WASHINGTON, DC —Today, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Small Business Committee, delivered opening remarks at a full Committee markup.
Ranking Member Velázquez’s remarks as prepared for delivery:
Thank you, Mr. Williams.
Part of our role as members of the Small Business Committee is to recognize the impact regulations have on small businesses and work to find ways to balance the shared goal of minimizing the burdens and achieving the intended effects of regulations.
Throughout committee hearings, we have heard that agencies have been better about considering the impact of their rules on small entities since the passage of the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
To that end, the Office Advocacy has been working diligently to educate and train rule-writing staff about their responsibilities. We’ve seen the fruits of their labor – the analysis agencies are conducting has improved significantly. And the collaboration between the agencies and Advocacy has been working well. Agencies are responsive to Advocacy’s letters and have made meaningful changes to the rules to minimize the burden on small businesses.
In fact, Advocacy’s efforts resulted in more than $90 million in estimated regulatory costs for small businesses in FY 2023 alone.
Contrary to what we will hear today, the process is working, and federal regulations can and do benefit our economy. Let me share some examples. Regulations that protect our air and waters boost small businesses in the outdoor recreational industry, accounting for $564 billion of our GDP in 2022.
Regulations to combat climate change protect small businesses that don’t have the resources to recover from a climate disaster. And regulations to reduce air pollution lower health care costs and reduce sick leave, in turn benefitting small business workplaces.
With smart, well-crafted regulations we can grow our economy, protect the health and safety of Americans, and limit the burden on small businesses.
Moreover, smart, well-crafted regulations have the potential to unleash innovation. Small businesses all across the nation have found new opportunities to invent cost-effective and efficient solutions to pressing policy problems as a result of a regulatory change.
And regulations help to level the playing field for small businesses, enabling them to better compete against anti-competitive big business practices.
Unfortunately, we will hear talking points that the Biden Administration unleashed a regulatory onslaught on small businesses across the country or that agencies don’t take into consideration the best interests of small business when making rules. Let’s take it for what it is – political themes for partisan gains.
And let look at the facts. The Biden-Harris Administration proposed rules to improve the lives of Americans. One rule would make it easier to cancel subscriptions and speak to customer service agents directly. That seems sensible to me –freeing small business owners of the hassle of being placed on hold forever or speaking to a robotic voice with endless automated instructions will save them time and money.
Another Biden-Harris rule would tighten up the country-of-origin labelling that allowed meatpackers to label beef from Brazil, Mexico, and other countries with a “Product of the USA” sticker if it was repackaged in a US plant. Seems to me that rule would benefit small farmers and ranchers.
Unfortunately, the bills we are considering today would grind the regulatory process to a halt and harm the health, safety, and welfare of Americans and small businesses. These bills add numerous procedural and analytical requirements that would complicate rulemaking and redirect limited agency resources, without improving the process.
These bills also overly extensive information about regulatory impacts that would not only burden the agencies, but also the small businesses that would have to provide information.
And in some circumstances, these bills would nullify existing regulations if the agency does not perform a review in a shortened timeframe, regardless of the benefits.
These bills reflect many of the major antiregulatory themes included in Project 2025 – a radical plan to gut environmental, health, and safety safeguards. Even Larry Hogan the former Republican Governor of Maryland has said there is no clearer threat to American values than Project 2025.
To that end, I can not support these bills, and plan to offer amendments to make much-needed improvements.
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