Congress gets quarterly reports on COVID-relief loan fraud
H.R. 826 — COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2026 · Filed by Roger Williams (R-TX) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 28, 2025 · Passed chamber
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The Small Business Administration's Inspector General must send Congress a report every three months. Each report shows how many COVID-relief loans were made and how many new fraud cases started. It also shows how many cases ended and what types of fraud happened. The reports go to Congress and the public. This rule stops after two years and costs no money.
Who it affects
Taxpayers learn how their money was stolen or misused. Congress can track whether fraud is being caught and punished.
One thing to notice
The reports last only two years. After that, Congress must decide again if it wants them to keep going.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 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”
- May 20, 2026 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
- May 20, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute by the Yeas and Nays: 23 - 0”
- Jun 23, 2026 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote. (text: CR H4141)”
- Jun 23, 2026 — Floor vote scheduled · Congress.gov: “Mr. Williams (TX) moved to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Dec 2025 to Dec 2025.
Those reports show $980,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 17 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Roger Williams, who sponsored the bill, received $544,351 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Association of Equipment Manufacturers — $980,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Inspector General — A person who checks if a government agency follows the rules and spends money the right way.
- COVID-relief loans — Money the government gave to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic to help them stay open.
- fraud — Lying or cheating to get money or benefits that do not belong to you.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,529 characters) on Jul 10, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,928 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 Dec 2025. 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 Jan 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-11-03.
“Congress gets quarterly reports on COVID-relief loan fraud” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr826/simple Report an error
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