[House Hearing, 119 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] HOPE ON THE HORIZON: PRIORITIZING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN THE 119TH CONGRESS ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ HEARING HELD FEBRUARY 5, 2025 __________ [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Small Business Committee Document Number 119-001 Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov __________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 58-532 WASHINGTON : 2025 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas, Chairman PETE STAUBER, Minnesota DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania BETH VAN DUYNE, Texas JAKE ELLZEY, Texas MARK ALFORD, Missouri NICK LALOTA, New York BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota TONY WIED, Wisconsin ROB BRESNAHAN, Pennsylvania BRIAN JACK, Georgia TROY DOWNING, Montana KIMBERLYN KING-HINDS, Northern Marina Islands DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas NYDIA VELAZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member MORGAN MCGARVEY, Kentucky HILLARY SCHOLTEN, Michigan LAMONICA MCIVER, New Jersey GIL CISNEROS, California KELLY MORRISON, Minnesota GEORGE LATIMER, New York DEREK TRAN, California LATEEFAH SIMON, California JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI, Maryland HERB CONWAY, New Jersey MAGGIE GOODLANDER, New Hampshire Lauren Holmes, Majority Staff Director Melissa Jung, Minority Staff Director C O N T E N T S OPENING STATEMENTS Page Hon. Roger Williams.............................................. 1 Hon. Nydia Velazquez............................................. 2 WITNESSES Mr. Karl Hutter, Chief Executive Officer, Click Bond, Inc., Carson City, NV................................................ 5 Mr. Bill New, President and Owner, New Industries, Morgan City, LA............................................................. 7 Ms. Alice Frazier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Charles Town, Charles Town, WV................................. 8 Ms. Molly Moon Neitzel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream, Seattle, WA................... 10 APPENDIX Prepared Statements: Mr. Karl Hutter, Chief Executive Officer, Click Bond, Inc., Carson City, NV............................................ 48 Mr. Bill New, President and Owner, New Industries, Morgan City, LA................................................... 58 Ms. Alice Frazier, President and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of Charles Town, Charles Town, WV..................... 61 Ms. Molly Moon Neitzel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream, Seattle, WA............... 74 Questions for the Record: None. Answers for the Record: None. Additional Material for the Record: Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC).................... 76 Canada Prime Minister Document............................... 78 Defense Credit Union Council (DCUC).......................... 79 PIIE Document................................................ 81 Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA)...................... 96 HOPE ON THE HORIZON: PRIORITIZING SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN THE 119TH CONGRESS ---------- WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025 House of Representatives, Committee on Small Business, Washington, DC. The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:01 a.m., in Room 2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Roger Williams [chairman of the Committee] presiding. Present: Representatives Williams, Stauber, Meuser, Van Duyne, Ellzey, Alford, LaLota, Finstad, Wied, Bresnahan, Jack, Downing, King-Hinds, Velazquez, McGarvey, Scholten, McIver, Cisneros, Morrison, Latimer, Tran, Simon, Olszewski, Conaway, and Goodlander. Chairman WILLIAMS. Before we get started, I want to recognize Mr. Alford from the great State of Missouri to lead us in the pledge and the prayer. Mr. ALFORD. Thank you. Well, God, we are just so thankful to be here today as a Committee to just try to make America better through small business. I thank you for the witnesses who have come here today, paid their own way to be here, to testify and to take questions. God, let us operate in a manner of civility and love. And I just appreciate all the Members of this Committee and the Ranking Member and the Chair for their dedication. Just bless us, bless our time together, for the betterment for the United States of America. Through Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Chairman WILLIAMS. Good morning, everyone, and I want to now call the Committee on Small Business to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Committee at any time. I now recognize myself for my opening statement. Welcome to the first Committee on Small Business hearing of the 119th Congress. I want to extend my gratitude to our witnesses for being here also today. And I know many of you traveled to share your experiences with us and your perspectives, and we deeply value your time and your voice. The Committee on Small Business is proud to represent the hardworking men and women of Main Street America here in Washington. Our mission today and every day is to listen, learn, and better understand the challenges and the opportunities impacting the American people, particularly those who build and sustain small businesses nationwide. Small-business owners are not just entrepreneurs; they are job creators, community leaders, and the backbone of economic opportunity for millions of Americans. Small-business ownership reflects the very essence of the American Dream--the opportunity for any person, from any background, to take a risk, work hard, and build a better future for themselves and their families. Our economy depends on small businesses and the workers they employ. From local manufacturers to retail employees, service workers and bankers, they are the heartbeat of our economy, shaping our communities through their dedication, creativity, and resilience. Over the past 4 years, Main Street America has faced historic challenges--stifling regulations, record-breaking inflation, supply-chain disruptions, high interest rates, and a national labor shortage. Despite these challenges, the men and women of main street have proven time and time again their strength and ability to adapt. These individuals embody the grit, the innovation, and perseverance that make the nation great. So this Congress, alongside President Trump, will once again prioritize policies that support Main Street America, strengthen economic opportunity, and create an environment where small businesses can grow and create jobs. Today, we celebrate the critical role each small business plays in building and sustaining their communities. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how increased small- business optimism and a promising economic landscape will help Main Street America. There is hope on the horizon for small businesses, thanks to President Trump's pro-business commitment to lowering taxes and cutting regulations. It is time to turn the page on the past 4 years and focus on the future for Main Street America under President Trump. I wanted this hearing to be the first of the 119th Congress so we could shine a light on the great contributions and sacrifices of Main Street America--those who dedicate their days, their resources, and lives to make our nation strong. Before we proceed, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the new Members joining the Committee. We are thrilled to have you as part of our team and look forward to working with you this Congress. As Chairman, I am eager to work alongside all of you as we help shape policies that put the needs of Main Street America first. Now, with that, I will yield to our distinguished and my friend, the Ranking Member from New York, Ms. Velazquez. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to express our condolences to you. We have you and your family in our thoughts and prayers. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. And thank you to the witnesses for being here today. In just 4 short years, 22 million Americans took the leap of faith and started a small business--a record high for a single Presidential term. Our nation saw an unprecedented small-business boom and economic comeback in the face of an equally unprecedented global pandemic and recession. Everyday Americans and entrepreneurs receive essential investments from the American Rescue Plan Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Redaction Act--historic victories that laid a strong foundation for our economic recovery. The data shows that this foundation is fruitful. Annual inflation is at 2.7 percent, and real GDP growth has accelerated to 3.1 percent in the last quarter. Mr. Chairman, small business is not a Democratic or Republican issue; it is an American issue. While we will work with our Republican counterparts to find common ground and do right by America's main streets, we will never weaken our commitment to make life better for our nation's small-business owners. From the tech company that started as an idea in a garage to more established main street retailers or the local restaurant, all play an important role in generating employment opportunities for our communities, whether they be in rural or urban America. That is the beauty of America. Anyone can have a dream and make it a reality and that is what millions of entrepreneurs in this country have done. Many couldn't have done it without the assistance of one of the SBA's programs. From lending to mentoring to marketing, the SBA has remained a critical resource to those with a good idea and employers hoping to expand. There is more that this committee can do to continue our efforts to grow the small-business economy, like investing in childcare, healthcare, and developing the next generation of workers. That is why today's hearing is so timely. It will allow us to gain valuable perspectives on how to best help entrepreneurs continue to do what they do best--invest in themselves, their communities, and their workers. While we may not always agree with each other on the best path forward, it is my hope that we will work together for the betterment of small employers. Today, we are joined by a distinguished panel of witnesses. This hearing is an opportunity to listen to their insights into the challenges facing small businesses and, specifically, how Congress can prioritize their needs. I look forward to hearing the witnesses' testimony. And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. And now I will introduce our witnesses. Our first witness here with us today is Mr. Karl Hutter. Mr. Hutter is the CEO of Click Bond, Inc., located in Carson City, Nevada. Mr. Hutter joined Click Bond in 2000 and has held various positions within the company, including the vice president of sales and marketing, chief operating officer, chief financial officer also. Before leading the sales team, Mr. Hutter directed the company's business development and applications engineering efforts across the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Hutter is a certified airline transport pilot and a passionate advocate for general aviation and the aerospace industry as well as for American manufacturing. He also serves several industry associations, such as the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Mr. Hutter holds a Bachelor of Science degree in systems engineering and operations management from the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also is a graduate of Penn's Jerome Fisher Management and Technology Program. So thank you for joining us here today. Our next witness is Mr. Bill New. Mr. New is the founder, owner, and president of New Industries, LLC, located in Morgan City, Louisiana. Mr. New has led the company since its founding in 1985. Prior to that, he worked as a structural and project engineer for Mobil Exploration and Production and Mobil Research and Development. Mr. New is an active volunteer, having served as president of the Foundation for the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts and currently as Co-Chairman of the Capital Campaign. He also has been a Board Member of the Catholic Foundation of South Louisiana and a longtime leader in the Boy Scouts of America, where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1973. Mr. New currently resides in Louisiana with his family. Mr. New holds a Bachelor of Science in ocean engineering from Florida Atlantic University and completed the Owner/President Management Program at Harvard Business School. So thank you for being here today, Mr. New. Our next witness is Ms. Alice Frazier. Ms. Frazier is president and CEO of Potomac Bancshares and Bank of Charles Town, located in Charles Town, West Virginia. Ms. Frazier has more than 32 years of banking experience with Cardinal Financial Corporation, BB&T, and Middleburg Financial Corporation. Prior to that, she worked for 4 years in public accounting with national and regional firms. Ms. Frazier is currently serving as Vice Chairman of the Independent Community Bankers of America and has previously served as their Executive Committee as secretary. She also serves on the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Board and is a past Chairman of the Virginia Association of Community Banks. Ms. Frazier has a Bachelor of Science degree from Radford University and is a graduate of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and the USC Graduate School of Bank Investing. Thank you for joining us today, again. And I look forward to hearing from all of you. And now I recognize the Ranking Member from New York, Ms. Velazquez, to briefly introduce our last witness appearing before us today. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome Ms. Molly Moon Neitzel, the founder and CEO of Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream, in the Seattle region. Molly Moon's opened in 2008 when Ms. Neitzel left her career as a political consultant and founder of the nonprofit Music for America to follow her dreams and her sweet tooth as a main street businesswoman. Now, Molly Moon's has nine locations, $12 million in revenue, accolades in national publications, and a cult following in the Seattle area. Ms. Neitzel is also a founding Member of Main Street Alliance, a small-business coalition advocating for pro-small- business policies, including healthcare, childcare investment, paid family and medical leave, women's entrepreneurship promotion, and capital access, among others. Ms. Neitzel holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Montana. Welcome, and thank you for testifying today. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. And we appreciate all of you being here today, again. And so, before recognizing the witnesses, I would like to remind them--we have some rules around here--that oral testimony is restricted to 5 minutes in length. If you get over that, you will hear a little of this--[gavel tapping]--and that means that your time is up. And if you see the light turn red in front of you, it means your 5 minutes has concluded and you should wrap up your testimony. So, with that in mind, I now recognize Mr. Hutter for his 5-minute opening remarks. STATEMENTS OF KARL HUTTER, CEO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CLICK BOND, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS; BILL NEW, PRESIDENT AND OWNER, NEW INDUSTRIES, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL OCEAN INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION; ALICE FRAZIER, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BANK OF CHARLES TOWN, ON BEHALF OF THE INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY BANKERS ASSOCIATION; AND MOLLY MOON NEITZEL, FOUNDER AND CEO, MOLLY MOON'S HOMEMADE ICE CREAM, ON BEHALF OF THE MAIN STREET ALLIANCE STATEMENT OF KARL HUTTER Mr. HUTTER. Good morning, Chairman Williams, Ranking Member Velazquez, and Members of the Committee. My name is Karl Hutter, and I am the CEO of Click Bond, an engineered products company in Carson City, Nevada. And Click Bond is a family business and one very much built on innovation. My parents founded the company in 1987, combining my dad's inventive genius with my mom's manufacturing background and business acumen. And today our adhesive-bonded fasteners are used in aviation, marine, defense, industrial settings around the world and even beyond, in space. And like many small and medium manufacturers, we are an integral part of the manufacturing supply chain and, in our case, of the nation's defense industrial base. However, companies like Click Bond face significant challenges, often stemming from Washington itself. American businesses now shoulder a staggering $3 trillion annually in regulatory costs, disproportionately impacting manufacturers. Unfortunately, small companies get hit twice--first with unworkable regulations that apply to us directly and then, as well, with compliance and reporting requirements that larger firms are forced to pass down. Well, fortunately, Congress and the Trump administration do have the opportunity to reverse course. You can do that with commonsense reforms such as: unwinding outdated chemicals reporting requirements that force us to look backwards in time and deep into our supply chains; and preventing unnecessary EPA roadblocks in State and local permitting; and in rolling back costly energy and labor mandates. These policies would go a long way toward lifting barriers on manufacturers