Banks must accept and process loans on a relationship-blind basis.
Banks must accept and process PPP loans on a relationship-blind basis.
Occurrences
Evidence
Tenney “pressed the US Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator, Isabella Casillas Guzman, on why the SBA provided Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans to Planned Parenthood when the law passed by Congress made clear that the organization did not qualify for PPP loans,” and asked whether the SBA planned to deny forgiveness and require repayment.
SBA says that “all lenders will be required to decision forgiveness applications received through the portal,” and that lenders may continue internal processes but “must also accept DFP applications.”
SBA states that “lenders can still accept PPP forgiveness applications directly” and explains that borrowers may apply through SBA’s direct forgiveness portal or through their lender.
Tenney’s current office page remains active and shows contemporaneous House activity, but it contains no evidence of any new PPP-specific relationship-blind banking action in the lookback window.
Assessments
Available evidence does not show that Tenney secured or materially advanced a rule that banks must accept and process PPP loans on a relationship-blind basis. The strongest official evidence only shows that SBA required lenders to accept and process PPP forgiveness applications, including through the direct forgiveness portal, which is related but narrower than the promised lending-stage mandate. Tenney is shown engaging SBA on PPP oversight in 2021, demonstrating relevant effort, but that activity concerned eligibility and forgiveness enforcement rather than achieving the specific relationship-blind bank-processing outcome. Because there is some adjacent policy action on PPP processing but not the promised requirement itself, the best judgment is partial rather than delivered.