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Title 15, Commerce and TradeRelease 119-110

§631a Congressional Declaration of Small Business Economic Policy

Title 15 › CHAPTER 14A — AID TO SMALL BUSINESS › § 631a

Last updated Sep 22, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Federal Government must use all practical means to help small businesses and keep a competitive free-market economy. Federal departments and agencies must coordinate their programs and actions so small firms can start, grow, and get fair access to capital and other resources. The aim is more competition, more entrepreneurship, and less concentration of economic power. The government must also encourage private investment in small businesses. Agencies must create and support policies and programs that make funding available at competitive prices, expand jobs, and use people and natural resources efficiently.

Full Legal Text

Title 15, §631a

Commerce and Trade, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Foster small business
For the purpose of preserving and promoting a competitive free enterprise economic system, Congress hereby declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practical means and to take such actions as are necessary, consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential considerations of national policy, to implement and coordinate all Federal department, agency, and instrumentality policies, programs, and activities in order to: foster the economic interests of small businesses; insure a competitive economic climate conducive to the development, growth and expansion of small businesses; establish incentives to assure that adequate capital and other resources at competitive prices are available to small businesses; reduce the concentration of economic resources and expand competition; and provide an opportunity for entrepreneurship, inventiveness, and the creation and growth of small businesses.
(b)Capital availability to small business
Congress further declares that the Federal Government is committed to a policy of utilizing all reasonable means, consistent with the overall economic policy goals of the Nation and the preservation of the competitive free enterprise system of the Nation, to establish private sector incentives that will help assure that adequate capital at competitive prices is available to small businesses. To fulfill this policy, departments, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Federal Government shall use all reasonable means to coordinate, create, and sustain policies and programs which promote investment in small businesses, including those investments which expand employment opportunities and which foster the effective and efficient use of human and natural resources in the economy of the Nation.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Section was enacted as part of the Small Business Economic Policy Act of 1980, and not as part of the Small Business Act which comprises this chapter.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Effective Date

Section effective Oct. 1, 1980, see section 507 of Pub. L. 96–302, set out as an

Effective Date

of 1980 Amendment note under section 631 of this title.

Short Title

For

Short Title

of title III of Pub. L. 96–302, as the Small Business Economic Policy Act of 1980, see

Short Title

of 1980

Amendments

note set out under section 631 of this title.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

15 U.S.C. § 631a

Title 15, Commerce and Trade

Last Updated

Sep 22, 2026

Release point: 119-110