cousin because of uh a fentanyl related situation so sorry for your loss thank you um and I think when you're talking and uh make comments that it's only 43 pounds I find that uh incredibly disheartening um my next comment would be on the the community banking side I come from a small business background um my family was very involved in a community bank and something that really
▶ 2:00:44allowed our small business to grow was because of our relationships with small business with small Community Banks um you know having The Lending officer the the person who truly understands your business what you're going through during the good and and the bad what are the biggest risks to Community Banks right now that you would see just a ongoing regulation um and a couple of the points I've talked about is just the impact of not recognizing the differences between the banks and the ones that
▶ 2:01:14you just mentioned that were so important that tiered regulation is is critically important that 1071 you know while I've touch touched on the data points I've touched on the separation of the decision it just forces those loans to be put much more into more of a database and AI decision and commoditizing them which I think is really really impactful and hurtful to small businesses because we do spend quite a bit of time coaching counseling and helping
▶ 2:01:44many of them grow from from an infancy of an idea all the way through to something much larger oh and definitely appreciate the role Community Banks play in the entrepreneurialship ecosystem it's something that I I struggle with and and advocated for through various different nonprofits that I was involved in through uh techbridge which which was an entrepreneurialship based board Junior achievements and it's those new businesses that are starting don't have access to Capital and I've had so many entrepreneurs come to me in my last
▶ 2:02:15life 30 three days ago saying how do I you know get a line of credit if they don't have a history of credit they don't you know they're financing their small businesses on top of credit cards what can Congress do to improve the accessibility of capital to that startup entrepreneur truly the American dream we really need to stabilize um the impact of of changing minds and thought processes around the SBA as well for those startup businesses um
▶ 2:02:45and to also consider through that process that the best people the best way to get those dollars implemented are through the Community Banks where the relationships can be formed and not through you know an online business that can fulfill the need to get Capital but they're not helping them grow their business Etc I would say that is one way another way is also improving Community Banks access to Capital because anytime we raise a dollar that's 10 times
▶ 2:03:16we can put out $10 we can put out into the community so any opportunities to impact our access to Capital whether it is changing the accredited investor um regulations and allowing it to be a million dollars including the house or in an a Subs where 1500 banks are Subs allowing more investors into those thank you for that I think that's going to be something that I would like to focus on and you know inspiring the next generation of entrepreneur
▶ 2:03:46but that barrier to enter into those markets and grow and expand just like I'm sure miss Moon had gone through when you were first starting your first ice cream shop um but that's the American dream and it should be incentivized and something is you know the burden the red tape to create your own destiny um is a a very challenging and scary concept sometimes um Mr hutter um I also come from the highway infrastructure background how have you been able to adapt to Tool up uh with the next generation of Workforce
▶ 2:04:16and are you seeing a pipeline of qualified individuals to offset your growth than operation well uh the top talent in the world is always going to be hard to come by and um we need to make more of it in the states and I think think more directly we need to unlock it more readily okay every American talented worker who's in my plant uh needs to benefit from immediate permitting reform immediate regulatory role back so that we
▶ 2:04:46can actually get their talents out there on the shop floor in larger more capable facilities that can do allow them to do more for our economy and for their families thank you you'll back gentleman's time has expired and I recognize Miss goodlander from the great St of New Hampshire for five minutes thank you Mr chairman I'm I'm so thrilled to be a part of this committee I um grateful to you all for being here today um I really I'm I'm I'm grateful to be part of this committee and excited because I really do believe that small businesses
▶ 2:05:17are one of the most hopeful expressions of the American dream and I say that as the great granddaughter of a family farmer the granddaughter of a serial entrepreneur who started out uh selling airplane rides at the Nash airport right down the road from where I grew up and the daughter of a small business entrepreneur you know uh I've just come back from nine days all around the great state of New Hampshire and thank you for recognizing it is a great state um my district spans from my hometown NASA all the way up
