Advocacy, Still Missing Chief, Releases Reg Report The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy recently released its annual Report on the Regulatory Flexibility Act, which highlights Advocacy’s efforts to compel federal agencies to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) and Executive Order 13272, which strengthened the RFA. For Fiscal Year 2009, Advocacy states that it submitted more than 30 public comment letters to federal agencies on regulatory proposals and convened numerous roundtables to solicit opinions and concerns of small-business stakeholders.
Advocacy also estimates that, in FY09, its interventions resulted in small business achieving $7 billion in foregone, first-year regulatory cost savings and $745 million in annually recurring savings.
To view the full report, please click here. Amid these successes, the nomination of Dr. Winslow Sargeant to be the next Chief Counsel for Advocacy at the SBA remains on hold, despite the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship favorably reporting— by a vote of 13 to 6— the nomination on Sept. 16, 2009. In the interim, Susan Walthall, who spoke at the recent NSBA Board of Trustees meeting and is a longtime SBA veteran, has been serving as Acting Chief Counsel.
While Walthall is a trusted small-business advocate, a permanent Chief Counsel for Advocacy is needed. NSBA urges Congress and the administration of President Barack Obama to work together to ensure that an acceptable candidate fills the position in the near future. During a period of historic economic distress, America’s small-business owners need a strong figure at the helm of the federal government’s small-business watchdog. |