COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2026
Download PDFSponsored by
Rep. Williams, Roger [R-TX-25]
ID: W000816
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 590.
June 2, 2026
Introduced
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed House
Senate Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
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1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2025 - because what's a pandemic without a healthy dose of bureaucratic posturing?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's ostensible purpose is to require the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration (SBA) to submit quarterly reports on fraud related to certain COVID-19 loans. Ah, transparency! How quaint. In reality, this bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound - a token effort to appear concerned about the rampant abuse of pandemic relief funds.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill mandates that the SBA's Inspector General submit reports every three months, detailing the number of borrowers engaged in fraud, new cases of suspected fraud, resolved cases, and types of fraud. Oh, wow! That sounds like a whole lot of nothing. The "covered loans" in question are those made under specific sections of the Small Business Act or in response to COVID-19 during the covered period (because who doesn't love a good acronym?). This bill is a minor tweak to existing law, not a meaningful reform.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The SBA's Inspector General will have to do some extra paperwork. Borrowers who engaged in fraud might get caught (but probably won't). Taxpayers will foot the bill for this exercise in futility. Lobbyists and special interest groups will continue to feast on the carcass of pandemic relief funds.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a placebo, designed to make lawmakers look like they're doing something about pandemic-related waste and abuse. In reality, it's a drop in the ocean - a tiny, insignificant effort to address the systemic problems that led to billions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds being squandered. The real impact will be zero, zilch, nada. This bill is a symptom of a deeper disease: the chronic inability of Congress to effectively address corruption and waste.
Diagnosis: Legislative Theater Syndrome (LTS) - a condition characterized by the propensity to introduce bills that sound good but accomplish nothing. Treatment: a healthy dose of skepticism, followed by a strong shot of reality. Prognosis: bleak.
Related Topics
💰 Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Williams, Roger [R-TX-25]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
Cosponsors & Their Campaign Finance
This bill has 3 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
Rep. Latimer, George [D-NY-16]
ID: L000606
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Bean, Aaron [R-FL-4]
ID: B001314
Top Contributors
10
Rep. Mfume, Kweisi [D-MD-7]
ID: M000687
Top Contributors
10
Donor Network - Rep. Williams, Roger [R-TX-25]
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 32 nodes and 30 connections
Total contributions: $125,000
Top Donors - Rep. Williams, Roger [R-TX-25]
Showing top 19 donors by contribution amount
Industry Impact
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 harmed.
- −Commercial Banks confidence 0.80
Section 2(c) implies that some loans made under the Small Business Act may have been fraudulent, which could reflect poorly on commercial banks involved in making those loans.
- −Private Equity & Hedge Funds confidence 0.60
The increased scrutiny of COVID-19 loans in Section 2 may lead to greater regulatory attention on private equity and hedge funds that invested in or lent to small businesses affected by the pandemic.
Who funds the sponsor on these industries
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Rep. Williams, Roger [R-TX-25]) received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
Industries this bill HARMS
- Private Equity & Hedge Funds$14,400from 4contributions
- ROWAN, MARC$9,900
- KLEINMAN, SCOTT$4,500
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
Introduction
AI Analysis:
"The COVID Fraud Transparency Act of 2025 aligns strongly with the Project 2025 policy objective of promoting transparency and accountability in SBA programs, particularly in addressing mismanagement, waste, fraud, and abuse. The bill's focus on quarterly reporting and oversight directly supports the policy's goal of improving SBA management."
— 748 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise loan credit subsidy costs, and miscellaneous program “enhancements” to support small businesses through economic challenges or circumstances. As noted by the Congressional Research Service: Overall, the SBA’s appropriations have ranged from a high of over $761.9 billion in FY2020 to a low of $571.8 million in FY2007. Much of this volatility is due to significant variation in supplemental appropriations for disaster assistance to address economic damages caused by major hurricanes and for SBA lending program enhancements to help small businesses access capital during and immediately following recessions. For example, in FY2020, the SBA received over $760.9 billion in supplemental appropriations to assist small businesses adversely affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID- 19) pandemic.18 The CRS further notes that “[o]verall, since FY2000, appropriations for SBA’s other programs, excluding supplemental appropriations, have increased at a pace that exceeds inflation.”19 In terms of current loan volume, the SBA “reached nearly $43 billion in fund- ing to small businesses, providing more than 62,000 traditional loans through its 7(a), 504, and Microloan lending partners and over 1,200 investments through SBA licensed Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022.”20 The agency’s total budgetary resources for FY 2022 amount to $44.25 billion, which represents 0.4 percent of the FY 2022 U.S. federal budget.21 HISTORY OF MISMANAGEMENT Throughout its history, various SBA programs and practices have generated negative news headlines and scathing Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Inspector General (IG) reports that have centered on mismanagement, lack of competent personnel and/or systems, and waste, fraud and abuse.22 From the 8a program23 to Hurricane Katrina24 to the more current COVID-19 (EIDL) program and PPP lending program,25 the SBA has managed to maintain its lending role even when repeated system failures have affected its distribution of funds. Congress has been somewhat responsive, pressuring the SBA to clean up fraud-related matters within its COVID-19 lending and grant programs.26 Repub- licans in the U.S. House of Representatives have gone farther, specifying that the SBA needs to improve transparency and accountability and deal with mission creep, the expansion of unauthorized programs, and structural and reporting deficiencies that have allowed mismanagement and fraud to reoccur, largely through massive supplemental appropriations.27 The SBA is led by an Administrator (currently a member of the President’s Cabinet) and a Deputy Administrator. Senate-confirmed appointees include — 749 — Small Business Administration the Administrator, Deputy Administrator, Chief Counsel for Advocacy, and Inspector General. Entrepreneurs and small businesses require limited-government policies that do not impede their risk-taking and growth. A future Administration can leverage and strengthen core SBA functions that have been fairly effective at reining in and calling attention to costly regulations and policies that are harmful to small businesses. This core advocacy function is aided both by statutory authority and by a network of small-business organizations and allies that support limited-gov- ernment policies.28 Moreover, an effective SBA Administrator and leadership team can work and advocate across the federal government to ensure that extreme regulatory poli- cies—or anticompetitive rules and actions that may favor big businesses over small businesses or international competitors over American small businesses—are dismantled or do not progress when proposed. MISSION CREEP AND ENLARGEMENT As noted, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have evidenced con- cern about SBA mission creep and the need to make a sprawling, unaccountable agency more focused and operationally sound. Moreover, there is unease that the agency has moved from being open to any eligible small business searching for sup- port to being hyperfocused on “disproportionately impacted,” politically favored, or geographically situated small businesses and entrepreneurs. Today, initiatives aimed at “inclusivity” are in fact creating exclusivity and stringent selectivity in deciding what types of small businesses and entities can use SBA programs. For example, even though the SBA under President Donald Trump proposed a rule to remove all of the unconstitutional religious exclusions from its regulations29 to conform with Supreme Court decisions that have made their unconstitutionality clear, the SBA has not acted on the proposed rule and still uses religious exclusions in determining eligibility for business loans. Several other specific concerns include but are not limited to: l The SBA’s request to become a “designated voter agency” in response to President Biden’s executive order on “Promoting Access to Voting.”30 l The creation of duplicative channels and “pilot programs” for the delivery of business training rather than working through existing counseling partners. The programs are largely duplicative of private, state and local government, and educational system offerings.31 l A push to expand direct government lending.32
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.