A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report documents the need for more public participation and transparency in federal agencies' review of their existing regulations. The Office of Advocacy's new small business Regulatory Review and Reform (R3) initiative addresses many of the issues raised in the GAO report.
The report, "Reexamining Regulations: Opportunities Exist to Improve Effectiveness and Transparency of Retrospective Reviews," documents the success and failure of federal agencies' efforts to review existing regulations. The report spotlights agencies' implementation of section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), which mandates that agencies periodically examine their existing regulations to measure changing impacts on small business.
The GAO finds that agency implementation of section 610 review often suffers from a lack of clear standards, insufficient public participation and comment, and inadequate communication of the results to stakeholders.
The Office of Advocacy's new R3 initiative directly addresses these issues. The initiative will 1) offer agencies guidance and training on how to implement section 610 of the RFA, 2) solicit recommendations from the small business community on rules that should be reviewed, and 3) provide public updates on the status and results of agency retrospective reviews.
"Today's GAO report makes clear that federal agencies need to do a better job of reviewing existing regulations," said Thomas M. Sullivan, Chief Counsel for Advocacy. "The Office of Advocacy's R3 initiative will help them do that. At over $1.1 trillion per year, the cost of complying with the volumes of federal rules and regulations now exceeds the per family cost of healthcare. We owe it to small business to try to streamline, update, and reform those rules to minimize their cost."
The Office of Advocacy, the "small business watchdog" of the federal government, examines the role and status of small business in the economy and independently represents the views of small business to federal agencies, Congress, and the President. It is the source for small business statistics presented in user-friendly formats, and it funds research into small business issues.
For more information on the Office of Advocacy's R3 initiative, visit www.sba.gov/advo/r3.
Washington - August 16, 2007
Release Number: 07-28 ADVO
Contact: John McDowell, (202) 205-6941,
john.mcdowell@sba.gov
Information courtesy of the Small Business Administration.