▶ 2:05:47to what we call the North Country the Canadian border and it it was nine counties that stretch across my district I spent a lot of time talking to small businesses um and one of the through lines in this hearing so far has been the need for certainty for small businesses um you said it well Mr huter that certainty uh it goes a long way and and it's Mission critical for so many small businesses in my state and across this country you know from from the last two weeks one of
▶ 2:06:17one of the big sources of uncertainty for small businesses um has been the threats of federal funding freezes including Following last week's um memorandum from The Office of Management and budget um to other executive actions that have been taken that have really called into question the availability of lawfully enacted Federal funding that reaches our communities um this isn't been abstract I'm hearing from small businesses and nonprofit organizations
▶ 2:06:47from Mayors from police Chiefs from Fire Chiefs um all across our communities who um continue to face uncertainty in in accessing the federal funding that is Promised uh to the people of New Hampshire and so I one of the questions I want to ask each of our Witnesses is you all rely on and work closely uh with the small business administration and with other federal agencies um could you starting with you miss Nell could you could you just tell us what communication if any or guidance
▶ 2:07:18you received from the small business administration or any other Federal Agency for that matter um that helped you navigate questions around the availability of federal funding and programs we work with a small Community Bank called People's Bank in Washington state and all of our communication has been with them we have had a we had a really productive conversation with the regional small business administrators um at the beginning of our loan process
▶ 2:07:48who were very informative uh one of the things I want to address about the federal funding freeze is that many child care providers in our community are extremely worried about the federal funding freeze and worried about being able to pay child care providers if workers in Seattle and across Washington State can't send their kids to those Child Care Centers the stops I I heard from many child care providers who were facing
▶ 2:08:18enormous uncertainty from small businesses across my district you know another another source of uncertainty is the threat of a trade war and and you've you've spoken to um the the real cost of that uncertainty for small businesses look I believe uh tariffs are an important tool that can create competition in our economy and and can do a lot of good um but the uncertainty that this has caused uh for small businesses across New Hampshire um is just unacceptable but I want to turn to something where I think we can
▶ 2:08:48we can all agree on and I was really grateful for your written testimony um in particular you miss Fraser what what you wrote about the importance of competition in the American economy I I spent um a good deal of time serving in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice and I'm very hopeful that this is going to be an area where we can agree um across the ideological Spectrum on the need for competition in the American economy um in your written testimony you you you spoke a bit about the impacts of consolidation um the impacts on Community Banks
▶ 2:09:18could could you say a bit more about the importance of competition and and and what it does um for the bottom line for the American people I think it well the competition between the banks I think what you find in Community Banks is that we're all working together to better the communities and if regulation continues to persist and grow and grow it makes it harder and harder for Community Banks to Survive and Thrive and often times there does continue
▶ 2:09:48to be consolidation and that's where I believe communities are impacted well I think it's true across the board um from our defense industrial base um to I'm sure the market for ice cream in the United States we see I see monopolies everywhere and I think this is an area where this committee can do a lot of a lot of good for small businesses and the American people so with that I yield back Mr chairman lady yields back and I recognize Mr muser from the great state of Pennsylvania for five minutes
▶ 2:10:18thank you Mr chairman thank you very much to our Witnesses appreciate appreciate you being here so I think it was you Mr hutter that said there is a renewed sense of optimism uh thankfully uh over the last four years we dealt with inflation in excess of 20% um gasoline prices uh through the roof literally bringing people to tears uh an overall energy crisis uh prohibitions um in Pennsylvania on the exporting of of LNG
▶ 2:10:49for no particular reason meanwhile we had a president that thought he only asked for a uh uh a survey to be taken as opposed to uh a complete prohibition uh border crisis that is you know an absolutely unmitigated disaster that includes human trafficking rape all kinds of horrible things I've been to the Border four times um uh drugs death uh hundreds of thousands of uh young people in particular lost their lives human trafficking even throughout
▶ 2:11:19my rural District Wars thousands and thousands tens of thousands of ukrainians and and Russians and dying uh mid um unrest in the Middle East to no end small businesses bringing it back home small businesses having some of the worst times ever from uncertainty uh loss of tax relief the uncertainty of losing the 199a uh certainly if there would have been a different president in there it would have been gone no question about it let's face it that's what they stated manufacturing
