The heads of some of the largest minority business advocacy groups on Capitol Hill are praising key elements of the latest infrastructure bill, which is currently being debated in the House after passing with bipartisan support in the Senate on Tuesday.
“This was a win for us in a big way that may not necessarily be known by most people,” US Black Chambers of Commerce president and CEO Ron Busby Sr. told CNN Business.
Busby’s organization advocates on behalf of 143 Black chambers of commerce in the United States and a total of 380,000 Black business owners in the US, Canada and parts of Africa. It’s one of several national groups that have spent most of the year pushing lawmakers and the Biden administration to include provisions in the infrastructure package to help Black, Hispanic and Asian-American entrepreneurs.
As a result of their lobbying, the final version of the Senate bill includes a bipartisan amendment that would make the Minority Business Development Agency a permanent part of the federal government and expand its budget from $42 million to $110 million, according to a copy of the measure obtained by CNN Business.
What is the MBDA and why does it matter?
The MBDA is one of the only federal agencies focused exclusively on developing and advocating for minority-owned businesses. The Nixon administration established it in 1969 as a division of the US Department of Commerce. Because its creation was never authorized by Congress, the agency has been required to ask the presiding US President for new funding each year.
“We believe as a separate agency, it’ll be given more power to support minority businesses without feeling like it’s a foster child, if you will, or less of a priority,” Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, told CNN Business.
The infrastructure bill’s MDBA amendment would expand the agency’s geographic reach by granting it resources to open regional offices and rural business centers. Those facilities would be administered through historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions, or MSIs, according to the office of Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who co-sponsored the measure with Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South…
Read More: Infrastructure to help U.S. families