Sponsors (7)
Official title: To amend chapter 6 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the "Regulatory Flexibility Act"), to ensure complete analysis of potential impacts on small entities of rules, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 15, 2025 by Benjamin Cline · Last progress January 15, 2025
The bill substantially strengthens SBA Office of Advocacy powers and transparency to reduce burdens on small entities and improve their participation in rulemaking, but it does so at the cost of greater agency workload, higher taxpayer and litigation costs, potential delays in rulemaking, and risks of uneven implementation or weakened public protections.
Small businesses, nonprofits, tribal governments, and rural communities will get earlier, clearer, and more accessible information and analyses about proposed and final federal rules (NAICS-sector tagging, plain-language summaries, quantification of impacts, and SBA assessments), helping them plan, comment, and comply.
The SBA Office of Advocacy gains stronger, formal tools (rulebook, expanded comment and intervention authority, ability to join litigation, and an expedited review process) so small-entity interests are represented earlier and more effectively in agency rulemaking and judicial review.
Agencies must produce clearer, tailored guidance and conduct targeted outreach (plain-language guides, grouping similarly affected entities, and consultation with small and disadvantaged firms), making compliance easier for everyday small businesses and certain local governments.
Agencies will face substantially increased analytic, administrative, and publication burdens (more detailed analyses, new posting and summary requirements, additional reviews and consultations), which is likely to slow rulemaking, raise agency costs, and could translate into higher costs for taxpayers or slower public services.
Expanded intervention, standing, and extended post-publication challenge windows for SBA Advocacy (and clearer rights to join litigation) will likely increase litigation frequency and cost, delaying implementation of rules and imposing legal expenses on agencies and taxpayers.
Giving small-entity interests earlier and amplified influence over major rules could weaken consumer, worker, health, safety, or environmental protections if agencies prioritize minimizing small-business impacts over statutory regulatory objectives.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Boosts SBA Office of Advocacy powers, requires broader RFA analyses and pre-publication review for major rules, mandates online publication and periodic review, and limits fines for first-time paperwork violations by small businesses.
Strengthens the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy and raises requirements for federal agencies to analyze and reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses, small organizations, tribal governments, and small governmental jurisdictions. It expands what rules trigger analyses, gives the Chief Counsel for Advocacy new review and intervention powers, requires agencies to publish plain-language agendas and analyses online, creates a limited waiver for civil fines for first-time paperwork-collection violations by small businesses, and directs the Government Accountability Office to assess the Office of Advocacy’s capacity to carry out the new duties. The bill adds pre-publication review by the Office of Advocacy for major rules, mandates periodic review plans for rules that significantly affect many small entities, tightens content and publication requirements for initial and final Regulatory Flexibility Act analyses, and creates new procedures for judicial review and intervention by the Office of Advocacy. It also makes a number of clerical and definitional changes to align statutory definitions with the Administrative Procedure Act and the Paperwork Reduction Act.