Today is a great day for America’s small and seasonal businesses! President Bush has signed into law the 2007 Department of Defense authorization bill, which includes my provision that will extend for one year a crucial provision from my Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act, which saves small and seasonal businesses from a devastating cut to their workforce.
We won this by working together with small businesses and watermen fighting on the ground, and me fighting on Capitol Hill with my colleague, Senator John Warner (R-Va.). I have been fighting for years to help good guy businesses and workers wade through the unfair procedures that were part of the H2B visa process. This extension protects workers, and gives us another congressional session to keep up the fight until we make this cap exemption permanent.
I told small businesses they could count on me to keep fighting until we had a solution and they had the seasonal workers they needed to stay in business. Without these seasonal workers, many businesses would not survive – forced to limit services, lay off permanent U.S. workers or, worse yet, close their doors.