Government to consider effects of new regulations

The National Federation of Independent Business hailed an executive order issued by President Bush in August that will force federal rule makers to more fully consider and ease the effects of new regulations on small businesses.

"This gives some sharper teeth to the government's small-business regulatory watchdog," said NFIB Senior Vice President Dan Danner in an NFIB announcement.

"I hope it translates into fairer treatment of small-business owners, who are often swamped with unnecessarily burdensome regulations."

The president's executive order strengthens the authority of Main Street's federal regulatory watchdog, the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. The Office of Advocacy's chief counsel, Tom Sullivan, works with federal regulators and rule makers to make sure the effects of proposed mandates on small business are fully considered before being implemented.

The new executive order will help Sullivan and future chief counsels by:

requiring regulatory agencies to establish policies on how to measure their impact on small business and vet those procedures through the Office of Advocacy;

allowing the Office of Advocacy to train regulatory agencies on how to properly account for small-business impact when agencies draft regulations;

requiring regulatory agencies to consider the Office of Advocacy's comments, which will reflect the views of real small-business owners, before any rule is finalized; and

directing the Office of Advocacy to report annually on whether agencies are complying with the executive order.

"This is a tremendous victory for small business," Danner said. "Small businesses don't have regulatory compliance departments' like Fortune 500 companies do, so they're hit much harder by complex and burdensome regulations. Hopefully, this will give small businesses more time, money and energy to do more of what they do best: create jobs and drive the national economic engine."

The NFIB is an advocacy organization representing small and independent businesses in the United States.