jiayi-li23/proxann_data huggingface dataset:
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2007-07-12 00:00:00

Military Reservist and Veteran Small Business Reauthorization and Opportunity Act of 2007 - Increases funding, for each of FY2008-FY2010, for the Office of Veterans Business Development of the Small Business Administration (SBA), with the excess funds to be used to support veterans business outreach centers. Amends the Small Business Act to direct the President to establish an interagency task force to coordinate federal efforts to increase capital and business development opportunities for, and the award of federal contracts and subcontracts to, small businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans and veterans. Extends permanently the SBA's Advisory Committee on Veterans Business Affairs. National Reservist Enterprise Transition and Sustainability Act of 2007 - Directs the SBA Administrator to establish a program to provide business planning assistance to small businesses owned and operated by reservists. Directs the Administrator to: (1) establish a loan pre-consideration process for small business loans to reservists; (2) develop an outreach and technical assistance program with respect to loans and grants made to reservists; and (3) give priority to reservists' loan applications. Increases the loan limit for such loans. Authorizes the Administrator to make noncollateralized small business loans to reservists. Provides relief from SBA time limits in the case of certain veteran or service-disabled veteran small business loans. Requires a: (1) report concerning types of assistance needed by service-disabled veterans who wish to become entrepreneurs; and (2) study on options for promoting positive working relations between employers and their reservist employees.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2007-08-01 00:00:00

Amends the Small Business Act to increase the percentage amount that federal agencies with research or research and development budgets in excess of $100 million must spend during FY2008 and thereafter with small businesses participating in federal small business innovative research (SBIR) and small business technology transfer (STTR) programs.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2007-08-02 00:00:00

Surety Bond Improvement Act of 2007 - Amends the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to: (1) authorize the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to guarantee any surety against loss from a small business principal's breach of bond on any total work or contract amount that does not exceed $3 million (under current law, $2 million); (2) direct the Administrator to authorize a surety that issues, monitors, or services such bonds to use rates approved by the insurance commissioner in the state in which the contract will be performed; and (3) prohibit the Administrator from refusing to make payment on a surety guarantee based on facts, circumstances, or defects that the Administrator should reasonably have identified during the guarantee process. Requires the Administrator to notify the congressional small business committees regarding a proposed change in fees charged to guarantee surety bonds. Expresses the sense of Congress that the surety bond guarantee program is not required to be self-funding and, therefore, may at times operate at a loss. Directs the Administrator to establish a third-party alternative dispute resolution procedure for mediating an issue in controversy between a participating surety and the SBA.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2007-11-01 00:00:00

Small Business Lending Oversight and Program Performance Improvement Act of 2007 - Directs the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to develop and publish portfolio quality evaluation standards to evaluate the loan portfolios of lenders participating in the section 7(a) (SBA-guaranteed loans to small businesses) and 504 (financing to small businesses funded by SBA-guaranteed debentures) programs of the Small Business Act. Requires the standards to measure the rates of loan liquidation, currency, recovery, and delinquency, and to be used by the Administrator to determine lender portfolio quality and to conduct lender oversight. Requires quarterly lender evaluations, and allows for onsite reviews of covered lenders. Directs the Administrator to: (1) calculate loan default rates; (2) inform lenders of their portfolio quality ranking; (3) develop and publish loan recipient economic performance evaluation measurements; and (4) ensure the privacy of collected information. Amends the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to require a state or local development company (lender) participating in an SBA loan program to execute a written contract with each executive or highly paid company employee which includes the amount of compensation, benefits, and transfer of anything of value to that executive or employee. Requires such contract to be approved by that company's board of directors. Directs the Comptroller General to conduct a study of the 7(a) loan program relating to lender oversight and portfolio examination and review fees.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2007-11-01 00:00:00

