Valley City  (Sen. Heitkamp’s Office)

U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Monday afternoon hosted a discussion with community leaders, small business owners, and folks working in the agricultural sector about issues important to the community’s economic growth and how the administration’s trade policies are impacting the region’s economy.

She says, “Small town Main Streets are the heart of North Dakota’s rural communities. Whether it’s the small town café, the ag equipment dealer, or the local banker, they all play crucial roles in driving our local economies. Growing up in a small town, I’ve seen this sense of community and how it can help support economic growth for families, farmers, ranchers, and entrepreneurs. Today, I sat down with folks from Valley City to hear about opportunities that small towns can provide and how challenges, like the administration’s trade policies, can impact their bottom lines. Just by listening to the folks from Valley City today, I can return to Washington with more ideas on how to boost rural economies, support jobs, and drive growth well into the future.”

 

Heitkamp has long worked to make sure small businesses, which make up 99 percent of North Dakota’s employers and nearly 60 percent of all jobs in the state, have access to the appropriate resources and policies that help grow their businesses and support local jobs. Heitkamp has worked to make sure small businesses have strong voices at the federal level by:

 

  • Supporting North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers with a strong Farm Bill. This month, Heitkamp, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, was appointed to the Farm Bill conference committee which is tasked with reaching a compromise agreement between the U.S. Senate and U.S. House Farm Bills. The goal is to get a bill to the president’s desk before the current Farm Bill expires at the end of September. She helped pass a strong, bipartisan Farm Bill out of the U.S. Senate in June which includes many provisions she fought for to support North Dakota farmers and ranchers. Heitkamp helped write, negotiate, and pass the 2014 Farm Bill.

 

  • Fighting to level the playing field for brick and mortar businesses. In June, Heitkamp hailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that states have the ability to require online retailers to collect sales tax, an issue she has been fighting for 1992 when she was North Dakota’s tax commissioner. In the U.S. Senate, Heitkamp led a bipartisan legislative effort to settle the issue of online retailers gaining an unfair advantage over brick-and-mortar businesses by not having to collect state sales and use taxes.

 

 

  • Passed her bill to give small businesses a seat at the table. In December 2016, Heitkamp’s SEC Small Business Advocate Act was signed into law that created the Office of the Advocated for Small Business Capital Formation within the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). This established clear lines of communication between small businesses and the federal rule makers to make sure small business are being heard in Washington when it comes to access to capital and compliance challenges.

 

  • Supporting rural small businesses and boosting access to capital. In May 2018, Heitkamp helped introduce a bipartisan bill — building on her SEC Small Business Advocate Act — to give small businesses a voice in the federal rule making process impacting access to capital and investor protection. The new Expanding Access to Capital for Rural Job Creators Act would expand the focus of the Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation to include rural-area small businesses.

 

  • Helping encourage investments in small businesses and startups in smaller communities. In March 2017, Heitkamp reintroduced her bipartisan Supporting America’s Innovators Act with U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) to help encourage investments in small business and startups in small communities and was signed into law in May 2018.

 

  • Boosting startups in rural communities and small cities. In March 2016, Heitkamp introduced her Startup Entrepreneurs Empowerment Delivery (SEED) Act that would create a federal pilot program granting up to $120,000 in federal funds to 10 small cities with populations of 200,000 or less to then invest into startup businesses.