Yesterday, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), both of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, urged the Small Business Administration to comply with a law to make renewal grants available for Women's Business Centers nationwide. "Unless the administration acts quickly to get funding to these Women's Business Centers, some of them may be forced to cut key services or possibly shut down entirely," said Kerry.  

Originally, Congress planned on implementing the renewal grants program immediately to ensure centers received the necessary funding by October 1. But since that didn't happen, the centers would have to wait another year for funding. Kerry and Snowe are asking the SBA to make a compromise regarding its grant-making process so those centers can receive the grants by January 1 instead.