Another Effort To Beef Up Advocacy
Mar 15th, 2010 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: RegulationsPerspective really is everything. Late last month, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Committee Member Mark Pryor (D-AK) were patting themselves and each other on the back for their bipartisan legislative proposal, the Job Impact Analysis Act of 2010 (S. 3024). Their dignified happy dance reflected the times. At this point, it seems that any member of Congress who displays moments of bipartisan comity needs to shout it from the rooftops, because everybody on Capitol Hill knows just how sick and tired most Americans seem to be with all the bickering. Then there’s the ‘jobs’ part, too. Part of what this bill does is to require the Congressional Budget Office to estimate a “job impact statement” for every bill or joint resolution reported out of a Committee with a price tag in excess of $5 billion.
But the stuff in this bill that is making, for example, the National Small Business Association particularly happy is that it strengthens and clarifies the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) by requiring federal regulators to consider direct and indirect impacts on small businesses when writing regulations. The bill also offers additional language that provides federal regulating agencies with guidance for performing more detailed Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analyses, as required by the RFA. It also give the SBA Office of Advocacy its own line item in the federal budget, something advocates have been lusting after for years. Interestingly, the legislation has not been referred to the Senate Small Business Committee. Rather, it now rests in the pending tray of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