and their growth. And, additionally, comprehensive permitting reform must be a priority. A predictable, streamlined permitting process will unlock manufacturing growth and drive new job-creating investments across this country. So, just as with regulations, our industry is facing significant uncertainty, cost, and burden thanks to expiring tax policies. To say the least, 2017 tax reform was rocket fuel for Click Bond. The new 21-percent corporate tax rate allowed us to raise wages for our production employees, invest in capital equipment, strengthen our employee tuition support program, and accelerate the timeline for constructing a new facility. The new 20-percent pass-through deduction likewise empowered our suppliers and partners to reinvest in their businesses, readying them to support our growth. But the key tax provisions began expiring in 2022 and 2023, and this is already harming manufacturers. It is now more expensive for Click Bond to conduct R&D, the very lifeblood of both our product and our process innovation. It is more expensive for us to purchase capital equipment, the very tools that will unleash the productivity of our team. And it is more expensive for us to finance job-creating investments, such as that state-of-the-art sustainable manufacturing facility. And more tax hikes are looming at the end of this year, including the halving of the estate tax exemption, which will force many family businesses to hold back on investments or contemplate selling pieces of their company to satisfy an unjust tax bill. Recent National Association of Manufacturers research found that failing to extend pro-manufacturing tax policies could cost the U.S. nearly 6 million jobs and $1 trillion in lost GDP. And that is an outcome, Mr. Chairman, that we can't afford. If Congress wants to preserve American innovation, ingenuity, and competitiveness, inaction is simply not an option. So, look, despite these challenges, I want to remain very optimistic, as I am, about the future of Click Bond and manufacturing in the United States, particularly for our small businesses. At Click Bond, we are ready to seize this moment, translating the pace of innovation and the strong global demand for aerospace products into job growth and export opportunities. The same story holds true for the small and medium manufacturers across our supply chain. As a family business, we are ready to invest--and to reinvest--in growth, R&D, and capital equipment to generate excellent careers that lift our communities, while deploying modern, sustainable manufacturing processes. And, finally, as a Member of our nation's defense industrial base, we are proud to do this work in service of strengthening our country's security and its readiness. Congress has a critical opportunity to right-size the regulatory landscape, put an end to permitting delays, and protect manufacturers from devastating tax increases. I encourage you to seize this opportunity, empower manufacturers, and strengthen America. Because when manufacturing wins, America wins. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you very much, Mr. Hutter. Right on time. Thank you. And now I recognize Mr. New for your 5-minute opening remarks. STATEMENT OF BILL NEW Mr. NEW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Velazquez, and Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. This is my first time testifying in front of a congressional committee, so I may stumble a little bit. Public speaking is not one of my strong points. But I am Bill New. I am the founder and the owner and the president of New Industries. We are a south-Louisiana-based steel fabricator. We build process equipment for the oil and gas industry, subsea equipment for producing in deepwater. We also build pressure vessels and things used in process plants, refineries, petrochemical. And we also build some agricultural processing equipment as well. So, basically, we cut, bend, and weld the steel. And, you know, I have been at it--I started the company in 1985, quit my job working for an oil company. I was 28 years old. As most of us are when we are 28 years old, we think we are bulletproof and we know everything. About 2 years later, I figured out I didn't know anything. But, to that point, it was too late, so--so, been at it ever since. You know, I think a big misconception about the oil and gas industry for most people, the general public certainly, is that, when they think of oil and gas, they think of the Chevrons and the Exxons and the Shells and the BPs, but, for all those great big companies--and they are all customers of mine--you know, there are a whole lot of companies like New Industries, you know, small businesses that fabricate, that build equipment, that provide services both on shore and offshore. And that is really the heart of the oil and gas industry, is those small businesses that make it all happen. The oil companies, comparatively, don't actually employ that many people. They spend the money, but sometimes they are almost more like bankers than actually operators. And so it is very important to, you know, encourage oil and gas. You know, we have been through a period over the last 4 years of issues with permitting, with lease sales. And, already, the new administration has already turned some of those things around. But it just takes time, you know. And the projects typically--a lot of projects we work on have horizons of 5 and 10 years from the time they discover--even before they discover, drill the first well, until it is on production, and spend billions of dollars. And if we don't have consistency in leasing and consistency in regulation, those projects never get started. Because if you award a lease to one of the major oil companies today in deepwater, it will be at least probably 3 years before they actually drill a well, because there is a lot of preliminary work to be done. And then, once that well is drilled, assuming that it is a discovery, then it will be several more years getting it developed, building the equipment, building the facility. And so that consistency of regulation is so important to the industry and certainly important to New Industries. Same thing with tax policy, you know. We certainly took advantage of the accelerated depreciation when that was there. We spent a lot of--invested a lot of money in equipment, big equipment--cranes, plate rolls, you know, big pieces of machinery. But it is a lot easier to pay for them when I can deduct the full cost of depreciation in the first year. It certainly helps pay for them. So I urge you to just continue along this path. And I am looking forward to the next 4 years. Our customers are much more optimistic since the election. Projects that had been on hold, I hear, now suddenly we are talking about moving forward. And so, you know, we are a project-based business. If our customers are not drilling new wells, developing new facilities, building new process plants, adding on to process plants, there is no work for us. You know, I am not like Walmart; I can't generate incremental sales with price. I can't put welders on sale this week and sell any more. I mean, if my customers need one, you know, they will buy it; if they don't need it, it doesn't matter what my price is. And so we are looking forward to the next 4 years. I think it is a pretty exciting time to be in our industry. Thank you. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you very much. I now recognize Ms. Frazier for her 5-minute opening remarks. STATEMENT OF ALICE FRAZIER Ms. FRAZIER. Thank you, Chairman Williams and Ranking Member Velazquez and Members of this Committee. I am Alice Frazier, CEO of Bank of Charles Town, a 154- year-old community bank with $877 million in assets, serving markets West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia. I testify today on behalf of the Independent Community Bankers of America, where I am Vice Chairman. This hearing is well-timed for the new Congress and administration, which I can assure you has brought new hope for the communities I serve. The optimism is unmistakable. Small-business loans are almost 90 percent of our portfolio. And, in aggregate, community banks extend a disproportionate number of small-business loans, especially in smaller markets. We serve small businesses with customized products and personalized services that can only be provided by locally-based, on-the-ground lenders. We lend based on firsthand knowledge of our customers and our communities. That is what sets us apart from larger, out-of-market competitors. And, importantly, my bank is a small business, as defined by the SBA, and within the jurisdiction of this Committee. We are a small business helping small businesses. The same is true of thousands of community banks, many of which are family-owned just like the local coffee shop on main street. Many community banks, like my bank, are also SBA lenders, and we share with this Committee a commitment to protecting the integrity of the SBA guaranteed loan programs with stability in its products and services. Today, I want to talk about the remarkable resilience and the new optimism I am seeing in our markets and focus on a couple of proposals from our agenda for the new Congress, which is attached to my written statement. You see, the phones are ringing again with small businesses in my footprint eager to expand with community-bank credit. My written statement contains a compelling story of a restaurant- supply company seeking credit to meet demand from new and upgrading restaurants. It is an example of growth based upon business optimism. And our small-business lending capacity could be further enhanced by regulatory and tax relief. Today's market optimism is based upon an expectation of new policies that will spur economic growth and job creation. It is our job to deliver on that expectation. Top of mind for community banks and small-business borrowers is the destructive impact of Section 1071 of Dodd- Frank Act, which requires community banks to collect granular and invasive data on small-business loan applicants. Small-business lending is not and should not be a commodity. Underwriting is based on numerous borrower characteristics and market variables, and loans are typically customized to give borrowers the best chance of success. The data collected under 1071 will not reflect the full scope of underwriting and may suggest discrimination where none exists. Bank examiners are really best positioned to make this judgment in the application of fair lending and CRA laws. Section 1071 is simply the wrong tool for this job. Lenders will respond by standardizing loan features to protect themselves from charges of discrimination. But please keep in mind, minority and women borrowers, whom this rule is supposed to help, often benefit from that customized lending. With the new Congress and administration, you have an opportunity to revisit and this time fully repeal Section 1071. ICBA strongly supports and thanks Chairman Williams for his 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act. We ask Members of this Committee to support this critical bill. A few other ICBA priorities for this Congress include updating regulatory thresholds so that community banks are not subject to regulations designed for the largest of banks. And doing so will create regulatory relief that will allow us to better serve our customers. And in the coming tax debate, we urge permanent extension of the deduction for pass-through business income under Section 199A. The loss of this deduction would amount to a steep tax increase for the vast majority of small businesses, including nearly 1,500 Subchapter S community banks. Thank you for allowing the community-bank perspective, and I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you very much. And I now recognize Ms. Moon Neitzel. And I heard, when the Ranking Member introduced you, ``$12 million worth of ice cream.'' That is a lot of ice cream. So I am anxious to hear about that. Okay. STATEMENT OF MOLLY MOON NEITZEL Ms. NEITZEL. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Williams, Ranking Member Velazquez, and Members of the Committee, I am honored to be here today. My name is Molly Moon Neitzel, CEO of Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream in Washington State. I am also a founding Member of the Main Street Alliance, which represents over 30,000 small businesses nationwide, and a proud Member of MomsRising. At Molly Moon's, we employ about 200 people across 9 ice cream shops, and our products are sold across our region. Next week, we will begin construction on three more locations, in part funded by SBA loans. We are a growing, thriving business. Today, we have been asked to highlight some of the real challenges facing small businesses and what you all can do to improve the health of the small-business economy. But the title of this hearing, ``Hope on the Horizon,'' and this Committee's statement that President Trump's policies put America first are at odds with the reality that the President's current and proposed actions are gutting the engine of the American economy--main street businesses. His policies have disadvantaged small businesses against our larger competitors in the Tax Code and created instability for the nation's biggest and best job creators. Small businesses created 65 percent of all new jobs in the past decade. We are the foundation of the U.S. economy. But there are concrete ways this Committee can support Main Street America. First, our Tax Code isn't working for main street businesses. We need to fix the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to target 199A deduction relief to smaller operators, not just big corporations. And the IRS must be fully funded, not gutted, in order to enforce the law and ensure the giant companies and the wealthy people who run them pay their fair share. Second, let's use the revenue from fair enforcement of the Tax Code to invest in a national childcare system, paid family and medical leave, and affordable healthcare. At Molly Moon's, we invest $1,000 per month toward childcare for each employee's child, and the returns have been tremendous. Since launching this program, we have seen a rise in parents able to work full-time and apply for promotions into management because they can now afford the childcare to work during our busiest hours. We have even had babies brought into this world because women who worked for us realized they could afford to grow their families with reduced childcare costs factored in. The ROI on this workforce stabilization has been huge--and the babies are real cute--but, as much as I love leading on this issue, we do it because Congress has failed to create a childcare infrastructure that supports our nation's workforce. Third, every small-business owner I know and every business in America is incredibly concerned about a global trade war and the general chaos-creation policies we have seen in the federal government in the last few weeks. Being so worried about what is coming next and trying to safeguard against it has negative impacts on our operations, profits, and communities. Small businesses depend on each other and many other businesses around the world. We depend on a functional Small Business Administration and sound economic policies. But any tariffs--and even the threats of them--will increase costs, raising prices even higher for families, raising inflation again. This is the opposite of President Trump's and many Republicans' campaign promises to America. As just one example, a quarter of all the produce consumed in the U.S. is grown in Mexico, and an ice cream shop, restaurant, or grocery store will be devastated by a 25-percent tax on those fruit and vegetable costs. Extrapolate that one example over all small businesses, most of whom operate in the global economy for ingredients, parts, or their whole product, and we are driving toward recession. We don't need a global trade war to destabilize our economy or more tax cuts for the biggest corporations. We need a fair Tax Code, stable economic policies, and a healthy, available workforce so that main street and small businesses can thrive. With your help, I hope a bright future for small business is possible. Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions from the Committee. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. We will now move to the Member questions under the 5-minute rule, and I recognize myself for 5 minutes. Ms. Frazier, small businesses have faced unprecedented economic challenges, such as inflation and rising interest rates, which threaten their ability to access capital. As you all well know, access to capital is essential to any growing, aspiring business. Yet, instead of helping Main Street America, under the Biden administration, the CFPB implemented the 1071 rule, which you mentioned, which put an even heavier burden on small financial institutions that were struggling to keep up with rising interest rates. So I recently introduced the 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, which would immediately repeal CFPB's small-business-killing rule. How would an immediate repeal of the 1071 rule ensure that community banks can continue providing affordable lending options to small-business owners? Ms. FRAZIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can give you an example of the impact. There are over 81 different data decision points that we would need to collect and decide upon in evaluating or just taking the application. And when I think about my bank and the number of loans that were small businesses in the past 2 years, it was over 237 loans, for $140 million. Multiply that, each one, by 81 points that we need to first make a decision upon and collect and then report upon. And so the only way that that could be possible is to continue to evaluate technology and use of AI, which then doesn't focus us on the conversations or building the relationships or giving the advice and counsel many small businesses need. So I hope those give you some illustrations of what that impact would do for us. Chairman WILLIAMS. Absolutely. Mr. New, in the final days as President, President Biden sought to ban offshore oil and gas leases in vast offshore areas. If not for President Trump issuing several executive orders on his first day in office to repeal these efforts, the ban would have covered more than 625 million acres, representing the largest withdrawal of offshore oil and gas leases in U.S. history. So how will President Trump's actions help your industry thrive and meet the demands of the offshore oil and gas sector? Mr. NEW. