WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 19, 2024) – Today, The Washington Times published an editorial from Beth Milito, Executive Director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center on the proposed regulations that will affect small businesses this year and the impact of onerous red-tape, costly mandates, and paperwork burdens on Main Streets nationwide.

Milito writes:

“Let’s be clear. Imposing more regulatory costs and paperwork burdens does not open ‘doors of opportunity’ for small businesses. This aggressive regulatory agenda is a wet blanket for small businesses that don’t have compliance officers or lawyers to navigate red tape.

“Congress must wake up to these massive new regulatory burdens on small businesses. It can start by enforcing and strengthening laws such as the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which Congress unanimously passed in 1980. The act was meant to address the disproportionate impact of federal regulations on small businesses by requiring federal agencies to analyze the impact regulations have on small entities. As my organization has shown, however, agencies use loopholes to underreport the impact rules will have on small businesses — or ignore the law altogether.

“While Congress and the Supreme Court can take action to ease the regulatory burden, the Biden administration must step up, too. Mr. Biden is right — there is more he can do to help small businesses. But that will require the bold realization that his administration’s unprecedented explosion of regulatory burdens is saddling small businesses with red tape, mandates, and paperwork. It means addressing the unsustainable growth of executive authority and using the power of the purse to tie the hands of overregulating rogue agencies.”

NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center recently published a White Paper exploring the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and the lack of RFA compliance by administrative agencies. Read the paper here.

Read the full op-ed online here: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/18/small-businesses-need-bidens-regulatory-tsunami-to/