Administration drops secrecy posture on small business aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has abruptly dropped its insistence on secrecy for a $600 billion-plus coronavirus aid program for small businesses.

The administration announced Friday it will publicly disclose the names of recipients of the taxpayer- funded loans, the amounts they received in ranges, as well as demographic data on the businesses.

The unexpected move came after Democratic lawmakers, government watchdogs, ethics advocates and news organizations called for the administration to make the information public.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin refused to do so at a Senate hearing last week, saying the data on the Paycheck Protection Program was “proprietary information.” The Small Business Administration, which manages the loan program, has only provided general information, such as the total amounts of loans awarded in a given time period.

Mnuchin said in a statement Friday that the new position resulted from a bipartisan agreement with leaders of the Senate Small Business Committee.

The new approach “will strike the appropriate balance of providing public transparency, while protecting the payroll and personal income information of small businesses, sole proprietors and independent contractors,” Mnuchin said.

To that end, information on loans of less than $ 150,000 will only be disclosed in totals by industry, business type and demographic category. Nearly 75% of the total loan amounts approved are over $150,000 and will be subject to full disclosure, according to the Treasury Department and the SBA.

In addition, business owners’ personally identifiable information, such as a home address associated with the loan, will be withheld.

Critics had denounced the refusal to open the information to the public as an attempt to dodge accountability for how the federal aid money is spent. They said it raised questions about how the money was being distributed and who was benefiting.

Pre s ident Donald Trump has moved to curb oversight of federal relief programs since Congress enacted the multitrillion- dollar coronavirus rescue law in late March.

Government watchdogs overseeing the law raised the alarm this week over a Treasury Department legal opinion concluding that the law’s disclosure requirements don’t extend to several programs including the small-business relief.

“The Treasury Department finally gave in to public pressure ... because their position of hiding which businesses have received PPP loans was untenable,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement Friday. “This reversal is a good start and will help us determine if taxpayer money went where Congress intended — to the truly small” businesses.