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, it is really about having access to lands to drill. Unlike onshore, where a lot of the oil and gas production is on private land, in the federal offshore waters it is all federal lands. So it depends on the federal government to basically be the landowner, the judge, the jury, and the executioner. So, when there are not leases available, my customers don't have opportunities to drill. And, you know, I say it is a pipeline. So it is not just the lease today. Because if you lease today, it is going to be--you know, it may be 10 years before there is production. But there are a lot of activities that have to go on to get to that stage. And if we are not leasing today, we are not going to have those activities over the next 10 years and that production. Chairman WILLIAMS. Great. I have a limited amount of time, so, Mr. Hutter, let me just ask you a short question here. Can you explain how dangerous and overbearing regulations have impacted your business? Mr. HUTTER. So I think that one of the things to always remember for our smaller businesses particularly is, certainty goes a long, long way. And while, I think, you know, we don't argue against regulations that make the rules clear and, you know, work toward goals of making our people safer and the impacts that we make on our communities only positive ones, I would say, generally, regulations need to be thought of in terms of their clarity, in terms of their workability, and in terms of making sure we don't put in constraints on things that get out over the skis of science. And let me explain real quickly on that one. When it comes to things like materials--PFAS restrictions, for example, I think is a good one--there are things in our defense supply chain that simply don't have substitutes. In the healthcare sector, it would be similar to the ethylene oxide restrictions that are being considered, right? There is no similar disinfectant gas. And when you talk about products that have a certification cycle that lasts the better part of a decade, having a sudden need to swap a key component or material in your product and then put the recertification and test requirements on top of that that are necessary to ensure that, well, if you are making something that is going in an aircraft engine to a civil airliner, that we are all safe and secure aboard that airplane, look, there are things that make that nearly impossible. So I would just really say that it is important to be very clear on what the reality science- and technology-wise is before we go and put forward a regulation demanding the impossible. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. My time is up. I now recognize the Ranking Member for 5 minutes of questions. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Neitzel, President Trump reentered office on promises to immediately lower egg prices. However, in the past week, the national average warehouse delivery price for conventional large white eggs rose to $6.70 per dozen from $5.87 on January 20th when he took office. Any comments on that? Ms. NEITZEL. Yes. Egg prices have risen. There is also an egg shortage in America. The instability in food prices is only going to get worse as we understand more about the trade war. And restaurants and ice cream shops and grocery stores operate on the thinnest margins of most main street businesses. We simply can't afford prices to increase in any of our cost of goods. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. On Saturday, President Trump enacted a 25-percent tax on goods from our trade allies Canada and Mexico and a 10-percent tax on goods from China. The nonpartisan Peterson Institute reports that these taxes will spike up our inflation and cut our GDP over the next few years. Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter the report into the record. Chairman WILLIAMS. So ordered. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Ms. Neitzel, you state that these tariffs will cost you $100,000 extra on ice cream cups and containers alone. Will you be forced to pass this cost on to consumers? Ms. NEITZEL. Yes. If these tariff go through, I will have to raise my prices. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. And we all know that, 2 business hours into Monday, President Trump paused his tariffs on Mexico. Was that chaotic for your business? How harmful was that tariff? Ms. NEITZEL. Yeah, that was very chaotic. We are wondering where fruit and paper products are going to come from and how we will make up the costs. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Ms. Neitzel, President Trump is placing the richest man in the world and the owner of several large tech corporations, Elon Musk, in charge of the federal government without the guardrails of typical federal employment. Do you think this will make federal agencies pay more attention to the needs of small businesses like yours or bigger, wealthier corporations? Ms. NEITZEL. It will absolutely make the federal government pay more attention to bigger corporations. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Musk had the highest-ranking civil servant at the Treasury Department removed for their reluctance to give him unrestricted access to a sensitive payment system used to pay out more than $6 trillion a year in Social Security, Medicare, government contract payments, and tax reforms. Are you comfortable letting this unelected man have this data on federal payments to you and your fellow Americans? Ms. NEITZEL. No. Every person I have talked to in the last 2 weeks and especially the last 2 days--every American is scared of Elon Musk being given the keys to our government. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. The federal government has increasingly used continuing resolutions to fund vital programs, rather than more stable yearly budgets. As a small-business owner who receives services from the SBA, is this approach to public-service funding helpful? Ms. NEITZEL. No. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Why not? Ms. NEITZEL. I wish that Congress could work together to pass real budgets that are longer-term and intentional, with the priorities of main street businesses at the heart of the concern. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. So here we are. We always say that certainty is so important for small businesses in order to plan ahead, and yet the federal government cannot provide that certainty. Regarding the type of immigrants who have work permits, the President issued an executive order to deport those immigrants. What effect will that have on main street small businesses? Ms. NEITZEL. Losing farmers who have work permits in the United States will devastate the food system in America. We need those workers in order to feed our families and our children. Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Thank you. I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you, Ms. Velazquez. She yields back. And now I now recognize Ms. Van Duyne from the great State of Texas for 5 minutes. Ms. VAN DUYNE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us today. Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record the Prime Minister of Canada's statement announcing border protections in direct response to President Trump's proposed tariffs. Chairman WILLIAMS. So ordered. Ms. VAN DUYNE. We have heard some conversation this morning how bad tariffs are, but the fact is that what we have seen over the last several days is that we have had countries-- Canada, Mexico, Colombia--that have actually agreed now to help us, the United States, with a number of different things, from securing our borders to preventing fentanyl deaths. I think those are really important, as opposed to just looking at how much we are going be able to save on a grapefruit. You know, I have heard some criticisms this morning on Musk and how he is not running our typical federal government programs. I am going to ask anybody: Have our typical federal programs and how we have typically been running the federal government helped any of your businesses? Or has it gotten us into $36.22 trillion of debt and a $2 trillion deficit? We added $1.4 trillion of regulations the last 4 years onto our small businesses. And, Ms. Moon, I am assuming that you appreciate the additional $1.4 trillion of extra money that businesses are having to spend, including and especially small businesses. I have also heard how dangerous it is that Mr. Musk, who is an advisor to an elected President, how dangerous his regulations are and because he is an unelected person. Does anybody know how many bureaucrats in our government, in our agencies that are making these decisions, how many of them are elected? Ms. Moon? Ms. NEITZEL. He has not been confirmed by Congress. Ms. VAN DUYNE. He is an advisor to the President. It is not part of the Cabinet, not necessary for confirmation. But even people who are confirmed are not elected. But what we have seen is, so many of these bureaucrats over and over again are making the decisions. And, a lot of times, we pass laws but the regulations that these agencies are putting out don't even reflect the intent and sometimes are in direct conflict with our laws. And none of them are elected. And I think what you have seen is the American public is sick of it. They want to have a difference in how government is typically run, for those exact reasons. I appreciate you being here. Look, I love ice cream, and I am happy that you are contributing, you know, to our economic growth. But I think we also need to get real here. And as we kick off the 119th Congress, we have an incredible opportunity right now to undo many of the harms that have been done to small businesses by the Biden-Harris administration and we can enact meaningful pro-growth reforms. And, you know, we saw a recent report from the National Association of Manufacturers that revealed that if the Trump tax cuts are not renewed, that in Texas's 24th District alone 27,000 jobs and $2.6 billion in wages and $5.3 billion in GDP, just in Texas's 24th District, are at risk. So, Mr. Hutter, as the CEO of a manufacturing company, what tax policies are most important to small businesses like yours? Mr. HUTTER. Sure. No, thank you for the opportunity. I think I would choose to focus first on something that demands immediate attention because it has already expired, and it is the inability to no longer expense--the inability to any longer expense research and development. It is important for everyone to remember that R&D, while we tend to think about that as being the research behind the amazing new products that America is famous for, it is really also about the amazing new processes that America is famous for. And one of the things that we are absolutely best at and makes this country the most competitive is our innovation around manufacturing. And so, at a time when we really are enjoying low unemployment and we have an opportunity to get even greater value deployed for our country through the amazing talent on our teams, what do we need? We need to have the ability to invest in capital equipment that unleashes their capability and puts new productivity in the hands of our people. And we need to have incentive--or, at least, the removal of disincentive-- to invest in that very research and development that creates the new processes that will utilize that equipment, those tools, and enable that talent. The upshot of all of this is not just continuing to preserve and strengthen American competitiveness economically, supporting our defense industrial base--always something I am happy to talk about--but, most importantly of all, it is an opportunity to raise wages, to actually raise the value of the work that great American talent is doing. Ms. VAN DUYNE. Oh, I love that. And nowhere in there did I hear you say that we needed to have more regulations. Mr. HUTTER. No. Ms. VAN DUYNE. In a response to concerns that I have heard from small businesses in north Texas and actually around the country, I reintroduced yesterday the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act. And I am looking forward to looking at those costs of regulations to small businesses and require that the SBA ensure that the regulations are cost-neutral. And, with that, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. And I now recognize Mr. McGarvey from the great State of Kentucky for 5 minutes. Mr. MCGARVEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, let me also start off by offering my condolences and our prayers to you and everything you are going through. We have been thinking about you a lot. It is good to be back here. Ms. Moon, appreciate you being here today. In 1942, it was Winston Churchill who wrote to the British Wartime Minister of Food that Americans are, quote, ``great addicts of ice cream, which is said to rival alcoholic drinks.'' I am born and raised in Kentucky, and I would just say, why can't we love both? But I think there has been a lot of really good points brought up here today, and I want to address a few of those. Because, in this particular instance, I do think there is a link between what you are experiencing with your ice cream business and what we are seeing at our distilleries in Kentucky as a result of the Trump tariffs and the chaos that he has thrown the economy into. There is--in Kentucky right now, we see it--bourbon has to be made in America. Ninety-five percent of the world's bourbon is made in Kentucky, but it just has to be made in America. We also get 100 percent of the good stuff. But it is not going to incentivize new manufacturing in America to do this. We saw this in the first round of tariffs. The retaliatory tariffs placed on American products like bourbon cost hundreds of millions of dollars to my State. These don't just impact a company's bottom line. This is everybody, from the farmers who grow the corn, the coopers who put it in the barrel, the union workers who put it in the bottle, the truck drivers who take it to the store, the stores like yours that sell the product, the consumers who buy it. It is harmful to everyone down the line. And what we are seeing right now with these tariffs and what they have resulted in, throwing our economy into--it is not over. It is not over. It is just a pause right now. There are people who are going to bed in Kentucky going, what is going to happen to the economy? What is going to happen to our business? And what do we get for it? All the reports are really modest, not much. Donald Trump has erased billions of dollars in market capitalization, throwing districts like mine into chaos, with these tariffs, but there is not a lot of actual, real new behavior from a place like Canada. Canada seized 43 pounds of fentanyl on the border last year. The Canadian papers and other places are sort of running that we lost the deal on this. What we want in this Committee and what I have enjoyed about the nature of this Committee is the bipartisan nature of it, that we actually want our small businesses to flourish. What every congressional district here has is an economy that is driven by small businesses. We want those to work. So, when we talk about these tariffs and the impact that they have on small businesses--you started to hit on this. I know you get a lot of your products locally sourced from the Pacific Northwest, but you can't get it all from there, correct? Ms. NEITZEL. Correct. Mr. MCGARVEY. And so do you have to buy coffee or chocolate or other things from other countries? Ms. NEITZEL. We buy sugar, chocolate, coffee and tea, and paper products from outside of the United States. Mr. MCGARVEY. And you said this would have a $100,000 impact on your business alone in selling ice cream. Ms. NEITZEL. That is just if there were tariffs on our paper products. Yes. Mr. MCGARVEY. Just on the paper products. Expanding beyond that, it is going to be even more of an impact. Ms. NEITZEL. Correct. Mr. MCGARVEY. A question I honestly don't know the answer to: Do you think--you talked about you would have to pass this on to the consumers. What does that actually do to your business? Do the consumers absorb all that cost? Ms. NEITZEL. Yeah. So, when food prices are higher in America, it makes people go out to eat less often. I am very dependent on people going out to dinner and then walking down to the ice cream shop afterward. The small-business economy is especially intertwined with each other. So vegetable costs at the restaurants down the street matter just as much to me as my own cost of goods. And I am extremely worried about restaurants. Mr. MCGARVEY. Yeah. And so I think we see the impact, the ripple effect this has and will have on your employees. And, of course, I love what you are doing with childcare. I truly wish we were doing more with childcare in Congress. We need to. That is absolutely an economic development tool as well as a crisis that we have in this country, not having enough childcare. But when this impacts a business like yours, it impacts other businesses, it impacts your employees, it impacts the childcare you are providing, and I think we see the ripple effects. So I appreciate that and hope we can continue to provide some relief for small businesses up here. