GREATER Act Mandates SBA, ARC, and DRA Team Up to Boost Rural Business in Appalachia and the Delta

The Growing Regional Entrepreneurship and Access To Economic Resilience Act, or the GREATER Act, is a targeted piece of legislation designed to inject more support into small businesses and startups across two specific, often underserved regions: Appalachia and the Delta. The core of this section mandates that within 120 days of the law passing, the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Delta Regional Authority (DRA) must sign a formal agreement—a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)—to coordinate their efforts. Essentially, this bill forces three major federal players to stop working in silos and start collaborating on how they deliver resources, training, and funding to rural entrepreneurs in these specific areas.

The Mandate: Federal Agencies Have to Play Nice

Think of the SBA as the federal government's main small business lender and resource hub. The ARC and DRA, however, are regional development agencies focused on economic growth in their respective geographic zones. Right now, a small business owner in rural Arkansas or West Virginia might have to navigate three separate application processes or sets of rules to get help. This bill aims to streamline that by requiring the agencies to coordinate their activities, making sure that small businesses located in the Appalachian or Delta regions—the "covered small business concerns"—are the priority. The goal is to make the federal government’s assistance less confusing and more effective for the people who need it most.

What This Means for Rural Entrepreneurs

If you run a small manufacturing shop in rural Kentucky or are trying to launch a tech startup in Mississippi, this coordination should, in theory, make it easier to access capital and technical assistance. Instead of chasing down three different grants or loan programs, the coordinated effort should present a more unified front. The bill also gives these agencies flexibility: they can enter into agreements with each other and other federal agencies to share resources and staff, which could mean faster implementation of programs. This is about maximizing the impact of existing resources by forcing cooperation, which is generally a good thing when you're talking about limited funding in high-need areas.

The Accountability Check-In

This isn't just a handshake agreement; there's a built-in accountability mechanism. Two years after the law is enacted, the heads of the SBA, ARC, and DRA must jointly report back to Congress. This report needs to detail exactly how well they coordinated, what ideas they have for increasing support, and—most importantly—how many rural entrepreneurs and small businesses they actually assisted. For busy people, this is the key metric: it forces the agencies to show their work and prove that the coordination wasn't just administrative busywork but resulted in tangible help for businesses on the ground. However, since the bill allows them to partner with 'other appropriate groups' using reimbursable agreements, we’ll need to watch the two-year report closely to ensure those partnerships are efficient and transparent, and not just adding unnecessary layers of bureaucracy.