EXCLUSIVE — Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) is demanding the Biden administration enforce a public price tag rule in her latest effort to bring transparency to federal spending.

Ernst, ranking member on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, sent a letter to the administrator of the Small Business Administration, Isabel Casillas Guzman, on Monday afternoon, calling out the agency for failing to implement a provision she requested in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 that requires anything paid for using a SBA grant to meet certain transparency requirements. 

The Iowa senator claims the SBA is not enforcing the law, according to the letter provided exclusively to the Washington Examiner.

“It’s a simple concept: If the public is being asked to pay for something, taxpayers deserve to know the price,” Ernst said in a statement. “The SBA gives out more than $290 million in recurring grants a year. That’s a lot of money. Taxpayers should be able to decide for themselves if they are getting a good deal on the dollars they are sending to Washington. Right now, we have no way of doing that because negligent bureaucrats at Biden’s SBA are refusing to follow the law.”

The letter to Guzman, a Biden official appointed in March 2021, comes during Sunshine Week, an annual “celebration of government transparency and public access to information.” Ernst said the SBA’s existing terms and conditions do not comply with the statuary requirements in the 2023 appropriations act despite their claims that say otherwise.

Under the provision, anything paid for using an SBA grant must clearly state the percentage of the total costs of the program/project that is financed with federal funds, the dollar amount of federal funds being used for the program, and the percentage and dollar amounts of the total costs that nongovernmental sources will finance.

The Iowa senator wrote that SBA’s proposed actions “do not require specific funding data be included in statements, press releases, requests for proposals, and other communications.” Ernst is asking for a response from the SBA on how they will implement these requirements no later than May 1.

“SBA has a responsibility to provide guidance and monitor grantee compliance with this statute to ensure taxpayers know exactly where SBA’s funds are going,” Ernst wrote in the letter. “Just as SBA provides guidance on USASpending.gov reporting standards, so too must SBA provide clear instructions on P.L. 117-328 compliance.” 

“SBA must ensure all grantees publicly display how much they are receiving in federal funding for each project,” the senator continued.

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Ernst is frequently a watchdog for the Biden administration’s treatment and support of small business owners. In February, Ernst asked the administration to explain how the Commerce Department will protect small businesses as it explores “march-in rights” when it comes to seizing patents developed through the use of federal funds.

“In light of this being Sunshine Week, the annual celebration of the public’s right to know what the government is doing, I am calling on the SBA to stop keeping taxpayers in the dark and comply with the law,” Ernst said of her Monday letter. “I know sunlight is the best disinfectant, because I’ve stopped billions of dollars of wasteful spending by shining a bright light on it, including my recent effort to force SBA to recollect billions of dollars of delinquent small business loans.”