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Mr. Ellzey from the great State of Texas for 5 minutes. Mr. ELLZEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I send my condolences to you and your family, as well, for the loss of your bride. Mr. Hutter, welcome to our hearing. As an aviator myself, would you tell me what exactly--let's say, what is your premier part that goes into an aircraft that we would all know? Mr. HUTTER. Well, we manufacture about 5,000 parts that go into the engine, the cells of every Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, Boeing 787 and A350. Of course it contains and surrounds the engines. Mr. ELLZEY. And you created this part and are the sole proprietor of it as a small business. Nobody does what you do. Correct? Mr. HUTTER. You know, we are proud to have quite a few things that have been both IP-protected but also trade-secret- protected. And we maintain those positions by just being the best. Mr. ELLZEY. Okay. So what is an example of a regulation that has held back your business from growing? Because aviation is highly regulated, because it is all about safety. We are not going to discuss what has happened in the last week. But that is why the regulations are so high. Are there some that are unnecessary and too cumbersome for you? Mr. HUTTER. Yeah, no, it is a great question. Of course, you know, thank you for the reference to the tragedies of the last week. It was a reminder of why regulations not only are not all bad, they are really critical for us to deliver the safety record that we have in this country. But there are some that, as I mentioned earlier, just don't make sense or are pretty unworkable, if not impossible, for small businesses. You know, our businesses are small, but they are great ones, too, if we can be allowed to get to the work that we have been set out to do. And there are a great number of regulations--and I am thinking of some that even are born of SEC regulation---- Mr. ELLZEY. Uh-huh. Mr. HUTTER.--okay? Previously we had the conflict-minerals source tracing. We have the opportunity to potentially see something similar in some of the greenhouse-gas-emissions regulations. It is the chance to let's, you know, get this stuff right and do it in a way that is workable. And where I am headed here is, you have got regulations that are targeted at and made the responsibility of publicly traded companies or large companies like our customers, and whether they are right, wrong, or indifferent at that level, here is what happens at my level: The reporting requirements, the data collection requirements that come rolling down through the supply chain--and 60 to 70 percent of the aerospace supply chain, civil and defense, is not at those big names that you see on the stock ticker; they are at companies like ours, small businesses. And just the effort to go get the data and feed it back upstream to serve those compliance needs requires, you know, a team that I don't have. And the people that would go to do that kind of analytical and research work are the very same talent on my lean, mean team that would otherwise be focusing their efforts on improving our production and scheduling, our reliability, our economy, maybe even our direct impact to our employees around safety or around environmental responsibility. And, instead, they are off on this, you know, research project supporting a regulation that I don't even know that the government knows what it is going to do with the data. Mr. ELLZEY. And they don't know the second-, third-order effects. If you go out of business, we don't make 737s. It is as simple as that. Mr. HUTTER. No, sir. And I think that that reaches across some of these things like availability of certain materials, the stability of energy supply. Mr. ELLZEY. Yeah. Mr. HUTTER. We had better understand what we are doing before we shut off the tap on something that could bring things to a stop real fast. Mr. ELLZEY. It sounds a lot like the banking for the community banks. I mean, if you just changed the wording just a little bit, it sounds exactly the same way. And, Mr. New, we are just about out of time. So it sounds like--I know, in your industry, this same kind of regulations have an effect. Ms. Neitzel, I want to thank you for being here. I am an addict of ice cream. I can't wait to try the Yeti. I just want to point out that--you are talking about a shortage of eggs. The Trump administration has been in power for less than 2 weeks. There is no shortage of eggs because of Donald Trump. It is bird flu and the requirement to kill a lot of chickens that has caused a shortage that has been ongoing for several years in the United States now. It has nothing do with tariffs--which, I might add, are not actually in effect. It was a negotiating point. But I would also like to add: Let's be clear, I mean, I am extremely impressed with your desire to start a business. I wish I could start an ice cream business. But keep in mind, there are consequences for choices that you make. For instance, you know, you don't--do you allow police in your store if they are armed? Ms. NEITZEL. I do. Mr. ELLZEY. You do? But you didn't in 2020, correct? Ms. NEITZEL. Correct. Mr. ELLZEY. Okay. Well, there are consequences for not allowing cops in the CHOP area, which ended up devastating your business. So I think we ought to keep in mind cause and effect in small businesses, and some of those choices you made prove to harm your own business. So thank you. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Mrs. McIver from New Jersey for 5 minutes. Mrs. MCIVER. Thank you so much, Chair and Ranking Member. And thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today. And, Mr. Chair, I offer my condolences to you and your family as well and my prayers to you all. We all know that small businesses are the backbone of the American workforce and the driving force behind the American Dream. We have heard many of our witnesses talk about that today and many Members of Congress talk about that. In my district alone, thousands of small businesses thrive, employing tens of thousands of hardworking individuals, many from minority, women, and immigrant communities. Just 2 weeks ago, one of my small businesses experienced an unjust raid by ICE agents, resulting in the arrest of three employees and the detention and questioning of several others. This raid created widespread fear within the entire community, disrupted business operations, and imposed undue hardship on the establishment and the dedicated workers there. I spoke to this community this morning, the leader, one of my council members and mayor of this community, and they indicated to me that about a 25-percent to 30-percent drop they have seen in the small business--in the small businesses--you know, folks coming in to support small businesses and shops and the locals there, which speaks to this is a very thriving community on small businesses. It is definitely a hardship. I mean, it has created so much of a fear that people are scared to come outside in this community. And, Ms. Neitzel, you talked about it when our Ranking Member asked you about what does it mean when, you know, immigrants are not showing up to work on farms and they are not coming to work, and you talked about, you know, the impact it would have on our food systems. But can you elaborate a little bit more on what the profit margins would be--the impact on the profit margins themselves for small businesses because of such? Ms. NEITZEL. If farmers can't get their employees to come to work because they are so scared of ICE raids, then restaurants and grocery stores and ice cream shops won't have the produce that we need to make our products. If we don't have what our customers want, like that Yeti ice cream, we are not going to have customers walking in our doors. It will bring the entire small-business economy to a halt. Mrs. MCIVER. Correct. Thank you for that. And I am sure, like I mentioned about my East Ward community in the city of Newark already experiencing that, when folks are not coming in to shop and support small businesses. I just want us all to think about this from both sides of the aisle as we begin our work here in this new Congress--that seems like it has already been 25 years in this new Congress already, but only a couple of weeks in--that it is imperative that we prioritize the protection of all businesses and the individuals who contribute to their success. Safeguarding their well-being is essential to maintaining the strength of our local economies and preserving the opportunities that small businesses provide. So thank you so much. And with that, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. I now recognize Mr. Alford from the great State of Missouri for 5 minutes. Mr. ALFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, our sympathies to you and your great family down in Texas, running a great small business there, for the loss of your Patty. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Appreciate that. This committee stands as a staunch advocate for Main Street America. If we do not champion main street interests, we risk losing the small businesses that are integral, part of the fabric of America. Small businesses spent the last 4 years under attack from a lethal combination of inflation and overregulation. This committee is here to assure small business owners that these attacks are over. The Trump administration and a unified Republican Congress are here to fight for you, to ensure that everyone can live the American Dream. Throughout President Biden's term, federal agencies finalized more than 1,000 regulations, costing small businesses more than $1.7 trillion--$1.7 trillion. That is the same as the entire federal discretionary budget for fiscal year 2023. It is unacceptable that federal agencies can put this burden on the taxpayers of this country. And with Elon Musk in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, we will end the federal government's attack on businesses. Through a letter dated February 3, and here in this very committee room, Ranking Member Velazquez and committee Democrats have raised concerns about DOGE being granted access to Small Business Administration systems. Well, with all due respect to the Ranking Member, who is now leaving this committee room, this is exactly what Americans voted for last November 5. The American people are sick and tired of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats wasting billions of dollars--taxpayer dollars. The PPP and EIDL programs wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in potentially fraudulent COVID loans. Estimates vary, but most agree that over $200 billion was fraudulent. The American people elected President Trump to clean up the corruption and waste in Washington. Maybe, just maybe, if committee Democrats joined the majority last Congress in investigating SBA's lax fraud controls and nearly nonexistent efforts to reclaim taxpayer dollars, then DOGE would not need to now go inside the SBA. I am also enthused that President Trump has ordered federal workers back to their desks in the offices just down the street here. As we saw on our visit to the SBA more than a year ago, employee attendance was meager at best. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, I will be working with Ranking Member Tran to ensure maximum efficiency and transparency by the SBA. With 2 minutes left, Ms. Moon Neitzel, a couple of questions for you. How much is the price of an ice cream cone in your shop, a small one? Let's just start with a small one. Ms. NEITZEL. A single scoop is $6.95. Mr. ALFORD. $6.95. If the tariffs go into effect, what is the estimated price increase you will have to make on that product? Ms. NEITZEL. I have no idea, because I---- Mr. ALFORD. Can you take a guess? Ms. NEITZEL. Nope. Mr. ALFORD. $7.25? Is it going to go up a dollar? Ms. NEITZEL. Could be. Mr. ALFORD. A dollar. Do you know why the tariffs are being used right now as a tool by President Trump? It is to shut down the illegal and illicit fentanyl that is coming to our country from Mexico and Canada that is killing more than 300 of our fellow citizens each and every year. Ms. NEITZEL. All 43 pounds of it from Canada. Mr. ALFORD. I would submit to you that the threat of a tariff to stop this illegal drug trade--and, yes, most of it is coming from Mexico--is worth the added cost of an ice cream cone in America. Ms. Moon Neitzel, do you hire any illegal aliens? Ms. NEITZEL. I don't know. Mr. ALFORD. You don't know? You could be hiring illegal aliens? Ms. NEITZEL. We check the paperwork as per regulation. Mr. ALFORD. But you think some of them might be illegal, here illegally? Ms. NEITZEL. I don't know. Mr. ALFORD. Why should any employee or any illegal alien be working in America to begin with? Ms. NEITZEL. Every American deserves a job. Mr. ALFORD. Every U.S. citizen or every person who lives in the Americas? Ms. NEITZEL. Every American deserves a job, sir. Mr. ALFORD. I will take that as a U.S. citizen. Why should anyone who is here with legal status be fearful of any ICE raids? Ms. NEITZEL. The fear and intimidation of these ICE raids reaches to every American citizen, as well as the folks they are looking for. Mr. ALFORD. Well, I think, if you are here legally, you have no reason to be fearful. And I do believe that a small increase in the price of ice cream is worth an American life. So thank you. And I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Mr. Cisneros from the great State of California for 5 minutes. Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, as well, want to send along my sympathies to you and your family for your loss. Chairman WILLIAMS. Thank you. Mr. CISNEROS. January 24 the SBA updated its small business contracting goals for the fiscal year 2025. Under President Trump, SBA requires agencies to award at least 5 percent of all contracts to small disadvantaged businesses. That is down 15 percent from the Biden administration. Other Trump administrative targets include 5 percent for all federal prime contracts going to women-owned small businesses and 5 percent to--all federal prime contracts going to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, 5 percent of all prime contracts going to a HUBZone, historically underutilized business zones, 3 percent. These HUBzones are in my district, including the cities of El Monte, Covina, Azusa, La Puente, and more. So, Ms. Frazier, given these decreased targets, what advice would you have for a small business--small disadvantaged business--looking to secure capital, as well as for veteran- owned small businesses and women-owned small businesses? Ms. FRAZIER. Thank you. I would like to think that there are opportunities continued beyond maybe just those contracts. We actually are a bank for government contractors. Many of them do take advantage of the 8(a) and are able to use that to grow their revenues. And some also partner up with some that are not 8(a) to be able to deliver their services and their products from that perspective. So while the numbers may be down, I think the opportunities for revenues continue to grow. Mr. CISNEROS. Well, but the likelihood is, is that if these small disadvantaged businesses are not going to receive as many contracts, then banks are probably going to be less likely to lend to them, right? The same thing as well as our women-owned businesses and veteran-owned businesses, if they are not going to get as much government contract business as they did in the past possibly. There is that possibility as well. Ms. FRAZIER. I think the loans that they apply for are also relevant to the size of their business at the time. And so sometimes--all government contractors ebb and flow with their revenues and the contracts that they win, and so loan sizes also increase and decrease relative to that. Mr. CISNEROS. Well, but I think, again, as it goes, the least likely of their business decreasing because, as we said, if they are going to get less business, the chance of them kind of having to downsize means the possibility of less capital for their businesses. But with that, I will move on. Ms. Neitzel, I just want to commend you for your commitment to childcare. The investment that you have made with your business to benefit your employees I think should be commended, and it should really be a model for other businesses. So how could we as a committee, how can we as a Congress help you and other businesses like you that are making this investment? And as you stated in your testimony, I do think we need to invest in childcare across the country. But how can we help small businesses like you help their employees to make them better businesses? Ms. NEITZEL. You can help by creating a national childcare program that is cost saving because of