Reid: Reauthorize U.S. funds to aid small businesses

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pleaded on Monday for reauthorization of federal funds designed to provide small businesses with research and development funds.

Reid, in a press conference with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said they plan to ask their colleagues to pass a law that would keep intact the Small Business Innovation Research and Small business Technical Transfer programs. The initiatives, first passed in 1983, have awarded more than 89,000 research and development grants worth more than $28 billion to small businesses nationwide, including 224 grants worth $76.5 million in Nevada, Reid said.

The reauthorization would claim 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent of existing research and development dollars among all federal agencies and redirect that money to small businesses, which means it wouldn't add to the national debt, Landrieu said. The program would shift more than $2 billion to small businesses nationwide.

During the press conference, Reid highlighted two Nevada businesses that have received funds through the two programs. PowerQuick of Carson City used its federal grant to help develop its powered ascender, a personal lifting device that can haul up firefighters, construction workers and other laborers alongside buildings at two feet per second. And K2 Energy Solutions, which steered its funding toward efforts to develop lithium batteries.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.