Sponsors (5)
The bill trades substantial protections for small businesses from new regulatory costs and greater transparency about rules affecting them against risks that protective regulations will be delayed or blocked, legal and administrative burdens will increase, and the Act’s intended programs may go unfunded and unimplemented.
Small-business owners will face fewer new compliance costs because the SBA must cap per‑firm regulatory costs at $0 each year starting FY2026, reducing the direct cost of future SBA rulemakings on individual firms.
Congress, oversight bodies, and the public will get annual, agency‑by‑agency lists and tracking of non‑SBA rules that affect small businesses, increasing transparency and enabling more targeted oversight or future policies to reduce regulatory burdens.
Small-business owners (and stakeholders) may lose access to new safety, health, or consumer protections because effectively barring any net cost for SBA rulemakings can delay or prevent protective regulations from being adopted.
Programs, beneficiaries, and federal agencies may not receive funded implementation because the Act prevents new appropriations to implement it, meaning services or benefits the Act would create can be delayed or never delivered and agencies could be unable to carry out assigned duties.
Federal agencies, small businesses, and others could face legal uncertainty and regulatory paralysis because the $0 cost cap is likely to prompt disputes over how 'cost' is measured and may generate litigation over exemptions and implementation.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Requires SBA to set a small business regulatory budget at $0 per small business starting FY2026 and to report annually on non‑SBA federal rules that affect small businesses.
Official title: To require the Administrator of the Small Business Administration to ensure that the small business regulatory budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not greater than 0, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 4, 2025 by Beth Van Duyne · Last progress February 4, 2025
Requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to set a “small business regulatory budget” equal to $0 per small business concern for fiscal year 2026 and every fiscal year thereafter, and to report annually on non‑SBA federal rules that affect small businesses. The bill creates definitions for key terms, requires an SBA report to Congress listing agency rules that impact small businesses, and states no additional appropriations are authorized to implement the Act.