Last week, the SBA Office of Advocacy released its report on Regulatory Flexibility Act enforcement and compliance for fiscal 2008, the last such report detailing the results achieved under former Chief Counsel Tom Sullivan. The report includes updated information on federal agency compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and E.O. 13272, agency compliance with [...]

The SBA Office of Advocacy announced last week that it had received thirty-eight nominations of burdensome regulations during the second round of its Regulatory Review and Reform (r3) initiative. That’s quite a drop from the first round, during which there were 83 nominations – more than double this year’s turnout. That almost certainly had to [...]

The pace of growth in the population of U.S. businesses slowed significantly in 2006, according to new firm size data released by the SBA Office of Advocacy last week. After growing by approximately 4% in 2004 and 2005, the number of U.S. businesses increased by only 1.6% in 2006. And it appears from the data, [...]

“The U.S. economy experienced weaknesses in the third quarter, as real gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent.” Thus begins the SBA Office of Advocacy’s quarterly economic report, didactically entitled Third Quarter 2008: The Economy and Small Business. This was not among the most aesthetically pleasing of these reports; the red ink flowed liberally with news [...]

File this one under “studies in government being effective.” Last year, the SBA Office of Advocacy decided to light a fire under federal regulators on the matter of compliance with Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act — the part that requires them to take out the rules occasionally, dust them off and examine them [...]

In a guest article reprinted by the MicroEnterprise Journal from the monthly Small Business Advocate newsletter, the Office of Advocacy’s John McDowell writes: “Changing markets, technology, and competition make it imperative that federal agencies periodically review how their current regulations affect small business. Only with regular evaluation can the enormous number of current regulations be [...]