▶ 2:11:49is on a decline in in the United States it's it's on the upswing in China and other places um so all of this going on and it just it just can't help but be startling to hear to hear my my my good friends um uh on on the other side of the aisle talk about how wonderful things used to be and how horrible they are going to be and yet these tariffs haven't even got into yet and yet there's there's there's chaos
▶ 2:12:20right and everything else taking place um I'll tell you what has got into effect responses from Trudeau uh and shine bomb in Mexico as to correcting some of those horrible problems that have that have occurred so that has taken place and you know what's also startling to me and I was in international business I've been in business over 20 years um how somehow taxing those small companies that became big companies and that that makes them Evil by the way
▶ 2:12:51is is okay but put a tariff on a small or large business overseas that's awful that's going to create all kinds of worldwide instability and Global unrest I I think most of us would we'll pay a little more for ice cream in guacamole if we have less human trafficking and overdose deaths in the United States of America uh I I think that was resounded in the most recent
▶ 2:13:21so let's go let's uh let's focus on Common Sense rather than uh nonsense uh political posturing uh that that that we're hearing here um the importance of keeping the tax cuts and jobs act all right U you uh uh Mr hutter mentioned right right at the very beginning bonus depreciation is on its way out it's on the decline 199a is gone at the end of this year uh and we probably won't get uh Democrat support uh there that's why we need
▶ 2:13:51to do it in reconciliation uh which is an outrage the R&D tax credit is on its way is gone completely gone and by the way China has re-upped their R&D tax credit which you're nodding you're aware of they call it a super deduction of 200% so you know America First doesn't mean America alone America First means why don't we start looking after our American businesses as opposed to being this um Global charity uh which
▶ 2:14:22only only weakens uh our our United States of America so U Mr new um we're talking taxes regulations we're talking banking tell me what how important the 199a is how important taxes relief are to you and uh Miss Frasier I would like to you to you tell me soon as we're done here how much of a problem the cfpb has been to you or will they will they wonderful when they showed up in your
▶ 2:14:52uh in your bank I'll start with you if you don't mind Miss Frasier given the size of my bank they didn't show up in my bank were under 10 billion but their new regulations their laws have been quite Discerning and quite costly to us as we look at everything um our compliance department overall we looked at a budget is over a million dollars a year great can't pass that along do you think the plan moving forward is going to help your businesses gentlemen or be detrimental
▶ 2:15:22well certainly the lower tax rates and uh time is up allow I yield back Mr chairman gentleman he's back I now recognize Miss Morrison from the great state of Minnesota for five minutes thank you Mr chair and Mr chair I'd also like to offer my condolences and deep sympathy for your loss thank you to all the testifiers for uh being here today and congratulations to all of you for your successful small businesses and the import important addition that they um
▶ 2:15:53are making to the success of the American economy you know I'm excited to be on this committee because it's known as one of the less partisan committees and more focused on problem solving uh and that's why I came to Congress because I want to solve problems uh and I hope that uh going forward we continue to have a future oriented problem solving lens uh as we proceed um Mr hutter sincere gratitude to you for helping secure our nation's safety through um much of the work that your business does
▶ 2:16:23uh I hear and appreciate the frustration that comes with regulations and administrative burden I'm a physician by trade and I am very familiar with the pain of administrative burden uh that is heaped on Physicians frankly primarily from the private sector um so as we look to streamline the regulatory burden on small business um I hope we can agree that a balance has to be struck between keeping our people safe
▶ 2:16:54by protecting and doing what we can to keep our air land and water clean you know Mr hutter you mentioned posos which I think is a great example because as we learn new things we have to adapt we have to be nimble sometimes we have to change the way we do things and I think most of us agree that we want to minimize the amount of posos that that we continue to pour into our water and our land and by extension our bodies you mentioned that there aren't good current substit tions um for some of the posos
▶ 2:17:24chemicals um some of the properties that they have so in the short term I think we need targeted exceptions to some uh of the banss that certain states have been enacting and there's um legislation at the federal level as well that gives uh you know time for our Innovative research uh universities and entrepreneurs to develop Alternatives and I don't expect you to define the specifics around posos but I was wondering if you could comment on that balance between between regulations that protect Public Health while allowing
