LAS VEGAS, NV – Today, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV), a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, visited 1 Sun Solar Electric – a southern Nevada solar company that specializes in rooftop solar installation and energy distribution — to discuss Senator Rosen’s work helping Nevada small businesses respond to and recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19, as well as her efforts to support clean energy development.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked to see that Nevada’s small businesses receive the support they need to overcome pandemic-related challenges,” said Senator Rosen. “Today, I visited 1 Sun Solar Electric, a Nevada small business that provides the technology for clean, renewable energy that Nevadans use in their everyday lives. Businesses like 1 Sun Solar — in their mission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — have benefited from my efforts to enhance clean energy tax credits and through my support of the Paycheck Protection Program. I’m proud to fight for this small business and its workers in Congress and to get Nevada’s small business community the resources it needs as we work toward recovery.
BACKGROUND: On March 30, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan PPP Extension Act into law, which Senator Rosen cosponsored and helped pass in the Senate. This bill extended the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) through May 31, 2021 and provided an additional 30-day period for the SBA to process applications that are still pending, through June 30, 2021. However, PPP ran out of funds on May 4 – 27 days earlier than the May 31 deadline.
- Due to PPP funding running out early, Senator Rosen introduced the Keeping our Promise to Small Businesses Act (S.1690), which would:
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- Provide the Paycheck Protection Program general fund with such sums as may be necessary to fulfill the processing of all PPP applications that were submitted to SBA on or before May 4, 2021; and
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- Provide an appropriation of $5 billion for the remainder of the PPP authorization period ending on May 31, 2021, to fund approved applications of eligible small businesses with 100 or fewer employees in states with greater than 6.0 percent unemployment rate in March 2021 – which includes the state of Nevada – with preference for women, minority, and veteran-owned small businesses.
- Since the inception of the Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020 until May 9, 2021, Nevada small businesses received a total of 108,901 PPP loans, amounting to $6.7 billion.
- Senator Rosen is an original cosponsor of Senator Wyden’s Clean Energy for America’s Act, which would reform the current clean energy tax code and instead provide an emissions-based, technology-neutral tax credit for the production of clean electricity.
- This bill will allow zero emission technologies, including solar energy, to elect either an investment tax credit (ITC) of 30% or a production tax credit (PTC) of up to 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
- Senator Rosen is a member of the bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus.
- The Caucus discusses a wide variety of policy solutions to address the climate crisis such as carbon capture and energy storage, forest sequestration, transportation and infrastructure, and local/state government involvement.
- Last Congress, Senator Rosen co-sponsored the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) Act, which would require states to obtain at least 50% of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2035.
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