around oil spill r&d. do you have any thoughts about how we could encourage those companies who are doing the drilling as senator murkowski said to spend the same amount of money researching how to clean up, as they are researching effective drilling practices? >> i think ultimately, the two driver of behaviors for the oil companies. the first one are the response plans and the requirement to identify resources and the response plans. we may have an opportunity when we go back and look at plan review which is something that we need to do and have the coast guard involved in plan review. how you create the requirements for the response plans and what you tell them they have to have available can drive them to create the resources. if you want to create an incentive, look at how to structure the requirement and response plans would have create incentive for them to do oil spill that would to the oil response. i think that would be one way to do it. >> okay. one -- that's a helpful suggestion. one the other things we heard looking at the -- how the oil pollution act had worked was the that energy -- inner agency commit thee that was set up to develop and direct the oil spill are in deep land had not been as effective as it might have been. suggestions to us were the challenge was it wasn't clear who was in charge. that created a real issue around getting things done. do you have a perspective on that? >> i do. there's an existing standing body called the national response team. it was identified in the national contingency plan under the statute and regulation it's the ultimate body on disbursements during the spill. they exist, they meet regularly, agencies are involved. i see that body as a perfect mechanism to be given the over sight responsibility. i would say this though, when you have a committee that only have several hundred thousand, they are not going to be very robust. >> who shares the committee? >> i think it rotates. i would take a guess it might be co-chaired. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> admiral, thank you very much for your excellent testimony. and your suggestions and we will try to take them to heart. >> thank you very much. >> thanks for your great service to the country last year. we greatly appreciate it. >> tonight on c-span2, a hearing of the senate small business committee, then a discussion about the future of pakistan and the kato institute hosts a discussion about u.s. immigration policy. >> at this hearing of the senate small business, government testified about the job act in 2010. it increased access to capital. this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. i'd like to call our meeting to order this morning. and i'd like to thank all of our witnesses for joining us this morning. particularly, our witnesses on the second panel who are going to be bringing real life testimony to the issues that we are looking at and reviewing this morning. as many of you know, this week is national small business week. president john kennedy started this tradition in 1963 to recognize the contributions the small businesses to the economic vitality of our country. the following year, president johnson awarded the first small businessman of the year. i underline the word businessman of the year. to a mr. berkeley debell. he was from spirit lake, iowa, president of berkeley company, manufacturing of fishing line. his business was started in a bedroom, his workshop while he was in the high school at the time. mr. president johnson said mr. debell represented millions of businesses who st. paul wrote were not slothful in business, but ferment in spirit. romans 12. while times have change, they need to lift up the entrepreneurs that are not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit. that's the purpose of today's hearing. we want to recognize the 27.2 million small businesses in america that are struggling to recover for the great recession. more specifically, we'll hear from the federal government and how they are implementing the small businesses jobs act passed with the help of many remembers of the committee. this legislation has been touted as the i think the most important. let me recognize a few things, senator shaheen who is here for the opening statement in just a moment. i want to put a few things into the record. last congress, 111th, the committee hear compelling testimony from small business owners across the country, struggling to keep their lights on, doors open, and stretching to keep valuable employees on the payroll. many business owners could not get conventional bank loans. others saw substantial reductions in their existing lines of credit. still others had cutting edge products but did not see an opportunity to contract with the federal government. the results were alarming. since 2008, small business firms accounted for between 64 and 80% of all of the net job losses in our country. that is beginning to reverse, we are excited about that, and we'll hear more about that today. to address these issues, i'm proud to have led the senate efforts to enask the small business jobs bill of 2010. the bill was signed into law by president obama on september 27th. the jobs act provided many things. support to small business in many important ways, providing $12 billion in immediate tax relief, increasing access to capital by increasing sba loan limits and establishing the small business lending fund and strengthening core programs of the small business administration which resulted in more money for counseling services for small business development centered, increased opportunities and provided a more level playing field for small businesses looking for communities to contract with the federal job. first the job act included multiple jobs act effective in 2010 that provided incentives for small businesses to make new inventments in property and real estate and expand. for example, small business owners that brought new equipment, the jobs act included enhanced provisions that allowed the immediate write off of the first 500,000 of tangible personal property and up to 250,000 for certain investments in real estate. also for the first time ever, self-employeed business owners could deduct 100% of the cost of health insurance for payroll tax purposes. in my home state of louisiana, alone, there were over 234,000 self-employed individuals eligible for the tax break. altogether, the bill included over $12 billion in tax cuts for small businesses at a time when they needed them the most. next the job act focused on the major hurdle limiting small business growth. that was the lack of