▶ 2:17:54and encouraging businesses to thrive sure and I I I like the way you framed that I think the key thing that I could say here is predictability Clarity and workability and we need to have that renovation Revolution if necessary to our regulatory scheme right now um you know the gentleman the doctor mentioned you know we have had a great recovery in job growth manufacturing has enjoyed that let's not trip ourselves at the
▶ 2:18:24starting line here because what comes next is going to define the next 50 years so we've got to and I call upon all of you let's let's really augur in on this and find the balance between um I mean it's not a balance I don't think there's a compromise we all want the same outcomes here in fact let's make sure that industry is best enabled to invest into the solutions let's trust our company to actually put money and talent and Innovation behind the
▶ 2:18:54problems and help us solve them together so I think that if we can agree on some clear actionable regulations in place of a Meandering evergrowing kind of miasma of unclear unpredictable I don't know if I can invest into this cloud or not we're going to we're going to see a lot more progress a lot faster thank you Mr huter Mr chair I yield back lady yields back on now recognize Mr Jack from the great state of Georgia for 5 minutes well thank you very
▶ 2:19:24much Mr chairman and I want to thank the witnesses for testifying today I am a a freshman and um during my last campaign or rather my first campaign for office deregulation was by far and away one of the most important things that I heard over and over across my district and I've got a unique background for from the first day to the last day of President Trump's first Administration I worked in his White House and one of the things that he tasked me with doing was working across his administration to achieve the two for one deregulatory
▶ 2:19:55cuts that he pledged during his campaign and of course he superseded that he had eight for one and as you may have seen he signed an executive order I think last week noting that he wants to do 10 for one uh cuts for every regulation on the books he wants to cut 10 existing regulations so I want to applaud you for walking us through some of the the areas in which we can focus our deregulatory agenda to achieve the economic success that we had in the first Administration um I I I want to start if I could to Mr huter in your testimony you referred to uh the 2017 tax cuts
▶ 2:20:25and jobs act um and I know my distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania Mr muser cover touched on it just a moment but you you mentioned specifically uh that it was rocket fuel for manufacturers like clickbond and you also mentioned that the pro manufacturing incentives in the tcja were key to Innovation and capital investment and thanks to Chairman Williams for appointing me the chairman of our subcommittee on Innovation entrepreneurship and Workforce Development I want to highlight that Innovation component and I just want to know could you reiterate the importance of the tcja
▶ 2:20:55incentives for small business like clickbond and investing in Next Generation manufacturing and Workforce training sure well the tcj like I said Rocket Fuel and we need to focus on getting those extensions enacted immediately where they did incentivize uh the very investments in um our companies and in our Capital Equipment that puts really those effective tools in the hands of our talent but I want to go beyond tcj say you know the R&D expens ability expiration is an aspect of tcj
▶ 2:21:26okay it was something we enjoyed for 70 years and when it comes prior to tcja so it's not just really the effort to um ensure that we extend and keep in place those amazing um investment incentives and the predictability that allowed us to uh make those investments into the long term we need to bring back the expired um Provisions that that have already gone out um gone out especially around R&D expensing and if we can do this in a way that again
▶ 2:21:56delivers that in a consistent reliable way without a bunch of sunsets we're actually going to get to the place where people can invest with confidence not just over a couple quarters or a couple of years but at generational level and that's what's really going to carry this company this country excuse me and our manufacturers forward but we got to get on it right now let's not trip at the start line like I said I completely agree um and if I could and my remaining time turned to Mr new I uh was encouraged by your opening testimony talking about permitting uh again
▶ 2:22:26I recall very fondly working on trying to accelerate our permitting process and I uh took great Delight when I saw the previous administration take credit for many of the permitting leases that we push forward during President Trump's Administration from 17 to 21 to your point it takes three to four years sometimes for some of these projects to come online we want to accelerate that as much as we can so with what time I have left um I'm curious how can Congress legislate safeguard to prevent future regulation efforts in your specifically well there's certainly
