WASHINGTON, D.C. — A business owner from Mars testified at a congressional hearing Thursday about how the recently-passed financial reform bill will affect his business.

Jerry Buss, president of Aurora Huts LLC, owns 55 Pizza Hut restaurants around the Pittsburgh region, including some in Butler County. He also has business partnerships in other restaurants across the South, which means he has financial involvement in more than 140 establishments across the country.

The hearing delved into the consequences of interchange fees, which are the fees small businesses pay to banks to process customers' debit card payments.

Those fee rates were recently modified in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act passed last week, a 2,300-page bill that marks the most drastic financial overhaul since the Great Depression.

For the first time, interchange fees will be regulated by the Federal Reserve Commission, which most likely will force banks to lower such fees in an effort to protect small businesses.

U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-4th, organized and presided over the hearing in his role as the chairman of the House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.

He told other lawmakers at the hearing that interchange fees usually entail about 2 percent to 3 percent of a customer's total purchase.

While that amount may not seem significant, the costs add up for small business owners, especially when debit and credit cards are used in about 56 percent of all transactions at small businesses, he said.

According to the congressman, interchange fees cost small businesses more than $45 million annually.

"For businesses that operate on razor thin profit margins, fees on card transactions can mean the difference between a profit and a loss each time they sell their goods," Altmire said at the hearing.

"Even more troubling is the fact that this cost may fall disproportionately on small businesses since they often lack the market power to negotiate lower fees, as many large retail businesses do."

Buss testified in front of Congress that he loses more than $330,000 annually from interchange fees imposed by banks. He also said that in the last three years, the interchange fee associated with his restaurants has gone up by 8.5 percent.

With the economy still faltering, Buss said it's great that the federal government is trying to put more money into the pockets of small business owners.

But the money he might potentially save because of the reform measures won't go into his pocket, Buss said, but will rather be passed on to consumers who're also feeling the pinch of the economy.

"Some people have portrayed this as business folks just putting more money into their pockets," he said. "Whoever said that has never owned a business. You never make any money by putting it in your pocket. You have to continually grow it or it dies on you."

Buss also said he's content with the reform measure but thinks Congress could go further. The ideal situation, he said, would involve no fee associated with debit card use during a transaction, just like there's no fee currently imposed on consumers who pay for goods with a check.

Regardless, he said, the reform measures put into place by the bill could have far-reaching consequences for any entrepreneur across the country.

"I suspect tomorrow we will all be doing business different than yesterday," he said.

The far-reaching consequences aren't limited to small business owners, Altmire warned.

In his opening remarks at the hearing, he cautioned that the interchange fee reforms could initiate unintended consequences down the road for financial institutions and that "even slight changes to the system can have far reaching consequences."

There's also speculation that the decline in revenue generated from interchange fees will force banks and other financial institutions to raise fees or rates in other areas of the industry.

"While Congress was forced to bail out the bad actors on Wall Street, credit unions and small businesses remained stable," he said. "As we move forward with implementation of (the financial reform bill), it is very important that we do not unintentionally do harm to the small financial institutions that have played by the rules."