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Blaine Luetkemeyer

Official · Congress

PPP · EIDL
Type
Person
Role
Official · Congress
Programs
PPP, EIDL
Updated

The profile

The Missouri congressman led House Small Business Committee Republicans in 2021 and 2022. He co-sponsored the PPP deadline extension and the laws that gave prosecutors ten years to bring PPP and EIDL fraud cases, and he counted 513 days in which the Treasury Secretary did not testify.

  • Office: U.S. Representative from Missouri, Republican, January 2009 to January 20251
  • Relief-era role: Ranking member, House Committee on Small Business (2021–2022); vice chairman in the next Congress

Blaine Luetkemeyer spent sixteen years in the House and the pandemic years as the Small Business Committee's senior Republican. With Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez he introduced two of the relief-era measures that dealt with PPP's aftermath: the 2021 extension of the application deadline and the 2022 statute-of-limitations laws for PPP and COVID-EIDL fraud.23

The 2021 extension

In March 2021 Velázquez, Luetkemeyer and Representatives Carolyn Bourdeaux and Young Kim introduced the House PPP Extension Act, which moved the application deadline from March 31 to May 31, 2021 and gave SBA until June 30 to process applications. The House passed it on March 16; the committee's release said PPP had by then provided nearly $700 billion in loans.2 The Senate version came from Ben Cardin, Susan Collins and Jeanne Shaheen, and President Biden signed the extension on March 30.4

Ten years to charge

On April 1, 2022 Velázquez and Luetkemeyer introduced the PPP and Bank Fraud Enforcement Harmonization Act and the COVID-19 EIDL Fraud Statute of Limitations Act of 2022. According to their release, PPP fraud on loans made by banks was mostly prosecuted as bank fraud, which has a ten-year statute of limitations, while fraud on loans processed by fintech companies was prosecuted as wire fraud, which has five. The same false application could run out of time years earlier depending on who processed it. The bills set ten years for all PPP fraud and for fraud involving COVID-EIDL loans and advances. "Extending the statutes of limitations from five to ten years gives the time investigators need," Luetkemeyer said. The release cited 70,835 PPP loans, worth more than $4.6 billion, that SBA's Inspector General had identified as "potentially fraudulent."5 President Biden signed both bills on August 5, 2022.3

The Treasury Secretary who did not come

According to Luetkemeyer, the December 2020 relief law required the Treasury Secretary, like the SBA Administrator, to testify to the committee within 150 days of enactment and at least twice a year after. On September 21, 2022 the committee marked up Luetkemeyer's resolution of inquiry, H. Res. 1298, directing Treasury to turn over documents on its role in PPP. "We are now 513 days from the first testimony deadline and Secretary Yellen has testified a grand total of zero times before this Committee," he said, listing requests from May 26, 2021 onward. Velázquez said the committee's own oversight made the resolution unnecessary, and the committee voted 25 to 0 to report it to the House without recommendation. Luetkemeyer said he was "disheartened" that his colleagues on the other side of the aisle would not report it favorably, and voted yes.6 He had taken the same complaint to Fox Business the previous December.7

Planned Parenthood and later oversight

In February 2021 Luetkemeyer and Representative Debbie Lesko led a letter from the committee's Republicans about PPP loans to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. The letter said those organizations had received about $80 million although SBA's affiliation and size rules made them ineligible, and asked what SBA would do to get the money back.8

In the next Congress, with Republicans in the majority, he voted for two fraud bills the committee approved 26 to 0 on July 18, 2023. H.R. 4666 required the SBA Inspector General to report quarterly on PPP and EIDL fraud; H.R. 4667 was the RECLAIM Taxpayer Funds Act.9 As vice chairman he opened a March 20, 2024 hearing with Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman by saying audits had found serious problems at SBA during the pandemic. He said he doubted the agency deserved a 20 percent budget increase and that SBA had delayed the committee's COVID lending investigation by taking months to send documents.10 His last term ended on January 3, 2025.1

  • Nydia Velázquez — committee chairwoman and co-author of the extension and statute-of-limitations bills.
  • Janet Yellen — Treasury Secretary whose absence from the committee his resolution addressed.
  • Isabella Casillas Guzman — SBA Administrator at the March 2024 hearing.

Sources

  1. @unitedstates project, congress-legislators dataset, legislators-historical.json (retrieved Sept. 29, 2026). https://unitedstates.github.io/congress-legislators/legislators-historical.json (we do not have a copy). ↩
  2. House Committee on Small Business, "Chairwoman Velázquez, Ranking Member Luetkemeyer, and Representatives Bourdeaux and Kim Applaud Passage of PPP Extension Act" (Mar. 16, 2021). Original: https://democrats-smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3609 ↩
  3. House Committee on Small Business, "SIGNED INTO LAW: Velázquez and Luetkemeyer Bills to Extend Statute of Limitations on COVID Small Business Fraud Cases" (Aug. 5, 2022). Original: https://democrats-smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4383 ↩
  4. Senate Small Business Committee, "Biden Signs Legislation to Extend PPP Deadline" (Mar. 30, 2021). Original: https://www.sbc.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=87A51219-EEEC-4707-94DD-873FAE4F3B57 ↩
  5. House Committee on Small Business, "Chairwoman Velázquez, Ranking Member Luetkemeyer Introduce Bills to Extend Statute of Limitations on COVID Small Business Fraud Cases" (Apr. 1, 2022). Original: https://democrats-smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4238 ↩
  6. House Committee on Small Business, markup of H. Res. 1298 and H.R. 8844 (Sept. 21, 2022), Small Business Committee Document No. 117-068. ↩
  7. House Committee on Small Business, "Luetkemeyer Discusses Secretary Yellen's Neglect for Small Businesses with Charles Payne" (Dec. 3, 2021). Original: https://smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=403931 ↩
  8. House Committee on Small Business, "Committee Republicans Sign Letter Urging SBA to Deny PPP Loans for Abortion Providers, Luetkemeyer Co-Leads" (Feb. 17, 2021). Original: https://smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=403451 ↩
  9. House Committee on Small Business, markup of H.R. 4666, H.R. 4667 and other bills (July 18, 2023), Small Business Committee Document No. 118-023. ↩
  10. House Committee on Small Business, "Vice Chairman Luetkemeyer: 'Conducting Oversight: Testimony from the Small Business Administrator'" (Mar. 20, 2024). Original: https://smallbusiness.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=405929 ↩
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