{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2026/9/sen-rick-scott-urges-dot-sec-duffy-to-correct-loophole-hurting-small-businesses", "Sen. Rick Scott Urges DOT Sec. Duffy to Correct Loophole Hurting Small Businesses", "2026-09-02", "2026", "2026-09", "Republican", "Senate", "FL", "Rick Scott", "S001217", "www.rickscott.senate.gov", "rickscott", "https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/press-releases/", "page_html", "NAPLES, Fla. \u2013 This week, U.S. Senator Rick Scott sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy asking him to fix to a Biden-era policy that unfairly harms travel agents, including many small business owners in Florida.\n\nCurrently, travel agents are required by law to refund customers within seven days of a qualified flight cancellation or delay while airlines have no such deadline. The financial burden is placed on agents, forcing them to lose thousands of dollars while they work for months to recoup the money from the airlines who hold the funds. Senator Scott\u2019s letter requests a change in this policy that holds airlines equally accountable to provide timely refunds to their customers.\n\nSenator Rick Scott wrote, \u201cTravel agencies and advisors operate on slim margins, and many simply cannot afford to front refunds to their customers, particularly for group bookings worth tens of thousands of dollars, before the airline has returned the money. These small businesses are being held financially accountable for a timeline they do not control, while the airlines that actually hold the funds face no enforceable deadline. Many of these small businesses may go out of business if nothing is done. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and travel advisors and agencies play a critical role in our tourism industry.\u201d\n\nRead the full letter HERE or below:\n\nDear Secretary Duffy,\n\nI write to request that the Department of Transportation correct a flaw in its 2024 consumer refund regulations that is placing an unsustainable financial burden on travel agencies and travel advisors, the overwhelming majority of which are small businesses.\n\nUnder the Department\u2019s April 2024 final rule, the \u201cmerchant of record\u201d in an airline ticket transaction must refund the consumer within seven days of a cancelled or significantly changed flight. When a travel agency or advisor books a ticket on behalf of a client, the agency is often the merchant of record, even though the cost of the ticket is immediately transferred to the airline at the time of purchase. The Department\u2019s August 2024 final rule requires airlines to \u201cpromptly\u201d return those funds to the ticket agent, but it does not define \u201cpromptly\u201d or set any deadline. In practice, airlines frequently fail to return funds within the seven-day window, forcing agencies to refund customers out of their own pockets while they wait on the airline refund.\n\nTravel agencies and advisors operate on slim margins, and many simply cannot afford to front refunds to their customers, particularly for group bookings worth tens of thousands of dollars, before the airline has returned the money. These small businesses are being held financially accountable for a timeline they do not control, while the airlines that actually hold the funds face no enforceable deadline. Many of these small businesses may go out of business if nothing is done. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and travel advisors and agencies play a critical role in our tourism industry.\n\nI respectfully request that the Department fix this imbalance through rulemaking or other appropriate administrative action, whether by establishing a firm deadline for airlines to return funds to ticket agents, aligning the agency\u2019s refund obligation with its receipt of funds from the airline, or another workable solution. Consumers deserve timely refunds, but that obligation should rest with the party holding the money, not with small businesses left waiting on the airlines.\n\nThank you for your attention to this important issue.\n\nSincerely,\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-09-03T09:29:33Z", "2026-09-03T09:31:32Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.rickscott.senate.gov/2026/9/sen-rick-scott-urges-dot-sec-duffy-to-correct-loophole-hurting-small-businesses"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4881049282848835, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}