Congress mandates equal disaster aid access for rural small businesses
H.R. 804 — Rural Small Business Resilience Act · Filed by Kelly Morrison (D-MN) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 28, 2025 · Passed chamber
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What it does
This bill requires the Small Business Administration to ensure rural residents have full access to disaster assistance after a disaster declaration, including targeted outreach and marketing. It also makes a technical fix to the Small Business Act by renumbering a paragraph.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a mandate to the SBA to ensure rural small business owners receive equal access to existing disaster assistance programs through targeted outreach and marketing.
What the text implies
- The bill does not appropriate new funds or create new programs—it mandates the SBA use existing resources to reach rural applicants, potentially requiring reallocation of staff or budget within the agency.
- Targeted outreach may reveal unmet demand for disaster assistance in rural areas, potentially creating pressure for future appropriations or program expansion.
- The technical amendment renumbering paragraph (16) to (17) in section 7(b) of the Small Business Act may affect cross-references in other statutes or regulations—no adverse effect is apparent from this text alone.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Rural small business owners gain explicit legal assurance of equal access to disaster assistance and targeted outreach, addressing a documented gap in rural participation. The bill imposes no new costs on citizens and strengthens an existing public benefit.
Named in the bill
Small Business Administration (SBA), Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience, Small Business Act, section 7(b)
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 2 Republicans.
- Jan 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Small Business and Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Small Business”
- Feb 24, 2025 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Williams (TX) moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill”
- Feb 25, 2025 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “Motion to reconsider laid on the table Agreed to without objection”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 4 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $55,070,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 254 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Kelly Morrison, the sponsor, reported $252,592 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $54,660,000 on 3 filings
- American Federation of Teachers — $410,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,009 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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