Sec. 2. Findings and purpose

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Congress finds that— on January 21, 2020, the first case of COVID–19 was confirmed in the United States; more than 1,031,659 people in the United States have since tested positive and 60,057 people in the United States have died from complications related to COVID–19; nearly a quarter of the 30,700,000 small business concerns in the United States are at risk of permanent closure over the coming months; on March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act ( Public Law 116–136 ), also known as the CARES Act, was signed into law to provide relief to owners of small business concerns that need support for ongoing operations during this unprecedented public health and economic crisis; the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ) included $377,000,000,000 to establish the paycheck protection program under section 7(a)(36) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(36) ), the emergency economic injury disaster loan grant program under section 1110 of the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ), and the debt relief program under section 1112 of such Act; on April 24, 2020, the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act ( Public Law 116–139 ) was enacted to replenish funding for those small business programs along with important policy reforms to expand access to assistance from the Administration to more unbanked and underserved businesses; the funding in the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act ( Public Law 116–139 ) included $310,000,000,000 for the paycheck protection program established under section 7(a)(36) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(36) ), $50,000,000,000 to leverage more than $350,000,000,000 for the economic injury disaster loan program under section 7(b)(2) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(b)(2) , and $10,000,000,000 for the emergency economic injury disaster loan grant program established under section 1110 of the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ); to support implementation and oversight of these programs, which are unprecedented in scale for the Administration, the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ) and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act ( Public Law 116–139 ) provided the Administration with $675,000,000 and $2,100,000,000 for salaries and expenses of the Administration, respectively; in spite of this support, and precedent for posting borrower and lender information through Freedom of Information Act requests and program spending updates under the Veterans Entrepreneurship Act of 2015 ( Public Law 114–38 ; 129 Stat. 437), neither the public nor policymakers are getting information in a timely or complete way about how many loans and grants are being approved and disbursed, who is getting the funding, activity by lender, how many jobs have been saved, geographic and demographic information about the borrowers, or when the funding will run out; the first time Congress received data on the paycheck protection program established under section 7(a)(36) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(36) ) was April 14, 2020, almost a week after the Administration announced that the program was running out of funding and requested an additional $250,000,000,000 to meet demand; the Administration has provided limited data on both the availability and the distribution of funds under the economic injury disaster loan and emergency economic injury disaster loan grant programs, making it difficult for Congress to assess demand and to determine the need for additional funding; and the Administration should provide essential data on small business programs established under the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ) and the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act ( Public Law 116–139 ) on a daily and weekly basis, along with other longer term reporting requirements to provide transparency and oversight of these loans and grants that are vital to small business concerns and nonprofit organizations.

The purpose of this Act is to provide transparency and oversight of recovery programs of the Administration related to COVID–19 by requiring timely and complete reporting and public availability of data relating to the paycheck protection program under section 7(a)(36) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(a)(36) ), the economic injury disaster loan program under section 7(b)(2) of the Small Business Act ( 15 U.S.C. 636(b)(2) ) in accordance with section 1110 of the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ), the emergency economic injury disaster loan grant program established under section 1110 of the CARES Act ( Public Law 116–136 ), and the debt relief program under section 1112 of such Act.

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