Small Business Contracting Revitalization Act of 2007 - Amends the Small Business Act to provide federal review and oversight of the practice of contract bundling (the consolidation of two or more procurement contracts into a solicitation for a single prime contract that is unlikely, because of its size or complexity, to be suitable for award to a small business). Revises or adds federal provisions or requirements concerning: (1) increased small business participation in federal procurement subcontracts, including a pilot program to provide contractual incentives to prime contractors that exceed their small business subcontracting goals; (2) Small Business Administration (SBA) certification of small businesses owned and controlled by service-disabled veterans, women, and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals; (3) historically underutilized business zones (HUBZones) affected by military base closures; (4) the BusinessLINC program (business-to-business and mentor-protege relationships between large and small businesses); (5) information on contracts involving small businesses that were displaced by bundled or consolidated actions; (6) the reservation of certain prime contract awards to small businesses; (7) a Comptroller General study on federal procurement contracting reporting systems; (8) micropurchase guidelines; (9) reporting on overseas contracts; (10) federal agency accountability with respect to small business procurement contracting and subcontracting goals; (11) certification as a small business for purposes of eligibility for the award of federal contracts and subcontracts (including authority to protest a business as a small business for such purposes); (12) training for federal contracting and contract enforcement personnel; (13) revised size standards for qualification as a small business; and (14) small business size and status for purposes of multiple award contracts.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-01-24 00:00:00

Small Business Stimulus Act of 2008 - Directs the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to reduce in 2008 the rate of certain loan fees imposed under the Small Business Act.Appropriates, as an emergency requirement, additional funds in FY2008 for: (1) loan subsidies under the SBA Business Loans Program Account; and (2) direct loans and assistance under the SBA Microloan Program.Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) increase to $200,000 in 2008 the expensing allowance for depreciable business assets; and (2) extend through 2008 the five-year carryback of certain unused net operating losses.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-02-07 00:00:00

Small Business Women's Procurement Program Improvement Act - Amends the Small Business Act relating to the women's procurement program (the provision of contracting opportunities for women-owned small businesses) to require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to wait until five years after the program is implemented before conducting a required study to identify industries in which small businesses owned and controlled by women are underrepresented with respect to federal procurement contracting (and therefore eligible for contracting preferences or set-asides). Presumes as underrepresented by women-owned small businesses the industries identified in industry codes 11 through 81 of the 2007 North American Industry Classification System Code. States that a contracting officer need not make a finding of past gender discrimination by a contracting agency in order to comply with federal contracting requirements under the women's business procurement program.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-02-07 00:00:00

Small Business Lending Stimulus Act of 2008 - Directs the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to reduce in 2008 the rate of certain loan fees imposed under the Small Business Act and debenture fees under the Small Business Investment Act of 1958. Authorizes appropriations for FY2008: (1) to cover such rate reductions; and (2) for direct loans and assistance under the SBA Microloan Program. Amends the Small Business Investment Act of 1958 to authorize the SBA to refinance certain existing debt of small businesses that received prior loans for plant acquisition, construction, conversion, or expansion.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-04-23 00:00:00

Independent Office of Advocacy and Small Business Regulatory Reform Act of 2008 - Requires the Office of Advocacy (Office) of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to carry out responsibilities concerning the analysis of regulatory functions, including regulatory flexibility analyses. Requires: (1) each federal budget to include a separate statement of the amount requested for the Office, designated in a separate account in the General Fund of the Treasury; and (2) the SBA Administrator to provide the Office with appropriate and adequate office space, together with necessary equipment, operating budget, and communications facilities and services, and to provide necessary maintenance services for such offices and equipment. Requires: (1) each federal agency to notify the SBA's Chief Counsel for Advocacy of any agency draft rules that may have a significant impact on a substantial number of small businesses; (2) each agency's final regulatory analysis of a final rule to include the agency's response to any comments of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy with respect to that rule, as well as changes made as a result of such comments; and (3) agencies to make final regulatory flexibility analyses available to the public, including on a website.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-05-15 00:00:00

Extends through March 20, 2009, under the same terms and conditions, the authorization for any program, authority, or provision, including any pilot program, that is currently authorized through May 23, 2008, under the Small Business Act or the Small Business Investment Act of 1958.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Taxation
Date: 2008-06-19 00:00:00