access to capital. in particular, the jobs act continued vital programs from the american recovery and reinvestment act which spurred lending to small businesses. it eliminating the borrowers fees, increase the federal government guarantee from 75% to 90%. at the time the bill passed, these provisions had already supported 30 billion in lending to more than 70,000 businesses since 2009. the extension of these recovery act provisions in our bill allowed an additional 1500 businesses to receive more than $750 million in loans. in addition, the act permanently raised the maximum loan size to the largest programs, increasing the 7a loan size from $2 million to $5 million, and maximize from 1.5 to 5.5 million. these were extraordinary accomplishments in this bill. i'm proud to have led that effort. in addition, the treasury department was tasked with implementing two new programs designed to support private sector lending to credit worthy small business. the small business lending fund makes billions of dollars in capital available to roughly -- which is several thousand healthy community banks in our country. we'll hear more about that today from dr. don graves and honorable marie johns. this strategic public private partnership could leverage billions in small firms. treasure hay has received applications for 700 banks for roughly $10 billion. that's encouraging. we are making progress. let me say just a few more things. the small business credit initiative which was pushed by several members to the committees, much to my joy, will support at least 15 billion in new lending by strengthened state small business programs. and i know senator hagan is going to be particularly happy because there are some wonderful opportunities that will be shared today from that part of the country. under the jobs act, key enhancements for made. as we know, only 1% of small businesses export. with 95% of the world consumers outside of the united states, it's important that this committee took the opportunity to strengthen our expert programs. we're going to hear some testimony today about how that is working. our bill increased the sba financing programs by increasing the maximum size of expert loans and expanding the network of sba and export financial specialist that council and help them under write the loans. it created a state trade and export program which will provide 60 million in grants to states to bolster their programs. in closing, let me say one other thing, this bill also increased enhancements to the small business contracting program. the federal government has over $500 billion a year available for purchases of goods and services. we're opening up opportunities for small businesswomen owned businesses and service disabled veterans to participate in that program. and in closing, i just want to highlight a couple of provisions. i give you one example in closing of how this specifically worked for a business in louisiana. bakers of lye del is a small business that operates in louisiana. it's operated for many years. when the construction slump occurred and the recession began, and saw it's sales drop by 20%. and then again when the deepwater horizon explosion happened and the moratorium was put into effect, it's sales fell even lower. they have been in business for 40 years. they imported steel products and sold them within the 200 miles per hour range. they wanted to expert. it was simply a pipe dream. last march, however, they received assistance from the regional director of the u.s. commercial service staff in new orleans to travel to panama to identical potential clients. they lacked the capital that make the investments. a local bank was not going to give them capital when the collateral and collections were in panama. they couldn't enforce in the event that something went south on this. but with this new program, bakers sales received $3 million from the 7a loan that helped them to secure the contracts in panama, expand their expert opportunities, and give them a path forward out of what has been a very difficult economic time for them. they've hired two additional employees, and they expect to expand sales in the future. so today we will hear some additional success stories like bakers sales and shydel. i'm proud of the work the committee has done and we're going to get testimony from the key witnesses about what more we can do to improve the outlook for small businesses in america today. let me turn it over to the ranking member, senator snowe, and we'll receive opening statements from senator shaheen as well. >> thank you, chair, senator landrieu, for holding this today to examine the implementation of the small business acts of 2010. i think it's fitting that we would be exploring the implementation of the legislation at a time which is coinciding with national small business week that highlights and celebrates the accomplishments of the nation's 30 million small firms. now perhaps more than ever we will rely on small businesses to lead us out as they have done time and time again in the past. i appreciate the fact that we have small business administration deputy administrator marine johns and deputy treasury -- deputy assistance treasury dawn graves for updating us. i want to thank our small businesses witnesses for offering their perspective as well. as ranking member of the committee, i know there are no more urgent than job creation in a country that our nation has endured 27 straight months with unemployment at 8% or above. last year it was 9%. we cannot allow the persistently high levels of unemployment to become the new normal. it's essential that we focus like the lacer -- laser in creating job. the best way to empower is nation small businesses whether reducing regulatory, supporting progrowth tax policies, or encouraging experting, we must continue to seek ways to create a better climate for small businesses across the country. it is with this in mind that we develop the framework for a series of small business bills. the act includes, as the chair has indicated, many priorities, including many with a 504 and technical programs and include tax measures like those to admit general business credits to be carried back five years and taken against the alternative tax. unfortunately i think, you know, serious misgivings about the small business fund included in the legislation on the floor. i was particularly concerned by a congressional budget office score with analyzing the fund it would potentially cause taxpayers more than $6.2 billion. further more, just last week, the treasury offer came out with a report. in fact, according to