scale. Putting a child in daycare in Seattle costs between $2,500 and $3,000 a month. That is far more than most of my employees pay in rent or mortgage payments. So me investing $1,000 a month isn't even covering their costs. But if we had a national childcare system that provided subsidies or a robust childcare facility system like most other developed nations, we could scale the--lower the cost per child, scale the program, and stabilize the entire American workforce, allowing more women, in particular, to fully participate in the American economy. Mr. CISNEROS. Thank you for that answer. And as you stated also, the tariffs, the negative effect it is going to have on your business, with the raising of prices. And my State of California and my community down in southern California have been devastated by fires. Many of the businesses--one of the businesses in my district relies on products that they have to come from other countries, one of them being Canada, the other being Mexico. This is going to hurt their business. Lumber, a large amount of lumber that is now going to be needed to rebuild southern California, the cities of Altadena, Pacific Palisades, that is going to hurt the builders. And with that, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Mr. Finstad from the great State of Minnesota for 5 minutes. Mr. FINSTAD. Thank you, Chairman Williams, for holding this important hearing today. And thank you to the witnesses for taking time and being here. I would also like to take a moment, Mr. Chairman, to extend my condolences to you on the loss of Patty, and just I want you to know that I continue to pray for you and your family. I am honored to serve here on the Small Business Committee for the 119th Congress. As a small business owner myself and one of the very few real farmers that gets to serve in Congress, I know firsthand the impact that heavy-handed, burdensome regulations have on our small business owners. Over the last 4 years, main street businesses have been fighting to keep their doors open, dealing with the impacts of inflation, misguided regulations, supply chain issues, and an administrative state that does not put their priorities first. I am looking forward to the opportunity to make lasting changes that will allow our communities in southern Minnesota and across the country to thrive. With that being said, Mr. Hutter, you talked in your testimony about the regulatory state, permitting reform possibly needed. And last Congress, I was proud to have led the passage of a bipartisan bill called the PROVE IT Act, which gives our small businesses a seat at the table and a voice in the regulatory process. Do you feel like right now you have a voice in that process? Do you have an opportunity as we pass these well- intended laws in Congress, the administrative state implements their rules and regulations, and they come to you and say here are the hoops and loops you have to jump through and walk through and hide under to comply, do you have a voice in that process? Do you have an opportunity to express your additional cost and the burdensome regulatory state that that puts on your business? Do you have a voice at that table? Mr. HUTTER. Well, first off, I apologize, I am not familiar with the act, but it sounds like a good one in the sense of giving that input. We really rely largely on our manufacturers associations, our aerospace industries association to try to be the interlocutor. We would love to have more of a direct line of sight to that. And I think a good place where that shows up are things where we see that expansion and that rollout of more and more on the regulatory side. We are keeping a close eye, I should say, on some of the EPA regulations, particularly around the New Source Review. And I just choose that one because as we look to revolutionize and modernize and grow our manufacturing processes, you have a scenario that traditionally was pretty lean and mean where these types of small emitter permitting would happen at the local level, the municipal level. And now we are seeing potentially the EPA nose under the tent to get involved in things that are only going to add a federal layer to that as well in a scenario that seems completely unwarranted. So there is an example of something I would raise my hand and say: Is this really a good idea? Mr. FINSTAD. Yeah. Thank you for that. And so, as you know, business owners across the country have been tasked to comply with numerous regulations, and it has had a major impact on their bottom line. As has been stated earlier, $1.7 trillion over the last 4 years affecting small businesses. With your business specifically, can you give us a rough estimate of how much time and resources have you had to allocate towards compliance efforts in the last 4 years? Mr. HUTTER. Well, the irony, of course, being that taking even more time to calculate that just puts bad on top of bad. But it is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And I say it is not just the dollars, it is the scarce resources for talent who have to be redeployed to doing these-- I call them intern projects, if you will--as opposed to really working on the business. But for a company our size, it actually, we would say, over the last 4 years, ranges into the millions, to be sure. Mr. FINSTAD. Yeah. So as a small business owner myself, I don't have a stable of lawyers or compliance officers or regulatory experts to help me through that, so it definitely costs our family business money. So with what you have just stated, what would you do in your small business with those dollars if you were able to deploy them in other ways? Mr. HUTTER. That is pretty simple. We are heavy believers in reinvestment, and those dollars that weren't going to hiring an outside consultant or distracting our folks to go run the compliance activity would be going into direct impact for either our team and our business actually working on improved safety, working on improved quality, working on improved productivity and efficiency that is going to win tomorrow. So the dollars would be put as direct lead on target for the things that matter to make us more competitive and more successful in our mission. Mr. FINSTAD. Yeah. Thank you for that. And, Ms. Neitzel, I just have to say thank you on behalf of the dairy farmers in southern Minnesota and across this country. Keep selling ice cream. And, Mr. Chairman, this body was built on ice cream and bad decisions. So with that, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. From what I can see, I think you are right. [Laughter.] Chairman WILLIAMS. Next, I would now recognize Mr. Tran from the great State of California for 5 minutes. Mr. TRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, would like to share my condolences with you and your family on your loss. I look forward to working on this committee under your leadership and the Ranking Member's leadership and working with my colleagues here on this committee. I grew up with a small business background. My parents had their own corner market. So the small business and being part of this committee is very important to me, so important that I believe that small businesses are the heart and soul of our community and the heart and soul of our economy. I started a pharmacy and my own law practice, a small business, before coming to Congress. So appreciate being on this committee. So my first question goes to Ms. Neitzel. Access to health care is still a barrier to entrepreneurship for Americans looking to take a leap of faith and start a small business. How would you expand healthcare through Medicaid and the ACA? How do you think that would help inspire entrepreneurs to join the business community? Ms. NEITZEL. Thank you for the question. I do a lot of mentoring of young women and young people in general looking to start their own companies, and a huge barrier to starting innovative and helpful new businesses in our economy is that the entrepreneurs who have the great ideas can't leave their jobs because of healthcare. If we had a national single-payer system that took care of every American, it would free up that intellectual and inspirational sort of heart of the American Dream. Mr. TRAN. Thank you. Ms. Frazier, can you discuss what your financial institution is doing to help close racial and gender disparities in access to small business capital? Ms. FRAZIER. Oh, I would be happy to. Thank you. We actually work together with three other financial institutions to start what we called a Banking on Diversity loan program. Well, it actually ended up only being three institutions, not four altogether. One was purchased. Ultimately, we put out into the marketplace $1.5 million of zero interest rate loans to help minorities and those that were early stage businesses overall. So revenues were under a million. Most of the businesses were under a year old. And to date, I am really excited at the success of that program and how those businesses have grown. Mr. TRAN. Thank you for that. Mr. Hutter, you have previously spoken about the shortage of skilled workers in this country, and your firm has partnered with local community colleges to operate jobs training programs. Can you discuss the importance of career and technical education in addressing that shortage? Mr. HUTTER. Sure. Absolutely. And it is part of our story of really being a high-tech manufacturer coming to northern Nevada in the late 1980s and a community that built its economy on gaming and tourism at that time, and we have been proud to be part of that revolution. And part of the key to making that happen has been the partnership with our local educational institutions. And I will say, as important as it is in our business to have bachelor's degreed and advance degreed folks, particularly in the technical side of things, it is even more fundamental to have folks with the skills to be able to serve at kind of the technician level. And we really turn to those partnerships with our local community colleges for that, and they are essential. Mr. TRAN. Thank you. As a follow-up to that, do you think that more investment is needed in trade education, STEM education, to maintain and expand the workforce? Mr. HUTTER. Yes, I do believe that that is critical, and it can come from a few different directions. But a key aspect of that is really being done in a context of engagement with industry. So we make sure that the investment in curriculum and the investment in laboratories and whatever it may be actually matches the needs of business, and we have found that to be a really great partnership. But we definitely support them. Mr. TRAN. Thank you so much. Mr. Hutter, Mr. New, Ms. Frazier, Ms. Neitzel, thank you so much for being here with us. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Mr. LALOTA. [Presiding.] The gentleman yields. I now recognize Mr. Downing from the great State of Montana for 5 minutes. Mr. DOWNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our witnesses here. So over the past 4 years, Montantans have watched as the Biden administration did everything it could to put energy producers in our State and around the country out of business. They almost succeeded. Coal, oil, natural gas producers have been holding on by a thread as radical Green New Deal activists and the EPA and BLM revoked leases for mines and extraction facilities. They closed off vast swaths of federal land to energy production and introduced rules and regulations specifically tailored to shut down these companies. Now, this anti-energy stance had a negative impact outside of the energy sector. Small businesses, especially in manufacturing, require reliable access to cheap energy to make their products and operate successfully. Now we are entering into a brave new world as cryptocurrency, blockchain, artificial intelligence integrate further into every sector of the economy. Our energy infrastructure and production capacity are nowhere near the size they need to be to manage this technological expansion. Now, unleashing American energy production is a priority for the Trump administration, and I look forward to working with them to do just that. So my first question to Mr. New--and thank you for being here--over the past 4 years have you seen a decline or a slowing of growth in your business due to the anti-oil-and-gas leasing policies of the Biden administration? Mr. NEW. Certainly our customers have slow-walked projects, they have canceled some projects because they couldn't get permits. They were uncertain about the future and didn't-- wouldn't invest. And today, just this morning, I read one of our customers, a project that they have been talking about for about 5 years now, they just announced that they are probably not going to go ahead with that project now because it drug out so long that this was an oil export terminal--their main customer bailed out because it was taking so long. Mr. DOWNING. So would approving more leases for oil and gas production in the Gulf of America, as the Trump administration has promised, improve your potential for growth? Mr. NEW. Absolutely. Our customers have to have access to leasing. Mr. DOWNING. Okay. Mr. New, access to capital is a significant issue for many small businesses, especially in the energy sector. Now, have you seen a decrease in capital access for your business or others in the energy sector due to a lack of regulatory certainty? And, if so, how has this regulatory uncertainty affected your business? Mr. NEW. Yes, I have seen it directly, particularly in some of the larger banks. Banks that I have done business with for many years basically told me that: Bill, we love you, we love your business, you do a great job, but you are an oil and gas business, we can't lend to you anymore. Mr. DOWNING. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Mr. Hutter, thank you for being here. Joe Biden and Gary Gensler's SEC and woke reinsurance companies have tried to shut down companies through the back door rather than the front door using ESG to restrict access to capital at the expense of small business. Now, how has this harmed your business? And how can Congress make improvements? Mr. HUTTER. I am not really in a position to comment on that directly because we haven't experienced the effects of that. I know that we have small businesses, smaller than us by far, in our supply chain, and I would just broadly say that their access to capital and their access to the things that make them successful are critical to me as well. But no direct experience. Mr. DOWNING. Well, thank you. I just, as a former securities and insurance regulator, have seen a lot of this happening, so I appreciate that. So I just want to thank you all for your testimony. The past 4 years have been a relentless struggle for American energy producers. But with the Trump administration prioritizing domestic energy dominance there is a reason for renewed optimism. And the testimonies today have made it clear: Energy security is economic security. It is national security. And moving forward, we must cut through the regulatory red tape stifling small business, especially those in manufacturing and energy production. Now, I look forward to working alongside my colleagues in Congress and the Trump administration to get this done. Thank you. I yield my time. Mr. LALOTA. The gentleman yields. I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Olszewski, for 5 minutes. Mr. OLSZEWSKI. Thank you very much. I first want to just join this committee and all the Members in sharing my condolences with the Chair and surrounding he and his family in our prayers. Thank you all for making the time to travel. Ms. Neitzel, I am looking forward next time for you bringing samples for us to have while we are here, please. I just want to open, I have had a chance to listen quite a bit, just two quick observations. I know there has been a lot of back-and-forth about unelected bureaucrats both Democrats and Republicans have leveraged here. I just hope that as we go about our work that we can agree on things like Congress' fundamental power of the purse, our legal authority to establish change and eliminate departments. And I just hope that as we have those conversations, conversations that I welcome, that we do it through the well- established democratic processes that this country has been founded on for a very long time. As it relates to tariffs, I just want to remind, especially relative to Canada, we are talking about in fiscal year 2024, 1.5 percent of all apprehensions at the border were on the northern border, just 1.5 percent. The last 3 fiscal years, the amount of fentanyl that came from the northern border was less than 1 percent of all fentanyl seized. And so if we are willing to exchange a 25 percent increase on goods for that, I guess we should expect those numbers being zero in the upcoming year, but we will see what happens there. Mr. Hutter, I know on Congressman Tran's question you spoke about and I really appreciate your engagement with community colleges and STEM and job training programs. Clearly, you see the value in those investments. I really appreciate also your conversation about engagement with industry. Prior to coming to Congress, as Baltimore County executive, we both made our community colleges absolutely free to any family making $150,000 or less. We also partnered with the nursing and healthcare industry to create a nursing pipeline program that actually, for Democrats, we would say we knocked down barriers to opportunity, we invested in things like childcare, transportation, and housing. Perhaps