II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 1093
To amend the Small Business Act to enhance the Office of Rural Affairs,
and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCH24, 2025
Mrs. S
HAHEEN(for herself and Mr. KENNEDY) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Small Business
and Entrepreneurship
A BILL
To amend the Small Business Act to enhance the Office
of Rural Affairs, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Coordinated Support 4
for Rural Small Businesses Act’’. 5
SEC. 2. OFFICE OF RURAL AFFAIRS OF THE SMALL BUSI-6
NESS ADMINISTRATION. 7
Section 26 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 653) 8
is amended— 9
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(1) in subsection (a), by inserting ‘‘ESTABLISH-1
MENT.—’’ before ‘‘There’’; 2
(2) by amending subsection (b) to read as fol-3
lows: 4
‘‘(b) A
PPOINTMENT OF ASSISTANTADMINIS-5
TRATOR.— 6
‘‘(1) I
N GENERAL.—The Office shall be admin-7
istered by an Assistant Administrator, who shall— 8
‘‘(A) be appointed by the Administrator; 9
and 10
‘‘(B) serve as a noncareer appointee, as de-11
fined in section 3132(a)(7) of title 5, United 12
States Code. 13
‘‘(2) Q
UALIFICATION.—The position of Assist-14
ant Administrator shall be a Senior Executive Serv-15
ice position under section 3132(a)(2) of title 5, 16
United States Code.’’; 17
(3) in subsection (c)— 18
(A) in the matter preceding paragraph (1), 19
by inserting ‘‘D
UTIES.—’’ before ‘‘The Office’’; 20
(B) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘small 21
business concerns located in rural areas’’ and 22
inserting ‘‘rural small business concerns’’; 23
(C) in paragraph (3), by striking ‘‘con-24
cerning the’’ and all that follows through the 25
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semicolon at the end and inserting the fol-1
lowing: ‘‘on the policies and programs of the 2
Administration and of other Federal depart-3
ments and agencies for assisting rural small 4
business concerns;’’; 5
(D) in paragraph (4), by striking ‘‘; and’’ 6
and inserting a semicolon; 7
(E) in paragraph (5)— 8
(i) by striking ‘‘the United States 9
Tourism and Travel Administration’’ and 10
inserting ‘‘the National Travel and Tour-11
ism Office of the Department of Com-12
merce’’; 13
(ii) by striking ‘‘small businesses in 14
rural areas’’ and inserting ‘‘rural small 15
business concerns’’; and 16
(iii) by striking the period at the end 17
and inserting ‘‘; and’’; and 18
(F) by adding at the end the following: 19
‘‘(6) host outreach events for rural small busi-20
ness concerns as described in subsection (d).’’; and 21
(4) by adding at the end the following: 22
‘‘(d) O
UTREACH.—The Assistant Administrator 23
shall— 24
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‘‘(1) host outreach events in various regions of 1
the United States for rural small business concerns; 2
and 3
‘‘(2) invite representatives from district offices 4
of the Administration, resource partners, Federal 5
and State agencies, and other interested persons to 6
participate in such outreach events. 7
‘‘(e) I
NTERAGENCY COOPERATION.—The Assistant 8
Administrator shall coordinate with the Department to— 9
‘‘(1) conduct outreach regarding programs of 10
the Administration and the Department and to im-11
prove awareness and utilization of the existing pro-12
grams and services of each agency; and 13
‘‘(2) convene interagency working groups to ad-14
dress issues including— 15
‘‘(A) capital access and investment in rural 16
areas of the United States, which may in-17
clude— 18
‘‘(i) identifying areas of overlap be-19
tween the business loan programs of the 20
Administration and the Department of Ag-21
riculture, including where intermediaries 22
may be able to participate in programs at 23
both agencies; 24
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‘‘(ii) assessing opportunities for co-1
ordination between the Administration and 2
the Department on programs for rural 3
communities of each agency through the 4
district offices of the Administration, rela-5
tionships with rural lenders, resource part-6
ners of the Administration, and joint out-7
reach and marketing efforts; 8
‘‘(iii) improving information sharing 9
and discussion of best practices between 10
the Administration and the Department; 11
‘‘(iv) examining coordination between 12
