The U.S. House of Representatives debated and passed House Resolution 3807, the Relief for Restaurants and Other Hard Hit Small Businesses Act of 2022, earlier this month.
“This bill provides an additional $42 billion in FY2021 for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF), which was established to support restaurants and other food and beverage purveyors in response to COVID-19,” the bill’s summary reads.
Lawmakers created the Restaurant Revitalization Fund to amend the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed in early 2021. The RRF allocated $28.6 billion in grants of up to $10 million per applicant to restaurants and other small businesses in the food industry, which collectively lost millions of dollars due to COVID-19 lockdowns and public health restrictions.
According to CNBC, the National Restaurant Association stated that 110,000 restaurants in the U.S. temporarily or permanently closed between March 2020 and January 2021. Another 2.5 million industry jobs were lost, and total sales came in $240 billion below projections.
Disbursement of RRF payments to eligible establishments began in May of last year, but its funds were exhausted in approximately 3 weeks.
Multiple bills have been introduced in the House and Senate in an effort to allocate further funding to the RRF.
Kyrsten Sinema and Roger Wicker, both Democrats, and Earl Blumenauer and Brian Fitzpatrick, both Republicans, produced the Restaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act of 2021 the following June. The act proposed $60 billion of additional funding, more than double the amount given out in the first round of RRF relief the previous May.
In July, a Republican congressman and the ranking member of the House Committee on Small Business, Blaine Luetkemeyer, proposed the ENTRÉE (Entrepreneurs Need Timely Replenishment [for] Eating Establishments) Act to add $60 billion to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.
Nation’s Restaurant News reports that the money would come from untapped economic injury disaster loans and Biden’s American Rescue Plan funds.
None besides the Relief for Restaurants and Other Hard Hit Small Businesses Act of 2022 have advanced to floor debate.
Yahoo News reports that H.R.3807, introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), spent months in committees until its approval on April 7 in a 223-203 vote, mostly along party lines. However, six Republicans broke with party leadership in favor of the bill, and four Democrats broke with their party’s leadership to vote against it.
Prospects for the legislation in the Senate are unclear, MSN reports.
Restaurant Business Online reports companion bill S.4008, the Small Business COVID Relief Act of 2022, entered the Senate on April 5 in a bipartisan effort by Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS). Bill S.4008 proposes allocating an additional $40 billion to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, or at least enough to cover the 177,000 applications that were shelved after the program ran out of funds. Bill S.4008 is not scheduled for a vote at this time.
Restaurant Business Magazine, however, wrote that the bill addresses issues that had prevented its success in the past, making it more likely to be passed and signed into law.
“Congress cannot mistake the hopeful signs of recovery for proof that restaurants are back to where they were before the pandemic. Restaurants nationwide remain buried under more than 18 months of debt, and they are struggling to rehire staff and purchase supplies,” said Sen. Cardin.
He continued, “This bill will guarantee funding to the nearly 180,000 applicants that have yet to receive grants. This can wait no longer, and I regret that my unanimous consent request was objected to today. It is my fear that if Congress fails to act, many of our most cherished restaurants will not survive.”
Even though the bill was a bipartisan effort, the reaction to its confirmation has been divided along partisan lines, KI Legal reports.
Democrats, such as Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) of the House Small Business Committee, have praised the billion-dollar bill for covering all applicants.
“While these companies are dispersed across the country, they are united by a common message: small businesses are still suffering, and they are counting on Congress for more support,” Velázquez said.
Republicans, on the other hand, have blasted the bill’s passage, claiming that it will result in “Americans resuming many of the activities that had previously been put on hold” and that “more government spending could exacerbate inflation.”
Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX), vice ranking member of the House Small Business Committee, said, “At the time, aid was critical for businesses to survive the pandemic. However, we must now allow the free market to function and refrain from further spending billions in the name of COVID-19. This attempt by Democrats to spend billions of dollars of taxpayer money is irresponsible and will only exacerbate the current inflation crisis.”