04/17/2001
WASHINGTON, April 17, 2001-- The NFIB Legal Foundation today announced its plans to file suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to block a new lead-reporting regulation issued in the last weeks of Bill Clinton's presidency. The regulation would require thousands of businesses to report their use of lead. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said that the Bush Administration will allow this midnight regulation to be implemented.
The NFIB Legal Foundation complaint against the EPA - to be filed the week of April 23 - will cite the agency's failure to comply with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA), which requires that regulating agencies take into account the concerns of small businesses when promulgating such rules. NFIB contends that EPA did not take the concerns of small business into account when issuing the regulation.
NFIB's complaint will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The NFIB Legal Foundation is represented by the Atlantic Legal Foundation, a non-profit public interest foundation that advocates the principles of free enterprise and challenges burdensome or illegal government regulations.
"Less than 24-hours after the most dreaded day of the year for many small-business owners, the government declared that it will require thousands of small employers to fill out burdensome new paperwork to document their use of lead," said Tom Sullivan, Executive Director of the NFIB Legal Foundation.
"Yesterday, the hated three-letter word was IRS. Today, it is EPA, as the EPA ignored the plea from small business owners and moved ahead to codify rules rushed through during the final days of the Clinton administration."
The NFIB Legal Foundation is a private foundation designed to protect the rights of America's small-business owners by providing advisory material on legal issues and by ensuring that the voice of small business is heard in the nation's courts. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is the nation's largest small-business advocacy group. A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1943, NFIB represents the consensus views of its 600,000 members in Washington and all 50 state capitals. More information is available on-line at www.nfib.com.
CONTACT: Michelle Dimarob, (202) 554-9000
