Small business rules up for review

“The strongest and most compelling cases made our Top 10 list of rules,” said Thomas M. Sullivan, chief counsel for advocacy. “These rules, nominated by small business, need to be reviewed by federal agencies to determine if they are outdated, ineffective, duplicative or overly complex. “Streamlining and updating these regulations will help ease the disproportionate federal regulatory burden placed on small business,” said Sullivan.

Advocacy created the r3 initiative as a way to address the cumulative burden of federal regulations that now costs our economy $1.1 trillion per year, which is more per household than the cost of health insurance. The smallest of businesses bear the brunt of regulations. According to Office of Advocacy research, they annually pay 45 percent more per employee to comply with federal regulations than big businesses do.

The 2008 Top 10 Rules for Review and Reform are listed in the Report on the Regulatory Flexibility Act, FY 2007, released recently. The annual Regulatory Flexibility Act report will list each year’s r3 Top 10 nominations and the status of agency actions on previous nominations. In order to track agency action on the Top 10, advocacy has posted the list to its Web site, www.sba.gov/advo/r3. An update on the status of agency reviews will be published twice a year.

Advocacy encourages small businesses and their representatives to follow the progress of the reviews and comment to the agencies on that progress. The 2008 Top 10 rules were chosen on the basis of several factors: 1. Whether the rule could reasonably be tailored to accomplish its intended objectives while reducing the impact on small businesses or small communities; 2. Whether the rule being nominated has ever been reviewed for its impact on small entities; 3.