Manufacturing, Assembling, Development, and Export in the USA Tax Act or the MADE in the USA Tax Act - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) phase in a reduction in the maximum corporate income tax rate from 35 to 28% between 2009 and 2013; (2) increase the deduction for income attributable to domestic production activities and limit such deduction to business entities other than C corporations; (3) make permanent the increased expensing allowance for depreciable business property; (4) repeal certain limitations on the exclusion for the housing expenses of U.S. citizens working abroad; (5) include all foreign-source royalties in passive category income in applying the foreign tax credit limitation; (6) apply the foreign tax credit limitation separately to financial services income; (7) treat certain foreign corporations that are managed and controlled primarily within the United States as domestic corporations for tax purposes; (8) treat certain foreign entities with single owners as corporations; (9) prohibit any reduction of tax withholding for payments made by a U.S. subsidiary of a foreign parent corporation to a related subsidiary in any country that has a tax treaty with the United States, except for payments made directly to the foreign parent corporation; (10) repeal special source rules for inventory property; (11) impose a fair market value standard for determining foreign oil and gas extraction income; (12) modify the limitation on excess interest deductions of certain corporations; (13) require the inclusion in gross income for income tax purposes of employee compensation deferred under a nonqualified deferred compensation plan of a nonqualified foreign entity when there is no substantial risk of forfeiture of the rights to such compensation; (14) deny the refundable portion of the child tax credit to taxpayers living or residing outside the United States; (15) repeal certain inventory accounting methods; (16) repeal the percentage depletion allowance after 2008; (17) extend the amortization period for intangible property (e.g., goodwill) from 15 to 20 years; (18) set forth rules for the application of the economic substance doctrine to financial transactions affecting tax liability; (19) impose penalties for understatement of tax attributable to transactions lacking economic substance; and (20) extend the 6.2% federal unemployment tax rate through 2018.Repeals the 3% withholding requirement applicable to payments by governmental entities to vendors of goods and services. Amends the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) to revise and make permanent certain provisions relating to fees for certain customs services.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Emergency management
Date: 2008-06-23 00:00:00

Disaster Recovery Substance Abuse Mental Health Treatment Act of 2008 - Amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to authorize the President to provide mental health and substance abuse services to individuals affected by a major disaster to relieve or prevent mental health or substance abuse problems caused or aggravated by that disaster or its aftermath.Allows such assistance to include financial assistance to government agencies, mental health or substance abuse organizations, or mental health providers to provide, or train individuals to provide, mental health or substance abuse services. Restricts assistance to an 18-month period, which in limited circumstances may be extended if the President determines it to be in the public interest. Makes this applicable to any major disaster declared by the President on or after August 29, 2005.Requires the Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the head of any other federal agency that provides mental health or substance abuse services, in coordination with the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state and local officials with responsibilities for such services, to: (1) conduct a survey of such services; and (2) develop a strategy for the adequate provision of such services to individuals affected by major disasters and to emergency response providers responding to major disasters.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Social welfare
Date: 2008-06-26 00:00:00

Mentoring for All Act of 2008 - Amends the National and Community Service Act of 1990 to direct the Corporation for National and Community Service to award competitive, matching, three-year grants to nonpartisan, collaborative, public-private partnerships at the state and local level for efforts to grow and strengthen direct-service youth mentoring programs in all forms and settings in their service areas. Requires partnership grantees to use at least 80% of their grant for competitive subgrants to mentoring programs: (1) operated by or being created by, nonprofit organizations, schools, or local governments; or (2) operated by local collaboratives that each include at least two experienced youth mentoring organizations and at least one entity that provides volunteer mentors. Allows partnership grantees to give subgrant priority to collaboratives. Requires each partnership grantee to participate in a collaborative national network of mentoring partnerships. Directs the Corporation to award competitive, matching, three-year grants to entities or collaboratives of entities enabling the entities or collaboratives to: (1) build the necessary infrastructure to create a state mentoring partnership; or (2) implement national mentoring projects. Requires the Corporation to evaluate this Act's programs and provide training and technical assistance to grant fund recipients that is based on support from the national network of mentoring partnerships.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Energy
Date: 2008-06-26 00:00:00

Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008 - Amends the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) to prescribe procedures for petition, by the governor of a state with a new producing area within the offshore administrative boundaries beyond the state's submerged land, to make the new producing area available for oil and gas leasing. Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit specified percentages of outer Continental Shelf revenues into: (1) the general fund of the Treasury; and (2) into a special account in the Treasury for disbursal to both new producing states and to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Amends the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008, to repeal the prohibition against funding: (1) regulations regarding a commercial leasing program for oil shale resources on public lands; or (2) an oil shale lease sale. Instructs the Secretary of Energy to: (1) expand and accelerate research and development efforts for advanced batteries; and (2) implement a direct loan program for up to 30% of the costs of advanced battery production. Expresses the sense of the Senate that the federal government should implement policies to increase federal purchases of plug-in electric drive vehicles. Directs the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to study jointly and report to Congress on the international regime for regulating trading in energy commodity futures and derivatives. Amends the Commodity Exchange Act to prohibit the CFTC from permitting a foreign board of trade to provide to participants subject to CFTC jurisdiction direct access to electronic trading and order matching unless specified requirements are met. Directs the CFTC to: (1) promulgate rules for routine reporting requirements for index traders and swap dealers in energy and agricultural transactions; and (2) disaggregate and make public monthly information on the positions and value of index funds and other passive, long-only positions in the energy and agricultural futures markets.Instructs the CFTC to report to certain congressional committees on: (1) the scope of commodity index trading in the futures markets; (2) whether classification of index traders and swap dealers in the futures markets can be improved for regulatory and reporting purposes; and (3) whether index trading activity is adversely impacting the price discovery process in the futures markets and whether different practices and controls should be required. Instructs the CFTC to hire additional employees.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-07-14 00:00:00

SBA Women's Business Programs Act of 2008 - Amends the Women's Business Ownership Act of 1988 to direct the National Women's Business Council to: (1) conduct at least one annual study that evaluates problems hindering the success of women entrepreneurs; and (2) report biannually on its initiatives, policies, programs, and plans. Amends the Small Business Act relating to the women's business center program (program) to replace the five-year projects for the benefit of small businesses owned and controlled by women with a three-tiered program of five-year (first tier), three-year (second tier), and three-year (third tier) projects, with each tier commencing after the previous tier is being completed. Revises matching funds requirements for such projects. States that organizations that have conducted projects under the program: (1) are not eligible to conduct another such project; and (2) may continue to use the women's business center logo only with the Administrator's consent. Requires notice to the public of women's business center awards.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Commerce
Date: 2008-07-17 00:00:00

Disadvantaged Business Disaster Eligibility Act of 2008 - Permits any small business that was participating in a Small Business Administration (SBA) business development program located in a Louisiana parish or Mississippi or Alabama county designated by the SBA Administrator as a disaster area by reason of Hurricane Katrina or Rita to continue participation and eligibility in such program for an additional 24 months.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Taxation
Date: 2008-07-29 00:00:00

American Shipping Reinvestment Act of 2008 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to: (1) repeal shipping investment withdrawal tax rules; and (2) allow U.S. corporate shareholders a tax deduction for dividends attributable to foreign base company shipping income received from a controlled foreign corporation.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Taxation
Date: 2008-07-30 00:00:00

Long-Term Care Family Accessibility Act - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow an income-based tax credit for 50% of the first $4,000 of premiums paid for long-term care insurance coverage of a taxpayer or a taxpayer's family member or dependent.
Topic: Domestic Commerce — Small Businesses
Subject: Foreign trade and international finance
Date: 2008-08-01 00:00:00

Recreational Performance Outerwear Apparel Act of 2008 - Amends the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to provide for the duty-free treatment of certain recreational performance outerwear. Establishes the Sustainable Textile and Apparel Research Fund (STAR Fund). Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to: (1) impose and collect, with specified exceptions, a fee of 1.5% of the appraised value of imported recreational performance outerwear and to deposit amounts collected into the STAR Fund; and (2) make quarterly distributions from the STAR Fund to one or more appropriate organizations to conduct applied research, development, and education activities to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. businesses in clean, eco-friendly apparel, other textile and apparel products, and sewn-product design and manufacturing.