On Thursday, Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI) issued a statement in response to the House passage of H.R. 527, the Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Act of 2015.
“Since its adoption in the 1970s, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which requires federal agencies to consider the economic impact regulations have on American businesses and less costly alternatives, has helped to reduce regulatory burden,” Miller said. “However, not all agencies apply the same standards when determining the potential impact of a proposed regulation, and they often fail to consider the indirect impact regulations have on smaller entities, resulting in a disproportionately adverse impact on small businesses.”
The new legislation would amend the existing acts, creating a mandate that all federal agencies meet uniform standards when defining and determining impacts and take into consideration the indirect impact any proposed regulations will have on small businesses as part of their cost-benefit analysis.
“In recent years, we have seen an explosion of federal regulations,” Miller said. “In 2010 alone, federal agencies promulgated 3,312 new regulations. At this pace, ensuring compliance to new regulations is challenging and made more complicated when they are imposed using arbitrary standards. Today, small businesses account for nearly 60 percent of new job growth in the private sector, and our economy can’t afford to allow the federal government to impose far too costly new regulations that not only impact the creation of new jobs, but also negatively impact the take home pay of workers. This legislation will help create more economic certainty by requiring a uniform standard of review that doesn’t dismiss small businesses and those who work in small business – the backbone of our economy.”