FEATURED VIDEO: Overreaching by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could crush an already fragile economic recovery by destroying millions of jobs. NFIB's video series "Top 5" examines the worst of these job killers.
Read NFIB's positions on government and regulatory reforms that affect small business:
Overzealous regulation is a perennial cause of concern for small business owners and is particularly burdensome when the nation’s economy teeters on the brink of disaster. Unfortunately, the regulatory burden on small business continues to grow. Congress must step in and curtail costly regulations, particularly those of such anti-small business arms of government as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor, which fail to fairly and effectively weigh the costs and benefits of excessive regulations to the American public.
Quarterly update on pressing regulations that affect small business and NFIB's efforts to reduce the regulatory burden. (Updated: April 2013)
Small businesses are responsible for nearly two-thirds of job growth in this country, but their ability to move our economy forward has been dulled by the more than 4,000 regulations currently in the works.
Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations is a national effort focused on protecting small businesses and American jobs from the impacts of regulations recently proposed by the Obama administration.
According to the SBA, compliance with environmental regulations costs small businesses 364% more than large firms. Since 2009, the EPA has tried to impose extremely costly rules that yield little incremental benefit over current standards. With the agency’s 2010 finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health, the agency has rapidly cranked out several regulatory proposals under its Clean Air Act authority. These regulations will unduly burden small business with rising energy and compliance costs.
NFIB believes that the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) should be expanded to cover all agencies whose rules affect small businesses as a means to require these agencies to evaluate the burdens their rules place on small employers.
NFIB is concerned with the indirect costs of regulations. NFIB has been working with Congress to make agencies accountable for providing a balanced statement of costs and benefits in public regulatory proposals.
Many small business owners cannot afford a full-time compliance staff, which exposes them to potential paperwork penalties and even errors that could be made in good faith. NFIB believes agencies should be required to produce an annual report demonstrating their efforts to reduce the burden of penalties on small businesses.