American Rescue Plan Act Elevates Small Business Support in Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

Upon President Biden signing the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law, the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Senior Advisor Michael Roth stated:

“The American Rescue Plan Act enables the SBA to continue to lift up the cornerstones of our communities; the mom-and-pop businesses and nonprofits that provide essential services for our everyday lives, hire from within neighborhoods, and more. Our nation’s more than 30 million small businesses are the economic engine of this country and, in alignment with the Biden-Harris Administration’s focus on equitable treatment, the SBA will work tirelessly to ensure eligible borrowers will get access to this critical economic relief.”

The American Rescue Plan Act’s Small Business Assistance and Support

The American Rescue Plan Act provides additional relief for the nation’s small businesses and hard-hit industries for programs the SBA is currently administering and adds new efforts, including:

SBA’s current relief efforts can be found at www.sba.gov/coronavirusrelief, and more details about these program updates and new efforts the SBA will administer in the coming weeks will be located there as well.

This week, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the latest measure from Washington in response to the ongoing COVID-19 public health and economic crisis. The $1.9 trillion bill was signed yesterday by President Biden and includes many items which may be of interest to economic developers. If you have not already begun discussing economic development uses for upcoming available funding with your local elected officials and stakeholders, you should do so immediately. Some funding will be through grants and with a longer timeframe, while other funding will be in the form of direct assistance to state and local governments. EDAs will receive an additional $3 billion in funding, bringing their total COVID-19-related appropriation to $4.5 billion. We expect the vast majority, if not all, of this latest appropriation to be distributed via competitive grants. We urge you to consider this as a major opportunity for your organization and community. A brief detail of the contents of the bill is included below.

The funding must be distributed quickly, though not all at one time. Treasury and states are given 60 days to distribute funds in the first tranche, with additional funds to be made available in one year, pending TBD conditions are met. Funding an ARPA can be used to combat COVID-19 and also cover revenue shortfalls, as well as investments in infrastructure. Costs must be incurred by December 31, 2024, to be eligible.

The extension and amount of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation was a contentious issue that almost tanked the bill. In the end, the Senate agreed to keep the supplemental payments at their current level and extended the program by an additional week.

For a detailed analysis of additional items in the bill, please see the links below:

This week saw final approval of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act, legislation that will provide more than $30 billion to New York’s state and local governments and government programs. Much has already been written on the bill and its funding mechanism. Here are several resource documents we thought would be useful to our members:

▪ An overview prepared for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

▪ Senator Schumer’s press release describing funding for New York State and its municipalities

▪ The text of the American Rescue Plan Act in text and pdf format

In addition, The Business Council sent this message to all 213 state legislators in response to the ARPA, calling on the state to reject significant new or increased state taxes as unnecessary given this significant additional federal aid, saying “We are urging the legislature to carefully balance the state’s social and economic development needs while recognizing raising taxes, while the economy remains fragile and the need for additional state resources has already been met, would be a mistake that will further harm New York.”

Staff Contact: Ken Pokalsky

The following provides an overview and update on several of the most significant non-budget issues we are working on. We welcome your input on these bills, and we urge you to contact your local Senators and Assembly members with your company-specific concerns. Please feel free to contact our issue manager for additional information.

This bill is now on the Assembly Labor Committee

Agenda for Tuesday, March 16. We urge you to contact your Assembly representatives to express your concern. This legislation [S.1034-A (Gianaris)/A.2681-A (Reyes)] would impose additional safety mandates on all employers of 10 or more, and require them to form employer-employee “workplace safety committees” regardless of the employer’s safety experience. We have opposed this legislation, and our memo can be found here. This legislation has already passed the Senate, but has not yet advanced in the Assembly. Its provisions overlap existing federal and state safety provisions and it is simply unnecessary. New York State COVID data shows that workplace safety protocols have been effective during this pandemic.

Staff Contact: Frank Kerbein

Both houses have introduced legislation that would put significant additional mandates on producers of packaging and certain other materials to assure, and pay for, increased levels of collection, source separation and recycling. Most of the focus has been on the Senate bill [S.1185-B (Kaminsky)] which was introduced January 8 and has been the subject of extensive industry review and comment. Our memo can be found here. Recent amendments made marginal improvements, but the basic structure has not changed. Similar, but not identical, Assembly legislation has recently been introduced in A.5801 (Englebright). While there is recognition that additional resources will be needed to improve collection, source separation and market development, this legislation goes too far, and would shift both financial and operational responsibility for collection and recycling onto the private sector.

Staff Contacts: Melvin Norris and Joe Foskettp

We oppose S.933 (Gianaris), which would adopt an European Union-style “abuse of dominant market position” approach to antitrust enforcement that could be applied to wide range of business activity, including relatively small business. Our memo can be found here. Intended to target “big tech,” this bill has open-ended definitions of markets and market abuse. It also proposes a significant increase in penalties, up to $100 million for corporate entities. The bill would also require advanced notice to New York State of mergers. Overall, this bill would be a dramatic departure from the historic U.S. approach to antitrust, i.e., a focus on potential harm to consumers. No Assembly “same as” has been introduced this session; last year, the bill was carried by Assemblyman Dinowitz, and we expect the Assembly companion bill to be introduced shortly.

Staff Contact: Lev Ginsburg

We continue to respond to the “New York Data Accountability and Transparency Act” proposal in the Executive Budget [S.2505/A.3005, Part II]. Many provisions are similar to those contained in the 2020 NY Privacy Act (S.5642 (Thomas)/A.8526 (Rosenthal). However, key changes in the budget bill include the elimination of a private right of action, and elimination of a data “fiduciary” standard. Many states are pursuing legislation, an approach that would create a patchwork of compliance obligations rather than a a single national standard – which is industry’s preferred approach. We have a number of other issues that need to be addressed in both budget bill and legislative proposal. As was the case with earlier breech of data legislation, we look forward to successfully negotiating on these and other key issues.

Staff Contact: Johnny Evers

We oppose this legislation [S.3184 (Mayer)/A.5180 (Benedetto)], which imposes significant new assessments on broadband providers for the purposes of providing discounted internet access to students and schools. We recognize the importance of access to affordable broadband service, but we oppose this approach. Communications providers are already investing billions annually to expand the system. This legislation would take away from those efforts. Further, the bill runs contrary to systems utilized under the “Broadband for All” program under which grants have been established to expand broadband access and infrastructure and spread the burden of support across the competitive markets. Further, the bill impacts rates by mandating certain levels for retail rates and forbidding rate increases – actions prohibited under the federal Communications Act. Finally, broadband providers have instituted programs to help low-income customers obtain coverage, particularly for work and education purposes.  Staff Contact: Johnny Evers

The Business Council has partnered with the New York State Department of Labor on a statewide business workforce survey in order to better understand current and anticipated future needs of the business community and seek a better outline, based on data, where & how to position resources.

Survey will close Friday, March 19, 2021. Don’t delay, complete the survey today!