▶ 2:22:56um uh you know executive orders are fine but you know we see that you know one Administration comes in and they write a bunch of executive orders the next Administration comes in they immediately reverse all those and so it's kind of whipsawed back and forth and and but if you can enshrine some of those changes in the like changes in the outer continental shelf lands act would would uh withdrawal of areas for leasing if you can enshrine some of that where it's not subject to
▶ 2:23:26executive order uh then we don't have that whipsaw back and forth constantly changing every four years when there's a change in administration well and I I also took note during your open testimony you talked about how it's challenging if you're running a business when you've got this ever shifting regulatory landscape it's really challenging to project your growth I'm just curious in all of your years of uh your industry which Administration have you seen as the most successful at moving forth on deregulatory
▶ 2:23:57efforts well certainly the uh pre the previous Trump Administration I would say is probably the most successful in the re deregulatory area you know and I'm I would think like a lot of small businesses I'm not looking for a handout I'm just looking for a Level Playing Field and then get out of my way I'll do the work I'll invest the money I'll push it forward but just get out of my way don't don't stifle me every time I turn around
▶ 2:24:27well I appreciate that sir thank you all to each and every one of our Witnesses for testifying today and I yield back to our distinguished chairman Mr Williams gent yields back I now recognize Miss Scolton from the great state of Michigan for five minutes thank you so much uh Mr chairman and thank you so much to our Witnesses for joining us uh here today um I want to revisit important conversation that we've been having here about the tariffs and I know that you we've covered a lot of it today but one thing I really wanted to focus in on is this 30-day
▶ 2:24:57pause and you know while it has given businesses uh a little bit of reprieve to me and what I have heard from uh small business owners back home that is not much time to plan when who knows what is at uh the other end of those 30 days um we are you know so many of our small businesses and entrepreneurs are uh trying to compete in an increasingly unstable Marketplace
▶ 2:25:28uh and these tariffs could really throw them into a tail spin uh Miss Nell I wonder can you speak to how this impending change impacts your business operations and how you're navigating through this on such short notice and you know particularly to the 30-day piece sure yeah the uncertainty has you know put myself and my CFO in a pinch to figure out if we did have to pay
▶ 2:25:59say $112,000 more for our cost of goods because of these tariffs we don't have a plan for how to sell you know um a million dollars more of ice cream to make up that profit that is not something that I can do like that uh it's incredibly difficult and it's unnecessary it's fear-mongering it's bullying it's playing with the hearts of small business owners Across America who do not
▶ 2:26:29need this we've been doing well and growing for the last four years thank you uh so much for sharing that my District covers much of West Michigan Kent County uh the most populated county in my District home to uh almost 60,000 immigrants that's almost 9% of the County's population to suffice it to say uh these folks are a real Source uh of influence in our community
▶ 2:26:59they contribute culturally socially and certainly have a significant economic impact uh a strong presence in our local Workforce um many of our constituents are worried about the potential for Mass deportations having a ripple effect uh on a lot of um I believe that such actions could cause a real strain on our Workforce we know that mass deportations that don't necessarily
▶ 2:27:30uh Target only a specific individual um can cause individuals to even not show up to work if they themselves even have status but happen to be married to someone who doesn't or have uh someone in their family who doesn't um would Mass deportations uh make it more difficult for businesses like yours to find workers or or to navigate or the the impact that it speak about the impact that that would have I'm
▶ 2:28:00exteme extremely fearful for Mass deportation effect on farms in Washington state I think that yes it creates so much fear not just for adults not just for people who do have legal status but also for children and for schools I have received many emails from folks folks in Washington state about uh planned and threatened and rumored ice raids in our public schools in
▶ 2:28:30suburbs outside of Seattle and kids just need to go to school kids are going to grow up and start businesses and we need to stop threatening all of these families with the fear tactics thank you as a mom of two School aged kids uh and someone who has heard just awful stories from around our district um I I share those concerns and and we hear it um I want to use just the
▶ 2:29:00last few minutes uh here to get into um staying on the topic of kids uh and child care institutions like Head Start which provide educational Support Services to young children uh and families uh over 12 locations in Kent County uh in my district as I mentioned due to the federal funding freeze last week they're struggling to draw down payments that they need to continue their critical Services even after the memorandum has been rescinded we're still seeing roadblocks as an employer who helps their workers access child care
