House Passes Bill To Help Restaurants, Small Businesses Hit By COVID

Photos: Twitter\GoFundMe

Washington, D.C.— Last week, the House passed H.R. 3807, the Relief for Restaurants and Other Hard Hit Small Business Act of 2022. A bipartisan bill to deliver $55 billion in relief to small businesses through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund and to establish a new program for hard-hit industries.

“The pandemic inflicted deep wounds on small firms across the country, and many of these businesses are still struggling today. My office hears from small businesses every day, and they have made it abundantly clear that they need more relief,” said House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY). “This bill will deliver long-awaited aid to hundreds of thousands of restaurants and other small businesses that have been hit hard by the pandemic. The sooner this bill is signed into law, the sooner these businesses can begin to move forward and advance our recovery.”

Congress created the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund under the American Rescue Plan. The program supplied over 100,000 small bars and restaurants with grants to help them pay key expenses and stay afloat. The program was met with overwhelming demand, and 177,000 eligible restaurants that applied for grants did not receive them due to lack of funding. The Relief for Restaurants & Other Hard Hit Small Businesses Act will provide $42 billion to replenish the RRF to help fund those applicants that did not receive an award.

The Relief for Restaurants and Other Hard Hit Small Business Act of 2022 will also:

• Provide $13 billion to establish the Hard Hit Industries Award Program, which will assist small businesses with 200 or fewer employees that have experienced 40 percent or more in lost revenue.
• Update the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant Program to provide entertainment venues with more time and flexibility to use federal relief funds.
• Offset program funding by utilizing recovered money from fraud cases in pandemic relief programs
  
• Deliver $30 million total to the SBA Inspector General, DOJ’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, to further investigate and recover fraudulent funds
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