from a Republican perspective you can say we helped people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But would you say that if we engage in those conversations and find those gaps, those are the kinds of investments that we in Congress might want to continue to make to help make more opportunities for your workforce? Mr. HUTTER. Yeah. I think yes. And I would want to make sure to capture that this is as much or more also an obligation and responsibility of business itself. And it has been very much that partnership of the investment we put into our own training and development for folks, and I think it is a key piece that differentiates us and makes us a great place to work and attracts the best talent. But that happens in a context where we want to hire from our community versus draw people in from far and far away. We want to build our community as we go. And so I do think that it is all in the doing. But from a concept standpoint, of course, having a strong commitment in the community to the education and the training and, I would say, the overall uplift in the tone around the nobility of skilled trades is really critical. Mr. OLSZEWSKI. That is great. I appreciate that question and hope to bring that forward as my time here in Congress continues. And then, Ms. Neitzel, I just will conclude with a question for you. Congratulations on the new shops that are coming. I know that they, as you have testified, are funded in part with SBA loans. I just wanted to give you a minute, minute and a half here. Any feedback that this committee might have in terms of what your interaction has been like, what we might want to know to help make sure that other businesses who are looking to do similar work can have access to it? Ms. NEITZEL. This was my first time using this SBA loan program. I started my company with sort of friends and family investors and have just gone through a community bank without the guarantee of the SBA to grow my company for the last 17 years. So this is my first experience, and it has been fine. I was listening to Ms. Frazier's testimony and thinking there are opportunities, I think, for us to chat about ways that both Main Street Alliance and Ms. Frazier and her banking organization could talk about bipartisan ways to maybe make it a little smoother. It has been a very complicated process, and I loved her comment about the 81 data points. I have felt each of those 81 questions deeply. But the access to the capital and a stable SBA have been critical to my business' next phase of growth. Mr. OLSZEWSKI. That is great. Well, I welcome the opportunity to work with both of you if we can find those improvements in the years ahead. With that, I yield. Thank you. Mr. LALOTA. The gentleman yields. I now recognize Ms. King-Hinds from the beautiful Northern Mariana Islands for 5 minutes. Ms. KING-HINDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I join the Members in expressing my condolences to the Chairman. Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony today and for making time to be with us. Under SBA definitions, all businesses in my district, the Northern Mariana Islands, are small businesses. That is why I am so grateful to serve on this important committee, so I can speak about their challenges here in the 119th Congress. Businesses in my district operate in one of the most remote parts of our country. This geographic isolation drives up operating costs, limits access to customers and capital. And in recent years, we have seen a growing sense of hopelessness-- some would say straight-up despair--because our primary industry, which is tourism, has yet to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. Testimonies today cited a 2023 study of the National Association of Manufacturers which found that federal regulations cost an estimated $12,800 per employee across all sectors of the U.S. economy, and this highlights some of our challenges. To put that figure in perspective, in my district, that would suggest that the cost of regulatory compliance in the Northern Marianas is 38 percent of our total gross domestic product and 25 percent of all business revenue made in the islands. What makes this so challenging is, despite the many one- size-fits-all regulations, there is no one-size-fits-all application of benefits for small businesses in my district. For example, while SBA has made significant investments in the CNMI in response to natural disasters and the pandemic, in programs like the SBA's Restaurant Revitalization Fund, my district had the lowest approval rate in the nation, with nearly 90 percent of applications denied. Despite the dire need for capital among entrepreneurs, participation in SBA's flagship 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program is far below national averages. It is clear that the federal government must do more to recognize and address the realities of businesses in isolated communities like mine. National policies already create challenges for small businesses, but for places like the CNMI these challenges are magnified. As this committee looks to support President Trump's effort to unleash small businesses in our community, I ask that we take a critical look at how Congress can do more to support the unique needs of these businesses in areas like the CNMI and do our part to break away from one-size-fits-all policies on funding, capital access, labor, and market access. It is around 2 a.m. now from where the people that I represent live. We are 15 hours ahead of Washington, D.C. And when the sun comes up in the mainland it is nighttime back home. In many ways, our horizons are different. I have seen the data that many businesses in the United States have rebounded from the pandemic and have grown beyond it. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Northern Marianas. I do believe, however, that hope is on the horizon, and I ask for this committee's partnership to make sure that despite the distance and the obstacles, when hope does make it over the horizon it is something that we can all celebrate. So I am here trying to be a better champion for the people in my community, and I guess I am looking to champion policies that address rural, isolated communities like mine. And so this question is to you, Ms. Frazier. One of the biggest issues for businesses in my district is access to capital. Traditional banking models often struggle to serve high-cost, low-volume markets in sparsely populated areas like the CNMI. In your experience, how can federal policy better support community banks in small population centers so they can extend capital to businesses that are viable but geographically disadvantaged? Ms. FRAZIER. Thank you for that question. I am going to answer that with two fronts, if I may. You spoke about the one-size-fits-all regulation and how it impacts the small businesses, and it impacts us when banking regulations are one-size-fits-all, and it puts us in boxes and makes us have to operate very similar to much more out-of- market, larger competitors. What you have indicated is your businesses need that personal relationship. They need that ability to have a banker that they can work with and help them with a customized product. SBA, with a guarantee or not, it is how do those cash flows come into that business, how can the bank help them support it when they need it the most. So the tiered regulation, recognizing thresholds, would be critically important for us. And I am going to go back to the 1071, because if applied the way it is intended or the way it is now currently written, forget the 81 data points. It says that we have to separate the person from the decision. And so the person that is actually working with the client, understanding their business, is not part of the decision, and that can really impact the ultimate outcome. Ms. KING-HINDS. Thank you for that. Going back to these one-size-fits-all regulations, do you see a disproportionate impact with regards to rural banks in your experience? Ms. FRAZIER. I do. I have the great benefit of visiting several States over the past year and meeting a lot of bankers, and I have met a bank that is running off of seven employees. Imagine trying to implement these regulations with seven employees, but they are serving a tiny, tiny community with all that they need. And so it is unbearable for them to bear that. Ms. KING-HINDS. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. LALOTA. The gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Dr. Conaway, for 5 minutes. Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, witnesses, for presenting yourself to us today. As I have listened to the comments today, I have to say I am a little bit surprised about the criticisms of the prior administration with respect to job growth. We have 21 million businesses that were created, the largest number in any single Presidential term, 440,000 establishments per month, 90 percent faster than during the pre-pandemic era. We have growth--I know this is of concern to some in the administration--but business ownership among Black households doubled, a 30-year high business ownership for Latinos, a 30- year high in business ownership for Asian Americans as well. And we have seen that, while certainly inflation was a challenge, it is--well, you have to except food and energy now--we are getting down to more normalized inflation in this country as well. So things are pretty strong. When you compare us to Europe, we are well ahead of them. Our economy is the envy of the world when you compare it to other people. In fact, China is experiencing deflation now. And so I think certainly we want to make sure that our small businesses continue to thrive. Ninety percent of the jobs are created by small businesses in this country; they are, and we hear it all the time, the backbone of our economy. Forty-six percent of all employees are employed by small business, probably more than that. And certainly a great contribution to new job growth. So small business is rightly the concern of the American people and certainly, rightly, the concern of the Congress. I wanted to make a comment. We have heard about tariffs this morning as well. And tariffs, whether they have gone into effect fully yet or not, we have already seen that businesses have taken steps. Some have raised prices because of the instability caused by the back-and-forth over tariffs, and those prices of course drive inflation. We have heard already from our witnesses today and others who have spoken from the dais about the costs of inputs that will go up. California needs to be rebuilt. We heard that from the Vice Ranking Member about the need to rebuild California, and the wood and the materials that are going to be needed to get that job accomplished under a system of the tariffs that are proposed, if they go through, are going to raise the cost of housing once again. Of course, housing inflation was a huge issue for Americans in this last issue. In my own State alone, when you look at our relationship, trading relationship with Canada, Canada is responsible for $17.5 billion to our economy in New Jersey. It is a huge-- through the bilateral trade agreements and interaction with Canada each year in New Jersey alone. So a tariff on Canada, which will certainly impact our economy in the State of New Jersey, and we certainly don't want to see that. And, indeed, we have not quite as much with Mexico, but we know tariffs are little more than a tax on the American people, will raise costs at a time when they are very concerned about costs, they want to see costs down. This is a promise, I think--I don't want to talk about what people voted on this last election. They voted on the promise of the government taking on inflation. I don't know how you do that exactly in an economy that is not controlled. But anyway, that is the promise that was made. People voted on that. And let's just hope that we, as we move forward in these next 4 years, keep the job growth going and get inflation under control. Ms. Neitzel, can you speak to us--and you have probably done some of this already, and I am sorry if I am repetitive here--but you run a small business. You get inputs from in country and overseas. Can you perhaps elaborate more or reemphasize the impact of tariffs on your own business and the cost of your inputs? Ms. NEITZEL. Yes. I have spoken a little bit about that. But as I said, our paper products all come from overseas, as do sugar, coffee, chocolate. Another concern that I have is the dairy farm where I buy all of our milk and cream is a fantastic family-owned farm that is so far north that when I go visit those cows my cell phone connects to the Canadian cell towers. They grow some of their feed for those dairy cows, and they trade constantly with Canada. Our farmers in the Pacific Northwest have wonderful long-lasting relationships, trade relationships, with our friends and allies to the north. Mr. CONAWAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. LALOTA. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize Mr. Bresnahan from the great State of Pennsylvania for 5 minutes. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to Ranking Member Velazquez, who I am so elated to see that finally cares about egg pricing in the United States on day 16. But my first question actually is a little bit off of the cuff and is for Ms. Moon. Ms. Moon, you made reference earlier about the amount of fentanyl that was seized at the southern border. What was that number again? The northern border. Ms. NEITZEL. Forty-three pounds from Canada, sir. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Are you aware of how many people would be killed if they consumed 43 pounds of fentanyl? Ms. NEITZEL. This isn't about fentanyl with Canada; it is about bullying and chaos creation. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Well, to me, it is about the 12 million people that 43 pounds of fentanyl would kill, which is more than the population of the State of Ohio, specifically coming from someone who lost a 16-year-old cousin because of a fentanyl-related situation. So---- Ms. NEITZEL. I am sorry for your loss. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you. And I think when you are talking and make comments that it is only 43 pounds, I find that incredibly disheartening. My next comment would be on the community banking side. I come from a small business background. My family was very involved in a community bank, and something that really allowed our small business to grow was because of our relationships with small community banks, having the lending officer, the person who truly understands your business, what you are going through during the good and the bad. What are the biggest risks to community banks right now that you would see? Ms. FRAZIER. The ongoing regulation. And a couple of the points I have talked about is just the impact of not recognizing the differences between the banks and the ones that you just mentioned that were so important, that tiered regulation is critically important, that 1071. While I have touched on the data points, I have touched on the separation of the decision, it just forces those loans to be put much more into more of a database, an AI decision, and commoditizing, which I think is really, really impactful and hurtful to small businesses, because we do spend quite a bit of time coaching, counseling, and helping many of them grow from the infancy of an idea all the way through to something much larger. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Well, I definitely appreciate the role community banks play in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. It is something that I struggle with and advocated for through various different nonprofits that I was involved in through tecBridge, which is an entrepreneurship-based board in Junior Achievement. And it is those new businesses that are starting don't have access to capital. And I have had so many entrepreneurs come to me in my last life--33 days ago--saying: How do I get a line of credit? If they don't have a history of credit they are financing their small businesses on top of credit cards. What can Congress do to improve the accessibility of capital to that startup entrepreneur, truly the American Dream? Ms. FRAZIER. We really need to stabilize the impact of changing minds and thought processes around the SBA as well for those startup businesses, and to also consider through that process that the best people, the best way to get those dollars implemented are through the community banks, where the relationships can be formed, and not through an online business that can fulfill the need to get capital but they are not helping them grow their business, et cetera. I would say that is one way. Another way is also improving community banks' access to capital, because anytime we raise a dollar, that is ten times we can put out, $10 we can put out into the community. So any opportunities to impact our access to capital, whether it is changing the accredited investor regulations and allowing it to be a million dollars, including the house, or in a Sub S, where 1,500 banks are Sub S, allowing more investors into those. