The Fight For Full PPP Loan Transparency Is Just Beginning

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin approved the release of limited data from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) on Friday, reversing his previous stance that the administration would not be releasing any data on the $600 billion federal loan program. Despite this announcement, the majority of the loans would still go unreported.

The program has been ridden with scandals, including multi-million dollar loans to restaurant chains, lawsuits, and pervasive inequality in the distribution of funding, raising the stakes of full transparency. On top of this, House Democrats have accused the Small Business Administration of stonewalling an independent and nonpartisan investigation by the Office of Government Accountability, which is expected to release its first report on CARES Act spending this week. 

“We never agreed to full transparency,” Mnuchin told TIME Senior Editor Haley Sweetland Edwards in a video interview Tuesday.

Only the names of businesses who received Paycheck Protection Program loans above $150,000 will be made public, according to a statement released on Friday by the Small Business Administration and the Treasury. Although these loans account for almost 75% of the total funding dispensed in PPP loans, they only cover 15% of the total loans as of June 12th. For the majority of the loans, therefore, only statistical summaries will be given. 

Additionally, the data being released will not detail the actual loan amounts, only ranges of which the benchmarks are $350,000, $1 million, $2 million, $5 million, and $10 million. Mnuchin has said that disclosing exact loan amounts would reveal confidential information, because the loan amounts are calculated based on the businesses’ payroll. Yet the PPP loan application informed borrowers that their names and loan values are subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA requests for this information to be made public have already been filed by numerous news organizations, including the Washington Post and the New York Times.

In a letter sent on Wednesday of last week, House Democrats urged the Small Business Administration to collaborate with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), who has been tasked with conducting interviews, obtaining data, and reviewing documents relating to the economic stimulus package. The letter stated that the SBA has not provided requested materials, has not provided a timeline for doing so, and has not accommodated all requested interviews. SBA officials that have been interviewed by the GAO “have not been fully cooperative in providing timely, fulsome, and transparent responses to interview questions,” the letter reads.

The GAO standoff comes after Trump’s removal of several key Inspector Generals, including the head of the Pandemic Accountability Office in mid-April, which raised concerns about a lack of transparency and accountability in federal emergency funding.

The GAO is still looking for more information than what the Treasury and SBA have said they would release, according to a senior Democratic aide for a House Committee. This would include access to borrower names and loan amounts for all the PPP loans, access to officials within the SBA, and access to the program’s documentation. Senators feel that they cannot assess the success of the program, and the need for additional funding without knowing who has received the loans. 

Two days ago, Mnuchin claimed that the Treasury and SBA would comply with federal oversight. “They will have access to more information,” Mnuchin told TIME. “We are very much in favor in making sure Congress is very clear in how we are distributing this money.” 

The information, though, must remain confidential, he says.