▶ 2:29:31and and kudos to you how do your businesses um would your businesses be impacted if those child care providers had to discontinue their services yes a threat to the child care system in our region and everywhere is a threat to workers being able to show up and do their jobs and it's a threat to us being able to be open time is up thank you I yield back thank you Mr chairman yields back I now recognize Mr stabber from the great state of Minnesota for five minutes thank you Mr chair
▶ 2:30:01uh for holding this important uh hearing today you know during the past uh four difficult years under the Biden Administration over 1100 regulations were added and I'll repeat that over 1100 regulations were added putting an orous pressure on our small businesses costing nearly $1.8 trillion adding more than 356 million hours of paperwork you know as we look forward to the future where
▶ 2:30:32we have to support policies that support small businesses and the growth of our small businesses it's important to understand the hurdles that still remain Mr new what are some of the most challenging regulations that you have faced when servicing the the office shore oil and gas Industries there's a number of regulations that apply directly not directly to us but to our customers that increase their cost of doing business uh doesn't
▶ 2:31:02permit them to do projects because the pro the uh permitting timeline is drawn out and that directly impact impacts Us in the fact that our business is totally dependent on our customers developing facilities and building new equipment and if they're not doing that then there's no work for us and that certainly uh you know obviously makes it a struggle to to maintain our employment and uh you know on the tax side
▶ 2:31:33you know every the particularly expend accelerated depreciation allows me to invest in new equipment what that does in the long run I mean that makes us more productive but what that does is that allows our employees to be more productive and that's the one area where you have La lasting wage growth is if my employees are more productive I can pay more and that's really when you look from an economic side that's the only place that can come from right has
▶ 2:32:03to come from enhanced productivity Mr hter same question what are some of the most challenging regulations that you have faced in your industry well said Mr new um I'd like to really focus that on permitting because if I may because I think that we're in a scenario right now where um to to secure the strategic materials that we need uh especially and I look at that through the defense supply chain uh we need to have uh sensible um mining permitting right we need to keep moving on this to
▶ 2:32:33secure the materials we need for our power supply now we're not extremely energy intensive ourselves we use input materials that need to be made here in the United States that require reliable and sizable energy inputs to create them alloyed Metals uh thermoplastics comeing and from Bill's side of the the world um and I I just would highlight on that permitting side that really we're talking about infrastructure of All Sorts here whether it's minerals extraction or whether it's power plants or whether it's distribution and other infrastructure
▶ 2:33:04and so when I think about the opportunities for power sources of the Future Okay modern advanced nuclear windmills solar panels all of these things have to be connected to the grid using uh infrastructure that has to be permitted we got to see this moment here for this country and we got to make that sensible and get going on it and one of the things that I really look forward to that I get to see in my slice of the the world are the opportunities for advanced aerial Mobility okay electrified or hydrogen enabled
▶ 2:33:34um clean transportation for the future well how are we going to distribute that electricity to airports and rooftops where they've never been before how are we going to develop that hydrogen infrastructure all of this is only going to move at the speed of Permitting and so we need to clean that now I really appreciate the the the permitting and the Nea uh regulations what are stifling growth I mean you look at an average mine opening in the United States of America is 29 years sure the only country that's longer is the country of Zambia give me a break right
▶ 2:34:05we need these minerals and we right we know right now China is using uh that against us they're stopping they're exporting antimon and other critical minerals that we need uh okay with the simple yes or no would you agree that extending the tax cutting jobs Act tax Provisions would have a positive impact on your ability to reinvest in your workfor uh Mr hutter absolutely Mr new absolutely Miss Fraser absolutely we've heard loud and clear
▶ 2:34:35that these tax credits are a Lifeline for small businesses my colleagues on the other other side of the house should remember this when they vote because standing in the way of these policies means standing in the way of Main Street America small businesses we've always said are the engine of our economy we have to protect them and allow them to grow and prosper on the streets of this great nation Mr Cher yel back gentlemen Ys back I now recognize Miss Simon from the great state of California