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you for that. I think that is going to be something that I would like to focus on and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneur, but that barrier to enter into those markets and grow and expand, just like I am sure Ms. Moon had gone through when you were first starting your first ice cream shop. But that is the American Dream, and it should be incentivized. And the burden, the red tape to create your own destiny is a very challenging and scary concept sometimes. Mr. Hutter, I also come from the highway infrastructure background. How have you been able to adapt to tool up with the next generation of workforce? And are you seeing a pipeline of qualified individuals to offset your growth and operation? Mr. HUTTER. Well, the top talent in the world is always going to be hard to come by, and we need to make more of it in the States. And I think, more directly, we need to unlock it more readily. Every American talented worker who is in my plant needs to benefit from immediate permitting reform, immediate regulatory rollback, so that we can actually get their talents out there on the shop floor in larger, more capable facilities that can allow them to do more for our economy and for their families. Mr. BRESNAHAN. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. LALOTA. The gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize Ms. Goodlander from the great State of New Hampshire for 5 minutes. Ms. GOODLANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am so thrilled to be a part of this committee. I am grateful to you all for being here today. I am grateful to be part of this committee and excited because I really do believe that small businesses are one of the most hopeful expressions of the American Dream. And I say that as the great granddaughter of a family farmer, the granddaughter of a serial entrepreneur who started out selling airplane rides at the Nashua Airport right down the road from where I grew up, and the daughter of a small business entrepreneur. I have just come back from 9 days all around the great State of New Hampshire. And thank you for recognizing it is a great State. My district spans from my hometown Nashua all the way up to what we call the North Country, the Canadian border, nine counties that stretch across my district. I spent a lot of time talking to small businesses. And one of the throughlines in this hearing so far has been the need for certainty for small businesses. You said it well, Mr. Hutter, that certainty, it goes a long way, and it is mission critical for so many small businesses in my State and across this country. From the last 2 weeks, one of the big sources of uncertainty for small businesses has been the threats of federal funding freezes, including following last week's memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget to other executive actions that have been taken that have really called into question the availability of lawfully enacted federal funding that reaches our communities. This hasn't been abstract. I am hearing from small businesses and nonprofit organizations, from mayors, from police chiefs, from fire chiefs all across our communities who continue to face uncertainty in accessing the federal funding that is promised to the people of New Hampshire. And so one of the questions I want to ask each of our witnesses is, you all rely on and work closely with the Small Business Administration and with other federal agencies. Starting with you, Ms. Neitzel, could you just tell us what communication, if any, or guidance you received from the Small Business Administration, or any other federal agency for that matter, that helped you navigate questions around the availability of federal funding and federal programs? Ms. NEITZEL. We work with a small community bank called Peoples Bank in Washington State, and all of our communication has been with them. We had a really productive conversation with the regional small business administrators at the beginning of our loan process who were very informative. One of the things I want to address about the federal funding freeze is that many childcare providers in our community are extremely worried about the federal funding freeze and worried about being able to pay childcare providers. If workers in Seattle and across Washington State can't send their kids to those childcare centers, the economy stops. Ms. GOODLANDER. I heard from many childcare providers who were facing enormous uncertainty from small businesses across my district. Another source of uncertainty is the threat of a trade war. And you have spoken to the real cost of that uncertainty for small businesses. Look, I believe tariffs are an important tool that can create competition in our economy and can do a lot of good, but the uncertainty that this has caused for small businesses across New Hampshire is just unacceptable. I want to turn to something where I think we can all agree on. And I was really grateful for your written testimony, in particular you, Ms. Frazier, what you wrote about the importance of competition in the American economy. I spent a good deal of time serving in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, and I am very hopeful that this is going to be an area where we can agree across the ideological spectrum on the need for competition in the American economy. In your written testimony, you spoke a bit about the impacts of consolidation, the impacts on community banks. Could you say a bit more about the importance of competition and what it does for the bottom line for the American people? Ms. FRAZIER. Well, the competition between the banks, I think what you find in community banks is that we are all working together to better the communities. And if regulation continues to persist and grow and grow, it makes it harder and harder for community banks to survive and thrive. And oftentimes there does continue to be consolidation, and that is where I believe communities are really impacted. Ms. GOODLANDER. I think it is true across the board, from our defense industrial base to, I am sure, the market for ice cream in the United States. I see monopolies everywhere, and I think this is an area where this committee can do a lot of good for small businesses and the American people. So with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WILLIAMS. [Presiding.] The lady yields back. I now recognize Mr. Meuser from the great State of Pennsylvania for 5 minutes. Mr. MEUSER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much to our witnesses. Appreciate you being here. So I think it was you, Mr. Hutter, that said there is a renewed sense of optimism, thankfully. Over the last 4 years, we dealt with inflation in excess of 20 percent, gasoline prices through the roof, literally bringing people to tears. An overall energy crisis. Prohibitions, some in Pennsylvania, on the exporting of LNG for no particular reason. Meanwhile, we had a President that thought he only asked for a survey to be taken as opposed to a complete prohibition. A border crisis that is an absolutely unmitigated disaster that includes human trafficking, rape, all kinds of horrible things--I have been to the border four times--drugs, death. Hundreds of thousands of young people in particular lost their lives. Human trafficking even throughout my rural district. Wars. Thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians dying. Unrest in the Middle East to no end. Small businesses--bringing it back home--small businesses having some of the worst times ever, from uncertainty, loss of tax relief, the uncertainty of losing the 199A. Certainly, if there would have been a different President there, it would have been gone. No question about it. Let's face it. That is what they stated. Manufacturing is on the decline in the United States. It is on the upswing in China and other places. So all of this going on, and it just can't help but be startling to hear my good friends on the other side of the aisle talk about how wonderful things used to be and how horrible they are going to be, and yet these tariffs haven't even gone into effect yet. And yet there is chaos and everything else taking place. I will tell you what has gone into effect: responses from Trudeau and Sheinbaum in Mexico as to correcting some of those horrible problems that have occurred. So that has taken place. And you know what is also startling to me? And I was in international business. I was in business over 20 years. How somehow taxing those small companies that became big companies--and that makes them evil, by the way--is okay, but put a tariff on a small or large business overseas, that is awful. That is going to create all kinds of worldwide instability and global unrest. I think most of us will pay a little more for ice cream and guacamole if we have less human trafficking and overdose deaths in the United States of America. I think that was resounding in the most recent election. So let's focus on common sense rather than nonsense political posturing that we are hearing here: the importance of keeping the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. You, Mr. Hutter, mentioned right at the very beginning bonus depreciation is on its way out, it is on the decline. 199A is gone at the end of this year. And we probably won't get Democrat support there. That is why we need to do it in reconciliation, which is an outrage. The R&D tax credit is on its way--it is gone, completely gone. And by the way, China has re-upped their R&D tax credit, which you are nodding, you are aware of. They call it a super deduction of 200 percent. So America first doesn't mean America alone. America first means: Why don't we start looking after our American businesses as opposed to being this global charity which only weakens our United States of America. So, Mr. New, we are talking taxes, regulations, and we are talking banking. Tell me how important the 199A is, how important taxes relief is to you. And, Ms. Frazier, I would like you to either tell me as soon as we are done here how much of a problem the CFPB has been to you--or were they wonderful and they showed up in your bank. I will start with you, if you don't mind, Ms. Frazier. Ms. FRAZIER. Given the size of my bank, they didn't show up in my bank. We are under $10 billion. But their new regulations, their laws have been quite discerning and quite costly to us, as we look at everything. Our compliance department overall--we looked at a budget--is over a million dollars a year. Mr. MEUSER. Great. Ms. FRAZIER. Can't pass that along. Mr. MEUSER. Do you think the plan moving forward is going to help your businesses, gentlemen, or be detrimental? Mr. NEW. Well, certainly the lower tax rates and---- Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman's time is up. Mr. MEUSER. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Ms. Morrison from the great State of Minnesota for 5 minutes. Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, I would also like to offer my condolences and deep sympathy for your loss. Thank you to all the testifiers for being here today. And congratulations to all of you for your successful small businesses and the important addition that they are making to the success of the American economy. You know, I am excited to be on this Committee because it is known as one of the less partisan committees and more focused on problem-solving. And that is why I came to Congress, because I want to solve problems. And I hope that, going forward, we continue to have a future-oriented problem-solving lens as we proceed. Mr. Hutter, sincere gratitude to you for helping secure our nation's safety through much of the work that your business does. I hear and appreciate the frustration that comes with regulations and administrative burden. I am a physician by trade, and I am very familiar, the pain of administrative burden that is heaped on physicians, frankly, primarily from the private sector. So, as we look to streamline the regulatory burden on small business, I hope we can agree that a balance has to be struck between keeping our people safe by protecting and doing what we can to keep our air, land, and water clean. You know, Mr. Hutter, you mentioned PFAS, which I think is a great example. Because, as we learn new things, we have to adapt, we have to be nimble, sometimes we have to change the way we do things. And I think most of us agree that we want to minimize the amount of PFAS that we continue to pour into our water and our land and, by extension, our bodies. You mentioned that there aren't good current substitutions for some of the PFAS chemicals, some of the properties that they have. So, in the short term, I think we need targeted exceptions to some of the bans that certain States have been enacting--and there is legislation at the federal level as well--that gives, you know, time for our innovative research universities and entrepreneurs to develop alternatives. And I don't expect you to define the specifics around PFAS, but I was wondering if you could comment on that balance between regulations that protect public health while allowing and encouraging businesses to thrive. Mr. HUTTER. Sure. And I like the way you framed that. I think the key thing that I could say here is: predictability, clarity, and workability. And we need to have that renovation--revolution, if necessary--to our regulatory scheme right now. You know, the gentleman, the doctor, mentioned, you know, we have had a great recovery--in job growth; manufacturing has enjoyed that. Let's not trip ourselves at the starting line here, because what comes next is going to define the next 50 years. So we have to--and I call upon all of you, let's really auger in on this and find the balance between--I mean, it is not a balance. I don't think it is a compromise. We all want the same outcomes here. In fact, let's make sure that industry is best enabled to invest into the solutions. Let's trust our companies to actually put money and talent and innovation behind the problems and help us solve them together. So I think that if we can agree on some clear, actionable regulations, in place of a meandering, ever-growing kind of miasma of unclear, unpredictable, ``I don't know if I can invest into this cloud or not,'' we are going to see a lot more progress a lot faster. Ms. MORRISON. Thank you, Mr. Hutter. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. I now recognize Mr. Jack from the great State of Georgia for 5 minutes. Mr. JACK. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank the witnesses for testifying today. I am a freshman, and during my last campaign, or, rather, my first campaign for office, deregulation was by far and away one of the most important things that I heard over and over across my district. And I have a unique background. From the first day to the last day of President Trump's first administration, I worked in his White House. And one of the things that he tasked me with doing was working across his administration to achieve the two- for-one deregulatory cuts that he pledged during his campaign. And, of course, he superseded that; he had eight for one. And as you may have seen, he signed an executive order, I think last week, noting that he wants to do 10-for-1 cuts. For every regulation on the books, he wants to cut 10 existing regulations. So I want to applaud you for walking us through some of the areas in which we can focus our deregulatory agenda to achieve the economic success that we had in the first administration. I want to start, if I could, to Mr. Hutter. In your testimony, you referred to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And I know my distinguished colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Meuser, touched on it just a moment, but you mentioned specifically that it was rocket fuel for manufacturers like Click Bond. And you also mentioned that the pro-manufacturing incentives in the TCJA were key to innovation and capital investment. And thanks to Chairman Williams for appointing me the Chairman of our Subcommittee on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Workforce Development, I want to highlight that innovation component. And I just want to know, could you reiterate the importance of the TCJA incentives for small businesses like Click Bond in investing in next-generation manufacturing and workforce training? Mr. HUTTER. Sure. Well, the TCJA--like I said, rocket fuel. And we need to focus on getting those extensions enacted immediately where they did incentivize the very investments in our companies and in our capital equipment that puts, really, those effective tools in the hands of our talent. But I want to go beyond TCJA to say, you know, the R&D expensability expiration is an aspect of TCJA, okay? It was something we enjoyed for 70 years. And when it comes--prior to TCJA. So it is not just really the effort to ensure that we extend and keep in place those amazing investment incentives and the predictability that allowed us to make those investments into the long term; we need to bring back the expired provisions that have already gone out, especially around R&D expensing. And if we can do this in a way that, again, delivers that in a consistent, reliable way without a bunch of sunsets, we are actually going to get to the place where people can invest with confidence not just over a couple quarters or a couple years but at generational level. And that is what is really going to carry this country and our manufacturers forward. But we have to get on it right now. Let's not trip at the start line, like I said. Mr. JACK. I completely agree. And if I could, in my remaining time, turn to Mr. New. I was encouraged by your opening testimony talking about permitting. Again, I recall very fondly working on trying to accelerate our permitting process. And I took great delight when I saw the previous administration take credit for many of the permitting leases that we pushed forward during President Trump's administration from 2017 to 2021. To your point, it takes 3 to 4 years sometimes for some of these projects to come on line. We want to accelerate that as much as we can. So, with what time I have left, I am curious, how can Congress legislate safeguards to prevent future regulation efforts in your industry specifically? Mr. NEW. Well, certainly, you know, executive orders are fine, but, you know, we see that, you know, one administration comes in and they write a bunch of executive orders, the next administration comes in and immediately reverses all those, and so it is kind of whipsawed back and forth. But if you can enshrine some of those changes--like changes in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, this withdrawal of areas for leasing--if you can enshrine some of that, where it is not subject to executive order, then we don't have that whipsaw back and forth, constantly changing every 4 years when there is a change in administration. Mr. JACK. And I also took note, during your opening testimony, you talked about how it is challenging, if you are running a business, when you have this ever-shifting regulatory landscape, it is really challenging to project your growth. I am just curious. In all of your years in your industry, which administration have you seen as the most successful at moving forth on deregulatory efforts? Mr. NEW. Well, certainly, the previous Trump administration, I would say, is probably the most successful in the deregulatory area. You know, and I am--I would think like a lot of small businesses, I am not looking for a handout. I am just looking for a level playing field, and then get out of my way. I will do the work, I will invest the money, I will push it forward, but just get out of my way. Don't stifle me every time I turn around. Mr. JACK. Well, I appreciate that, sir. Thank you to each and every one of our witnesses for testifying today. And I yield back to our distinguished Chairman, Mr. Williams. