The House on Tuesday easily passed legislation that would extend the deadline for small businesses to apply for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from March 31 to May 31.
The Small Business Administration would then have another 30 days after the new deadline to process loans.
The popular program facilitates low-interest loans to businesses that are then forgiven if they use a certain percentage of the funds on payroll expenses.
Lawmakers lauded the program as a vital lifeline for small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic but said new applicants are running into error codes and crosschecks that will take some additional time to work out.
“Under no circumstances should an American small business that applied for a PPP loan have their loan discarded due to a bureaucratic technical delay at the SBA,” said Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, the top Republican on the House Small Business Committee.
The House passed the bill on a 415-3 vote. Lawmakers considered the measure under a suspension of the rules, which requires a two-thirds majority for legislation to pass and is typically reserved for noncontroversial bills that have broad support.
Sen. Ben Cardin, the Maryland Democrat who chairs the Senate Small Business Committee, said this week that he wants to fast-track the legislation through the Senate.
President Biden toured a flooring company in Pennsylvania on Tuesday that received two rounds of PPP funding: one last April, and one this month during a two-week window in which the Biden administration said only companies with fewer than 20 employees could apply.
Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package provides an additional $7 billion for the program, on top of $284 billion in new money Congress authorized in December, and opens PPP funding up to additional nonprofit groups.
The president said a goal for the latest round of funding is to open up access to smaller, minority- and women-owned companies that might have gotten crowded out by bigger corporations last year.
The program was initially included in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package Congress passed and former President Trump signed into law in March 2020.
All told, the program has helped facilitate more than 7.5 million loans totaling more than $687 billion as of March 7.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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