▶ 2:35:05for five minutes thank you so much and Mr chair like others on this committee I offer my condolences from a very deep place um also having lost my husband um I'm hoping that members in uh this building uh continue to shed love and prayers on you um for forever um and thank you for leading today I also want to thank you Mr chair for uh working
▶ 2:35:35with my office to submit a bill uh that would protect small business owners uh from the waste and abuse of criminals who uh did the wrong thing during the pandemic and took advantage uh of this committee and of our federal government there are small businesses around the country that know that they serve as the lifeblood of their communities and they deserve ongoing support in fact you know last week during my first work week I was able to meet with the field representatives in the small business
▶ 2:36:06administration a field office in the Bay Area wonderful folks who literally that morning learned that all of the resources that they had for the thousands of small businesses in my community they were on freeze nevertheless they were willing to work with my office and my newly hired very excited staff to go door too in the Seven Cities that I represent to ensure that we were still going to work and that we cared that employment rates would continue to rise we wanted to make sure that our small businesses were paying
▶ 2:36:36taxes to support our police and fire and yet only hours later only hours later we got a call from the young woman that I was talking to who worked at the small business administration saying that she got a letter asking for her resignation we are in trouble so I have one quick question um and thank you for opening up an ice cream store as a widow and a single mom is sometimes one of the small luxuries that I had in the darkest days was going to a small business and just being
▶ 2:37:06able to sit and talk to a small business owner um I can't wait to taste your product at some point I know I missed a lot of this hearing uh because I'm outside trying to defend this democracy as it continues to fall down I'm curious in you're speaking with other small business owners uh what has been sort of the Fallout and anxiety over this chaos over this freeze one day we're hearing one thing and the other day we're hearing another the
▶ 2:37:36portals are closed phones aren't being answered folks are trying to employ real people in communities and pay their rents can you give me a number of examples in the two minutes that I have left uh about what this Fallout really means for real communities in terms of Public Safety and employment well many of the people that we have heard from at Main Street Alliance run Child Care Centers who are very scared of the funding freeze so those are big examples and one child care center
▶ 2:38:06may take care of 45 or even a 100 children that's 100 or 200 parents who now can't go participate in the economy so that's been a pretty huge one um another thing when a student particular a community college student a poor Single mother's say like a teen mom like I was who went to Community College and who used a neighborhood daycare center that got federal funds now I have a master's degree what happens when a single mother doesn't have child care
▶ 2:38:36well if she can't go to work she may uh lose her job what happens when she loses her job uh if if women are and and parents are losing their jobs because of a lack of child care it is sending them into a spiral to Poverty quickly um if they can't feed their children because they can't uh work and they can't pay their rent uh we have an endemic of homelessness in this country
▶ 2:39:06many of which are children and things like this only push us closer to more of that ma'am so are you alluding to what may in fact be could be fact that the that the OS and that this very disillusioned communication from our Administration about freezes and payouts um could in fact cause our communities to be less safe cause our single mothers to be less employed folks May
▶ 2:39:36in fact have to drop out of college is that what you're implying ma'am yeah the federal funding free is going to cause people to lose their jobs and push us toward recession but may' in my last 15 seconds the administration says it's the freeze is only it may only be for a few seconds a few days a few weeks what are the implications and after your answer I yield the chaos is is deafening for the small business community in every way thank you I'll yield
▶ 2:40:08back gentle lady yields back uh and uh I'd like to say something uh just real quick I should have said I failed to talk about we started the hearing is that you will periodically see many of us you've seen it today leave come in go back go forth you've seen the ranking member do it you've seen me do it we're going to other committee hearings that we got we're not mad at you or whatever but I do want to make that because that sometime confuses people that we all come and go and and so forth so that's what you saw there
▶ 2:40:38uh today uh I want to say thank you to the witnesses uh for their testimony for appearing before us today without objection members have five legislative days to submit additional materials and written questions for the witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses uh I ask the witnesses to please respond promptly and if there's no further Business Without objection the committee
▶ 2:41:18adjourned e