Senate Seeking to Extend Paycheck Protection Program

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), an original proponent of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) is currently negotiating a unanimous consent agreement to extend the PPP loan forgiveness period to as many as 16 weeks. Currently, the time period during which businesses must use the loan money to pay employees and for other expenses to have the loan forgiven is eight weeks.

Senator Rubio has stated that he is increasingly optimistic that the Senate may vote before they leave for the Memorial Day recess on such a change by unanimous consent, which allows expedited consideration of legislation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the administration supports extending the eight-week period.

While the Senate negotiates, the House also has its own separate PPP extension measure. The House is discussing lengthening the period to 24 weeks and making other changes such as relaxing a requirement that at least 75% of proceeds must be spent on payroll.

By way of reminder, the PPP allows loans of as much as $10 million that can be forgiven if a business spends it within eight weeks on payroll and certain other expenses such as rent. The idea was to help businesses keep workers employed while they were closed during stay-at-home orders and be ready to reopen when the bans lifted. But restaurants and other small businesses have said they need more time to spend the funds because they won’t be ready to reopen or be fully functional at the end of eight weeks.

Read More: The Hill

‍