Office of Rural Affairs Enhancement Act

This Act may be cited as the “Office of Rural Affairs Enhancement Act”.

Section 26 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 653) is amended—

(1) by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

“(b) Appointment of assistant administrator.—

(1) In general.— The Office shall be administered by an Assistant Administrator, who shall be an employee in the competitive service.

(2) Qualifications.— The Assistant Administrator shall—

(A) have education or professional experience with, or knowledge of, rural affairs and issues relating to small business concerns; and

(B) have experience providing development assistance to rural small business concerns.”;

(2) in subsection (c)—

(A) in paragraph (1), by striking “small business concerns located in rural areas” and inserting “rural small business concerns”;

(B) in paragraph (3)—

(i) by striking “provide information” and inserting “promote”; and

(ii) by striking “concerning the” and all that follows through the semicolon at the end and inserting the following: “on the policies and programs of the Administration and of other Federal departments and agencies for assisting rural small business concerns;”;

(C) in paragraph (4), by striking “; and” and inserting a semicolon;

(D) in paragraph (5)—

(i) by striking “the United States Tourism and Travel Administration” and inserting “the National Travel and Tourism Office of the Department of Commerce”;

(ii) by striking “small businesses in rural areas” and inserting “rural small business concerns”; and

(iii) by striking the period at the end and inserting “; and”; and

(E) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

“(6) host webinars and outreach events for rural small business concerns as described in subsection (d).”; and

(3) by adding at the end the following new subsections:

“(d) Outreach.— The Assistant Administrator shall—

(1) host webinars and outreach events in various regions of the United States for rural small business concerns; and

(2) invite representatives from district offices of the Administration, resource partners, Federal and State agencies, and other interested persons to participate in such webinars and outreach events.

(e) Report.—

(1) In general.— Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this subsection, and annually thereafter, the Administrator shall submit to the Committee on Small Business of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship of the Senate, and make publicly available on a website of the Administration, a report on the activities of the Office during the one-year period immediately preceding the date of submission of the report.

(2) Contents.— Each report required under paragraph (1) shall include the following:

(A) The operational details of the Office, including the name of the Assistant Administrator, the budget of the Office, and the number of full-time employees employed by or detailed to the Office.

(B) A summary of the activities conducted under subsection (c).

(C) The number of webinars and outreach events conducted by the Administration to promote policies and programs described in paragraph (3) of subsection (c) and to provide information described in paragraph (4) of such subsection.

(D) An analysis of the lending programs of the Administration in serving the needs of rural small business concerns.

(E) Information gathered from any webinars and outreach events conducted by the Administration during the period covered by the report.

(f) Definitions.— In this section:

(1) Assistant administrator.— The term Assistant Administrator means the Assistant Administrator of the Office of Rural Affairs appointed under subsection (b).

(2) Resource partners.— The term resource partners means—

(A) small business development centers;

(B) women’s business centers (described under section 29);

(C) chapters of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (established under section 8(b)(1)(B)); and

(D) Veteran Business Outreach Centers (described under section 32).

(3) Rural small business concern.— The term rural small business concern means a small business concern located in a rural area (as defined in section 7(b)(16) of this Act).”.