Ranking Members Sam Graves & Garret Graves Urge Secretary Yellen to End Payroll Assistance Delays for Struggling Small Air Carriers

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO) and Subcommittee on Aviation Ranking Member Garret Graves (R-LA) today urged Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen to break the bureaucratic logjam delaying critical Payroll Assistance Program Extension (PSP2) funds for the Nation’s smaller airlines.

Last year, Congress provided billions of dollars in PSP funds to help U.S. air carriers and their employees endure the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the federal response to it.  In December, Congress approved additional assistance through an extension of the program (PSP2).  While larger air carriers have been approved and received PSP2 funds, smaller air carriers still have not received any assistance more than two months after Congress passed the law.

In a letter to Secretary Yellen, the two lawmakers said this assistance “is intended to deliver additional relief to small businesses, distressed industries, and our fellow Americans.  Yet, while the Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress focus on providing trillions of dollars in additional funds for progressive wish lists, getting previously approved bipartisan assistance into the hands of those who still need it appears to have been deprioritized.  Two months have gone by with the Treasury failing to provide this PSP2 assistance to small air carriers and operators, most of whom met the January 14, 2021, deadline for early consideration.

“Each day that goes by without PSP2 assistance is another day without a paycheck for the many families that Congress and this Administration pledged to help. It puts hundreds of small businesses at unnecessary risk of shutting down forever, meaning good people will lose their jobs and rural America will lose another transportation link because of bureaucratic delays in Washington.

“…[w]e are writing to urge that you immediately resolve this unnecessary and damaging bureaucratic logjam and make desperately needed assistance available to these smaller, distressed businesses as soon as possible.”