Ernst Rails Against Biden-Harris SBA for Injecting Green New Deal Agenda Into Key Loan Program

WASHINGTON – Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee Ranking Member Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), alongside Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), called out Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabel Guzman for dramatically changing lending programs in order to align with one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ key Green New Deal priorities.

The new “Green Lending Initiative” will prioritize “reducing climate change” instead of helping small businesses that are struggling under the burden of inflation and the unrelenting tsunami of regulations coming out of Washington.

“You announced these regulatory changes alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, and they are already threatening to undermine the SBA loan portfolio. Further, SBA’s new coordination with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Reduction Fund, whose awardees were recently announced by Vice President Kamala Harris, puts a radical climate agenda ahead of the interests of taxpayers. It is suspicious the SBA would announce new program expansions aligned with two of Vice President Kamala Harris’ key policy priorities right after she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee,” wrote the senators.

Click here to read the full letter.

Background:

The SBA pushing a key Kamala Harris policy initiative right after she became the Democrat nominee for president is just the latest example of the agency engaging in blatant politicization.

In April, a video recording of an SBA special advisor alleged that SBA Administrator Guzman was indirectly campaigning for President Biden and other Democratic members of Congress in contested elections on trips the administrator takes around the country.

In May, Senator Ernst and House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams sent a letter to the SBA demanding travel schedules, official calendars, and other documents from the cabinet agency amid allegations it is involved in partisan voter registration outreach in key swing states, like Michigan.

In July, Senator Ernst and House Small Business Committee Chairman Roger Williams wrote to the SBA to once again demand documents on the agency’s voter registration activities and political travel after the agency continued to stonewall repeated attempts by Congress to conduct oversight. After the SBA failed to provide adequate documents, a subpoena was issued by the House Small Business Committee.

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