Advocate and Stay Informed
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Rule Making
The burden of complying with regulations is often cited as one of the primary concerns of small businesses. Help ensure that the voice of small business is heard during the rule-making process by learning how rules are made, keeping track of proposed regulations, reading the analyses prepared by experts, and commenting on proposed regulations. Your one-stop-shop for commenting on federal regulations. On this site, you can find, review, and submit comments on federal documents that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register, the government's legal newspaper. As a member of the public, you can submit comments about these regulations and have the government take your views into account. Review documents published in the Federal Register that are open for comment that may significantly affect small businesses. Documents SBA compliance with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), which requires federal agencies that are proposing regulations to determine if the rules would have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. In FY 2000 alone, changes made to regulatory proposals in response to the mandates of the RFA reduced the cost of regulations by $3.6 billion. Gain a better understanding of the regulations that impact your small business. Start by learning how and why the rules are made. When Congress passes a law that affects an area subject to regulation, such as telecommunications, the agency responsible for overseeing that subject develops rules to implement the law. The procedures for formal and informal rulemaking are set forth in the Administrative Procedure Act or you may consult A Guide to Federal Agency Rulemaking published by the American Bar Association. The Regulatory Flexibility Act, as modified by the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, requires federal agencies to assess and consider the impact of proposed regulations on small businesses and to consider less burdensome alternatives. The Office of Interagency Affairs at SBA's Office of Advocacy monitors federal agencies' compliance. Links to online rulemaking, federal rulemaking web sites, and e-mail news items on regulations. Keeping track of proposed regulatory activities is challenging. The Unified Agenda is the basic roadmap to the rulemaking plans of each agency, but may not be up-to-date since it is only published twice a year. Fortunately, there are several other sources for you to check for the latest developments. Use Regulatory Alerts for quick access to proposed regulations published in the Federal Register, organized by subject areas of concern to small business such as environmental, safety, health, labor, tax, and transportation. Find information on pending regulations and register for Advocacy's newsletter and other publications. Use Reginfo.gov to find information on federal, state, and local regulations provided by the General Services Administration to government officials and the public to help them understand and manage the regulatory process. The Unified Agenda, which is published twice a year, lists the rulemaking plans of each federal agency. The Federal Register publishes proposed and final rules on a daily basis. The Office of Management and Budget posts information concerning pending regulations and regulatory reviews completed in the last 30 day. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University maintains RegRadar, a website dedicated to monitoring new and proposed regulations. The Heritage Foundation's Regulation Homepage is a source of regulatory studies, statistics, and information. The Center provides analyses of existing regulatory programs and new regulatory proposals, including a list of those whose introduction, modification, or removal would increase net benefits by at least $100 million annually. After the time period for public comment has closed, agencies review, assess, and summarize the comments. They then prepare a final regulatory impact analysis, which is submitted along with the draft final rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review. After the agency has obtained clearance from OMB, the final rule is published in the Federal Register. Thereafter, the final rule is codified in the Code of Federal Regulations. The Administrative Procedures Act requires agencies to give the public timely notice of final rules by publishing them in the Federal Register. Final rules are published in the Federal Register on a daily basis. The CFR is a codification of the final rules published in the Federal Register. It is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to federal regulation. Each title is divided into chapters that typically bear the name of the rulemaking agency. |