WASHINGTON (November 20, 2020) – The following is a statement attributed to Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. 
 
“The Treasury Department’s inability to deploy the Main Street Lending program, with only an embarrassingly small fraction being distributed of the more than half a trillion dollar capacity allocated from the CARES Act, will go down in U.S. history as one of the worst bureaucracy blunders of economic policy. Thousands of businesses have or will go out of business because these funds were not doled out as mandated by Congress. 
 
“The Main Street Lending Program has been a complete failure and provided no relief to the hotel industry, leaving 71% of hotels on the brink of closure and millions of jobs at permanent risk according to a recent AHLA survey. Congress should be outraged and immediately re-appropriate the unused $455 billion in funds to provide targeted relief to severely distressed industries, such as the hotel industry. Congress must act immediately to pass additional grant programs for industries and workers that are facing irreparable harm without further assistance.”
 
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