Hello Colleagues & Guests,
I came across this document and thought some of you might be interested
in reading it. It’s the first few paragraphs of the SBA Regulatory and
Fairness Act. The link to the document is
http://archive.sba.gov/advo/laws/regflex.html — for those who might
like to read the entire 6 page document.
Wil Haines, CPO
Bionic Solutions
Avon, IN
Regulatory Flexibility Act
The following text of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as
amended, is taken from Title 5 of
the United States Code, sections 601 – 612
(The Regulatory Flexibility Act was originally passed in 1980 (P. L.
96-354). The Act was amended
by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (P.L.
104-121).) (PDF File)
Congressional Findings and Declaration of Purpose
(a) The Congress finds and declares that -(1) when adopting regulations
to protect the health,
safety and economic welfare of the Nation, Federal agencies should seek
to achieve statutory goals
as effectively and efficiently as possible without imposing unnecessary
burdens on the public;
(2) laws and regulations designed for application to large scale
entities have been applied
uniformly to small businesses, small organizations, and small
governmental jurisdictions even
though the problems that gave rise to government action may not have
been caused by those smaller
entities;
(3) uniform Federal regulatory and reporting requirements have in
numerous instances imposed
unnecessary and disproportionately burdensome demands including legal,
accounting and consulting
costs upon small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental
jurisdictions with limited
resources;
(4) the failure to recognize differences in the scale and resources of
regulated entities has in
numerous instances adversely affected competition in the marketplace,
discouraged innovation and
restricted improvements in productivity;
(5) unnecessary regulations create entry barriers in many industries and
discourage potential
entrepreneurs from introducing beneficial products and processes;
(6) the practice of treating all regulated businesses, organizations,
and governmental
jurisdictions as equivalent may lead to inefficient use of regulatory
agency resources, enforcement
problems and, in some cases, to actions inconsistent with the
legislative intent of health, safety,
environmental and economic welfare legislation;
(7) alternative regulatory approaches which do not conflict with the
stated objectives of
applicable statutes may be available which minimize the significant
economic impact of rules on
small businesses, small organizations, and small governmental jurisdictions;
(8) the process by which Federal regulations are developed and adopted
should be reformed to
require agencies to solicit the ideas and comments of small businesses,
small organizations, and
small governmental jurisdictions to examine the impact of proposed and
existing rules on such
entities, and to review the continued need for existing rules.
(b) It is the purpose of this Act [enacting this chapter and provisions
set out as notes under this
section] to establish as a principle of regulatory issuance that
agencies shall endeavor,
consistent with the objectives of the rule and of applicable statutes,
to fit regulatory and
informational requirements to the scale of the businesses,
organizations, and governmental
jurisdictions subject to regulation. To achieve this principle, agencies
are required to solicit
and consider flexible regulatory proposals and to explain the rationale
for their actions to assure
that such proposals are given serious consideration.