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize Ms. Scholten from the great State of Michigan for 5 minutes. Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you so much to our witnesses for joining us here today. I want to revisit an important conversation that we have been having here about the tariffs. And I know that, you know, we have covered a lot of it today, but one thing I really wanted to focus in on is this 30-day pause. And, you know, while it has given businesses a little bit of reprieve, to me and what I have heard from small-business owners back home: That is not much time to plan, when who knows what is at the other end of those 30 days. You know, so many of our small businesses and entrepreneurs are trying to compete in an increasingly unstable marketplace, and these tariffs could really throw them into a tailspin. Ms. Neitzel, I wonder, can you speak to how this impending change impacts your business operations and how you are navigating through this on such short notice and, you know, particularly to the 30-day piece? Ms. NEITZEL. Sure. Yeah, the uncertainty has, you know, put myself and my CFO in a pinch to figure out, if we did have to pay, say, $112,000 more for our cost of goods because of these tariffs, we don't have a plan for how to sell, you know, a million dollars more of ice cream to make up that profit. That is not something that I can do [snaps fingers] like that. It is incredibly difficult, and it is unnecessary. It is fearmongering. It is bullying. It is playing with the hearts of small-business owners across America who do not need this. We have been doing well and growing for the last 4 years. Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you so much for sharing that. My district covers much of west Michigan. Kent County, the most populated county in my district, is home to almost 60,000 immigrants. That is almost 9 percent of the county's population. Suffice it to say, these folks are a real source of influence in our community. They contribute culturally, socially, and certainly have a significant economic impact, a strong presence in our local workforce. Many of our constituents are worried about the potential for mass deportations having a ripple effect on a lot of industries. I believe that such actions could cause a real strain on our workforce. We know that mass deportations that don't necessarily target only a specific individual can cause individuals to even not show up to work if they themselves even have status but happen to be married to someone who doesn't or have someone in their family who doesn't. Would mass deportations make it more difficult for businesses like yours to find workers or to navigate or the impact that it--speak about the impact that that would have. Ms. NEITZEL. I am extremely fearful for mass deportations' effect on farms in Washington State. I think that, yes, it creates so much fear, not just for adults, not just for people who do have legal status, but also for children and for schools. I have received many emails from folks in Washington State about planned and threatened and rumored ICE raids in our public schools in suburbs outside of Seattle. And kids just need to go to school. Kids are going to grow up and start businesses. And we need to stop threatening all of these families with the fear tactics. Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you. As a mom of two school-aged kids and someone who has heard just awful stories from around our district, I share those concerns, and we hear it. I want to use just the last few minutes here to get into, staying on the topic of kids and childcare, institutions like Head Start, which provide educational support services to young children and families. Over 12 locations in Kent County in my district, as I mentioned. Due to the federal funding freeze last week, they are struggling to draw down payments that they need to continue their critical services. Even after the memorandum has been rescinded, we are still seeing roadblocks. As an employer who helps their workers access childcare-- and kudos to you--would your businesses be impacted if those childcare providers had to discontinue their services? Ms. NEITZEL. Yes. A threat to the childcare system in our region and everywhere is a threat to workers being able to show up and do their jobs, and it is a threat to us being able to be open. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady's time is up. Ms. SCHOLTEN. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman WILLIAMS. The lady yields back. I now recognize Mr. Stauber from the great State of Minnesota for 5 minutes. Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this important hearing today. You know, during the past 4 difficult years under the Biden administration, over 1,100 regulations were added--I will repeat that: over 1,100 regulations were added--putting an enormous pressure on our small businesses, costing nearly $1.8 trillion, adding more than 356 million hours of paperwork. You know, as we look forward to the future, we have to support policies that support small businesses and the growth of our small businesses. It is important to understand the hurdles that still remain. Mr. New, what are some of the most challenging regulations that you have faced when servicing the offshore oil and gas industries? Mr. NEW. There is a number of regulations that apply directly--not directly to us but to our customers that increase their costs of doing business, doesn't permit them to do projects because the permitting timeline is drawn out. And that directly impacts us in the fact that our business is totally dependent on our customers developing facilities and building new equipment, and if they are not doing that, then there is no work for us. And that certainly--you know, obviously, it makes it a struggle to maintain our employment. And, you know, on the tax side, you know, particularly the accelerated depreciation allows me to invest in new equipment. What that does in the long run--I mean, that makes us more productive, but what that does is that allows our employees to be more productive. Mr. STAUBER. Yeah. Mr. NEW. And that is the one area where you have lasting wage growth, is, if my employees are more productive, I can pay more. Mr. STAUBER. Yeah. Mr. NEW. And that is really--when you look from an economic side, that is the only place that can come from. Mr. STAUBER. Right. Mr. NEW. It has to come from enhanced productivity. Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Hutter, same question. What are some of the most challenging regulations that you have faced in your industry? Mr. HUTTER. Well said, Mr. New. I would like to really focus that on permitting, if I may, because I think that we are in a scenario right now where, to secure the strategic materials that we need, especially in--I look at that through the defense supply chain--we need to have sensible mining permitting, right? We need to keep moving on this to secure the materials we need for our power supply. Now, we are not extremely energy-intensive ourselves, but we use input materials that need to be made here in the United States that require reliable and sizable energy inputs too create them--alloyed metals, thermoplastics, coming from Bill's side of the world. And I just would highlight, on that permitting side, that really we are talking about infrastructure of all sorts here, whether it is minerals extraction or whether it is power plants or whether it is distribution and other infrastructure. And so, when I think about the opportunities for power sources of the future, okay--modern advanced nuclear, windmills, solar panels--all of these things have to be connected to the grid using infrastructure that has to be permitted. We have to seize this moment here for this country, and we have to make that sensible and get going on it. And one of the things that I really look forward to, that I get to see in my slice of the world, are the opportunities for advanced aerial mobility, okay? Electrified or hydrogen-enabled clean transportation for the future. Well, how are we going to distribute that electricity to airports and rooftops where they have never been before? How are we going to develop that hydrogen infrastructure? All of this is only going to move at the speed of permitting. And so we need to clean that up now. Mr. STAUBER. I really appreciate that, the permitting and the NEPA regulations, what are stifling growth. I mean, you look at an average mine opening in the United States of America is 29 years? Mr. HUTTER. Sure. Mr. STAUBER. The only country that is longer is the country of Zambia. Give me a break, right? We need these minerals. And we know right now China is using that against us. They are stopping their exporting of antimony and other critical minerals that we need. Okay. With a simple ``yes'' or ``no,'' would you agree that extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax provisions would have a positive impact on your ability to reinvest in your workforce? Mr. Hutter? Mr. HUTTER. Absolutely. Mr. STAUBER. Mr. New? Mr. NEW. Absolutely. Mr. STAUBER. Ms. Frazier? Ms. FRAZIER. Absolutely. Mr. STAUBER. We have heard loud and clear that these tax credits are a lifeline for small businesses. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle should remember this when they vote, because standing in the way of these policies means standing in the way of Main Street America. Small businesses, we have always said, are the engine of our economy. We have to protect them and allow them to grow and prosper on the streets of this great nation. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentleman yields back. And I now recognize Ms. Simon from the great State of California for 5 minutes. Ms. SIMON. Thank you so much. And, Mr. Chair, like others on this Committee, I offer my condolences from a very deep place, also having lost my husband. I am hoping that Members in this building continue to shed love and prayers on you forever. And thank you for leading today. I also want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for working with my office to submit a bill that would protect small-business owners from the waste and abuse of criminals who did the wrong thing during the pandemic and took advantage of this Committee and of our federal government. There are small businesses around the country that know that they serve as the lifeblood of their communities, and they deserve ongoing support. In fact, you know, last week, during my first workweek, I was able to meet with the field representatives in the Small Business Administration's field office in the Bay Area. Wonderful folks, who literally that morning learned that all of the resources that they had for the thousands of small businesses in my community, they were on freeze. Nevertheless, they were willing to work with my office and my newly hired, very excited staff to go door to door in the seven cities that I represent to ensure that we were still going to work and that we cared that employment rates would continue to rise. We wanted to make sure that our small businesses were paying taxes to support our police and fire. And yet, only hours later--only hours later--we got a call from the young woman that I was talking to who worked at the Small Business Administration saying that she got a letter asking for her resignation. We are in trouble. So I have one quick question--and thank you for opening up an ice cream store. As a widow and a single mom, sometimes one of the small luxuries that I had in the darkest days was going to a small business and just being able to sit and talk to a small-business owner. I can't wait to taste your product at some point. I know I missed a lot of this hearing, because I am outside trying to defend this democracy as it continues to fall down. I am curious: In your speaking with other small-business owners, what has been some of the fallout and anxiety over this chaos, over this freeze? One day we are hearing one thing, and the other day we are hearing another. The portals are closed. Phones aren't being answered. Folks are trying to employ real people in communities and pay their rents. Can you give me a number of examples, in the 2 minutes that I have left, about what this fallout really means for real communities in terms of public safety and employment? Ms. NEITZEL. Well, many of the people that we have heard from at Main Street Alliance run childcare centers who are very scared of the funding freeze. So those are big examples. And one childcare center may take care of 45 or even 100 children. That is 100 or 200 parents who now can't go participate in the economy. So that has been a pretty huge one. Another thing---- Ms. SIMON. May I ask a question? Ms. NEITZEL. Yes. Ms. SIMON. When a student, particularly a community college student, a poor single mother, let's say, like a teen mom, like I was, who went to community college and who used the neighborhood daycare center that got federal funds--now I have a master's degree--what happens when a single mother doesn't have childcare? Ms. NEITZEL. Well, if she can't go to work, she may lose her job. Ms. SIMON. And what happens when she loses her job? Ms. NEITZEL. If women and parents are losing their jobs because of a lack of childcare, it is sending them into a spiral to poverty quickly. If they can't feed their children because they can't work and they can't pay their rent--we have an endemic of homelessness in this country, many of which are children, and things like this only push us closer to more of that. Ms. SIMON. Ma'am, so are you alluding to what may in fact be--could be fact, that the EOs and that this very disillusioned communication from our administration about freezes and payouts could in fact cause our communities to be less safe, cause our single mothers to be less employed, folks may in fact have to drop out of college? Is that what you are implying, ma'am? Ms. NEITZEL. Yeah. The federal funding freeze is going to cause people to lose their jobs and push us toward recession. Ms. SIMON. But, ma'am, in my last 15 seconds, the administration says that the freeze is only--it may only be for a few seconds, a few days, a few weeks. What are the implications? And after your answer, I will yield. Ms. NEITZEL. The chaos is deafening for the small-business community in every way. Ms. SIMON. Thank you. I will yield back. Chairman WILLIAMS. The gentlelady yields back. And I would like to say something just real quick that I should have said, I failed to talk about when we started the hearing, is that you will periodically see many of us--you have seen it today--leave, come in, go back, go forth. You have seen Ranking Member do it; you have seen me do it. We are going to other committee hearings that we have. We are not mad at you or whatever. But I do want to make that--because that sometimes confuses people, that we all come and go and so forth. So that is what you saw there today. I want to say thank you to the witnesses for their testimony and for appearing before us today. Without objection, Members have 5 legislative days to submit additional materials and written questions for the witnesses to the Chair, which will be forwarded to the witnesses. I ask the witnesses to please respond promptly. And if there is no further business, without objection, the Committee is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 12:26 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] A P P E N D I X [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] [all]