the small business investment company 13
program under part A of title III of the 14
Small Business Investment Act of 1958 15
(15 U.S.C. 681 et seq.) and related pro-16
grams at the Department, including the 17
Rural Business Investment Program of the 18
Department; 19
‘‘(v) examining opportunities for co-20
ordination between the disaster assistance 21
programs of the Administration and the 22
Department; and 23
‘‘(vi) addressing barriers and exam-24
ining opportunities for cooperatives to par-25
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ticipate in programs and access resources 1
of the Administration that are similar to 2
the financing programs of the Department 3
that serve cooperatives; and 4
‘‘(B) assisting rural small business con-5
cerns, which may include— 6
‘‘(i) identifying overlap and frag-7
mentation among the rural markets identi-8
fied by the Department and rural census 9
tracts identified by the Administration; 10
‘‘(ii) exploring opportunities to sup-11
port innovation in rural areas; 12
‘‘(iii) coordinating effective support 13
initiatives that benefit Native Americans; 14
and 15
‘‘(iv) collaborating on technical assist-16
ance, especially with respect to exportation 17
and procurement. 18
‘‘(f) U
PDATES.—Not later than 7 days after any 19
change to or new issuance of a memorandum of under-20
standing between the Administration and the Department, 21
the Administration shall notify the appropriate congres-22
sional committees. 23
‘‘(g) R
EPORT.— 24
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‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days 1
after the date of the enactment of this subsection, 2
and annually thereafter, the Administrator shall sub-3
mit to the appropriate congressional committees and 4
make publicly available on a website of the Adminis-5
tration a report on the activities of the Office during 6
the 1-year period immediately preceding the date of 7
submission of the report. 8
‘‘(2) C
ONTENTS.—Each report required under 9
paragraph (1) shall include the following: 10
‘‘(A) The operational details of the Office, 11
including the name of the Assistant Adminis-12
trator, the budget of the Office, and the num-13
ber of full-time employees employed by or de-14
tailed to the Office. 15
‘‘(B) A summary of the activities con-16
ducted under subsection (c). 17
‘‘(C) The number of outreach events con-18
ducted by the Administration to promote poli-19
cies and programs described in paragraph (3) 20
of subsection (c) and to provide information de-21
scribed in paragraph (4) of such subsection. 22
‘‘(D) An analysis of the lending programs 23
of the Administration in serving the needs of 24
rural small business concerns. 25
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‘‘(E) A summary of activities conducted 1
under subsection (e), including— 2
‘‘(i) the status of any memorandum of 3
understanding between the Administration 4
and the Department of Agriculture to fur-5
ther the goals of improving service deliv-6
ery, advice, and assistance for rural small 7
business concerns; 8
‘‘(ii) a summary of outreach efforts 9
under subsection (e)(1); 10
‘‘(iii) a summary of working groups 11
created under subsection (e)(2), including 12
any areas of overlap identified in capital 13
access programs under subparagraph (A) 14
of such subsection; and 15
‘‘(iv) efforts to assist rural small busi-16
ness concerns under subsection (e)(2)(B). 17
‘‘(h) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 18
‘‘(1) A
PPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMIT -19
TEES.—The term ‘appropriate congressional com-20
mittees’ means— 21
‘‘(A) the Committees on Small Business 22
and Entrepreneurship and the Committee on 23
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Sen-24
ate; and 25
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‘‘(B) the Committee on Small Business 1
and the Committee on Agriculture of the House 2
of Representatives. 3
‘‘(2) A
SSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR .—The term 4
‘Assistant Administrator’ means the Assistant Ad-5
ministrator of the Office of Rural Affairs appointed 6
under subsection (b). 7
‘‘(3) D
EPARTMENT.—The term ‘Department’ 8
means the Department of Agriculture.’’. 9
Æ
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