Sponsors (7)
The bill strengthens small-business participation, transparency, and predictability in federal rulemaking (and reduces some penalties for minor errors) at the cost of significant new administrative requirements, greater litigation risk, potential delays to rules (including health/environment protections), and some uncertainty from shifting authorities.
Small businesses will get clearer, centralized size definitions and an SBA-issued rulebook explaining how agencies must apply small-entity standards, increasing predictability for program eligibility and compliance.
Small businesses will face reduced civil penalties for first-time paperwork-collection errors because agencies generally must allow quick cures (including a 24-hour cure for many health/safety paperwork errors) before imposing fines.
Small businesses, researchers, and the public will get clearer, quantified, and centralized information about how proposed and final rules affect different industries (NAICS sector IDs, plain-language summaries, and published regulatory flexibility analyses), improving planning and oversight.
Federal agencies will face substantial new administrative and analytic burdens (new guides, outreach, expanded analyses, reporting, and reviews) that increase costs and divert staff time, potentially raising costs for taxpayers and slowing other agency work.
Americans could experience slower implementation of regulations (including health, safety, and environmental protections) because added analyses, coordination with the Chief Counsel, mandatory waiting periods, and expanded review windows create delay risks.
Businesses and agencies may face more litigation and procedural complexity (more joinable parties, altered judicial review timing, and centralized appeals in courts of appeals), increasing legal costs and potential uncertainty in rule outcomes.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Strengthens SBA Office of Advocacy authority, expands and tightens Regulatory Flexibility Act requirements, adds pre‑proposal reviews and reporting, and limits first‑time paperwork fines for small businesses.
Introduced January 15, 2025 by Benjamin Cline · Last progress January 15, 2025
Creates stronger, enforceable roles for the SBA Office of Advocacy in federal rulemaking and expands the Regulatory Flexibility Act’s coverage and analytic requirements so agencies must assess and reduce economic harm to small entities. It requires new reviews, reports, and public postings, gives the Chief Counsel new rulemaking and intervention powers, tightens judicial review timing, and creates a limited waiver of civil fines for first-time small-business paperwork violations. The bill increases transparency and quantification duties for agencies (including plain‑language summaries and website publication), mandates panels and reports for major rules affecting small entities, orders periodic review plans for covered rules, and directs a GAO study on SBA Advocacy’s capacity to carry out the new responsibilities.