the problem, 1/2 to 2/3 of the authorized $30 billion. as of april 18th, only 27 lending institutions out of more than 7,000 nationwide had applied to participate in the initiative and only 9.2 billion in funding had been requested. moreover, the top recipients otherwise known as the top asset relief have requested 64% of the $9.2 billion. these would be paying off one with another in the form of lending fund. to obtain lower interest rates without restrictions like those on executive compensation. the report revealed they are not expected to get much additional standing. placing in doubt how much new lending will actually takes place. this begs the question isn't the lending fund proving to largely be a t.a.r.p. refinancing program? it's obvious and been demonstrated there has not been great interest in the initiative. i know the administration is extending the deadline for applications for march 31st to may 16th of this year. i would like to explore that with you, concerning those issues. while i clearly have concerns with the lending fund in particular, i hope we can have a constructive dialogue with respect to it's implementation. but also the outcomes occurring in the legislation that ultimately became law last fall. i'm eager to hear about the desired affects of the initiative because it is important in the final analysis to ensure we have the efficiencies and the effectiveness of the programs and they are reducing results. we got to turn the economy around. we got to create jobs. i know we created 2 44,000, and we'd have to do that for five years to achieve what we had in 2007. i think that's a challenge for the country. that's why many of the initiatives has been working. we have to make sure it's done well and achieve more immediately than otherwise being felt on main street america. i want to thank our witnesses here. thank you. >> thank you shaheen. >> thank you, chair landrieu and ranking member snow for holding the hearing on the implementation of the small business acts it's fitting that we are doing it for small business week. the jobs act was very important to create 2/3 of the jobs in this country. we all know there's much work to do. too many small businesses are still struggling with access to credit. i, unfortunately, can't stay to hear your testimony. but i did want it raise two issues that i hope you will address. first of all, both senators landrieu and snowe have talked abouts export provisions in the legislation. in new hampshire, we think those are critical. you have to get they've access to new national markets. i think new hampshire is one the 53 states applied for funding through the state trade and expert promotion program. clearly there's a lot of interest. i think the role that sba can play in coordinating the export efforts across the federal government will really be critical. the second provision that i wanted to call your attention to has to do with the 504 refinancing provisions. my understanding is that only 20 loans have been approved since the passage of the bill. and these are provisions as we all know that would -- will be very important in giving businesses access to working capital. so anything that can be done to help facilitate those loans, i think, will be very important. so thank you very much for being here. i look forward to reading your testimony and hope you will give real consideration to moving on those two provisions. >> okay. why don't we go right into the testimony from administrator marine -- marie johns and then john graves. >> thank you, good morning madame -- good morning madame -- good morning, chair landrieu. forgive me. ranking member snowe and senator marine and members of the committee, as has been cited, this is national small business week and it's a week we celebrate and empower small businesses that drive the economy, keep america competitive, and importantly, create jobs. sba is hosting a three day conference where we are honoring small business owners with awards for small business champions, small business persons, chair landrieu of the year, and more. these small business owners and others like them have gotten a big boost. since the passage of the jobs act in september, the sba has worked hard to implement the provisions that affected the programs. the jobs act asked all of sba's largest programs, including the support for access to capital, small business contracting, counseling and training, and experting. some of them were quick fixes and easy to implement. others will take more time. to begin with, almost immediately, the agency began making loans with the temporary increase guarantee and reduced fees authorized by the jobs act. it helped us put $12 billion into the hands of small businesses at a time when they needed the lending support more than ever. second the jobs act also raised the limits on the loan sizes from $2 million to $5 million. the increase size will help manufacturers, experters, and other small businesses. for example, great falls marketing in auburn, maine, received approval of the 2.6 million for the purpose of the existing business and they anticipate creating 80 jobs as a result. the jobs act also contains 19 provisions making it easier for the small businesses to compete for and win the $500 billion federal contracts awarded each year. for instance, the law reaffirmed the treatment or parity across the programs. this meant when rewarding contracts that are set aside, they are free to choose among businesses owned by women and services enabled veterans, as well as businesses participated in the hub zone and programs. they implemented the appeal of the competitiveness which will help small businesses compete for contracts in areas such as construction, landscaping, and best control. third the jobs act also provided funds for counseling and training which included $50 million in grants for the small business development centers around the country. all of this money is out of the door and going to fund innovative counseling programs, clusters, and support for young entrepreneurs and underserve communities. the fourth and final way the act is helping small businesses is through increased support for exporting. the jobs act raised the size limits on the international trade and expert working capital loans for $5 million and export express loans to $500,000. it also made the expert express program permanent. and chair landrieu already has cited the great success of bakers sales as one the examples of how the schools have been put to use by the small companies and creates jobs. at the same time, they are reviewing and evaluating the proposal which will