Sponsors (30)
Introduced February 10, 2025 by Brad Finstad · Last progress February 10, 2025
The bill gives small businesses greater transparency, input, and procedural remedies to limit unexpected regulatory burdens, but it raises administrative costs, litigation risk, and the possibility of regulatory gaps or underfunded implementation if agencies miss tight deadlines or lack funding.
Small businesses gain earlier and clearer transparency plus new avenues to flag and challenge agency determinations (certifications posted quickly, guidance centralized, public comment opportunities), helping them anticipate and reduce compliance costs.
Agencies must account for reasonably foreseeable indirect compliance costs in rule analyses, which surfaces hidden burdens on small entities and leads to more complete cost estimates informing rulemaking.
Tighter procedural deadlines and a defined 180-day review/reinstatement path can speed resolution of disputes and restore relied-upon rules faster, reducing prolonged uncertainty for regulated parties.
Businesses and the public risk sudden regulatory gaps because rules automatically cease to be effective if agencies miss procedural deadlines, creating legal uncertainty and interruption of regulatory protections or obligations.
The bill increases analytic and administrative burdens on agencies (extra analyses, publication and comment processes, tighter timelines), which can slow rulemaking, raise implementation costs, and shift costs to taxpayers or regulated parties.
Treating certain certifications as final agency actions for judicial review raises litigation risk, increasing legal costs and regulatory uncertainty for agencies and businesses.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Requires agencies to analyze and disclose indirect costs to small entities, publish SBA certifications quickly, allow SBA petitions and reviews, post guidance for impacted rules, and suspend rules that miss required reviews.
Requires federal agencies to identify and disclose reasonably foreseeable indirect costs to small entities when preparing regulatory flexibility analyses, to publish Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy certifications quickly, and to face a new petition-and-review process when the SBA Chief Counsel finds a rule will have significant impacts on small entities. It also forces agencies to post guidance and interpretive materials for rules that are likely to have significant effects on small entities, updates the 10-year review requirements to account for indirect costs, and creates automatic consequences if agencies miss required reviews. The measure raises the procedural stakes for agencies and increases transparency and opportunities for small businesses and other small entities to comment. It does not authorize new funding, so agencies must implement the new requirements using existing resources or by reallocating funds.