[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 201 (Tuesday, December 2, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H4987-H4989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SMALL BUSINESS REGULATORY REDUCTION ACT OF 2025
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 916,
I call up the bill (H.R. 2965) to require the Administrator of the
Small Business Administration to ensure that the small business
regulatory budget for a small business concern in a fiscal year is not
greater than zero, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate
consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Loudermilk). Pursuant to House
Resolution 916, the amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended
by the Committee on Small Business, printed in the bill, is adopted and
the bill, as amended, is considered read.
The text of the bill, as amended, is as follows:
H.R. 2965
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Small Business Regulatory
Reduction Act of 2025''.
SEC. 2. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION RULEMAKING COSTS TO
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS.
(a) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Administrator.--The term ``Administrator'' means the
Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
(2) Rule; rulemaking.--The terms ``rule'' and
``rulemaking'' have the meanings given those terms in section
551 of title 5, United States Code.
(3) Small business.--The term ``small business'' has the
same meaning as the term ``small business concern'' under
section 3 of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C. 632), unless
an agency, after consultation with the Office of Advocacy of
the Small Business Administration and after opportunity for
public comment, establishes one or more definitions of such
term which are appropriate to the activities of the agency
and publishes any such definitions in the Federal Register.
(4) Small business regulatory budget.--The term ``small
business regulatory budget'' means the cost to a small
business of a rulemaking conducted by a Federal agency,
including the cost resulting from the issuance of any new
rule and the cost resulting from the modification or repeal
of an existing rule.
(b) Requirement.--In fiscal year 2026 and each fiscal year
thereafter, the Administrator shall ensure that the small
business regulatory budget for the Small Business
Administration for the applicable fiscal year is not greater
than zero.
(c) Advocacy Report.--Not later than 60 days after the end
of fiscal year 2025, and annually thereafter, the Chief
Counsel for the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business
Administration shall submit to Congress a report regarding
rules issued by Federal agencies other than the
Administration during the preceding fiscal year that have an
impact on small businesses, which shall--
(1) include the total small business regulatory budgets for
the preceding fiscal year for each Federal agency;
(2) include each such rule issued during the preceding
fiscal year; and
(3) be disaggregated by the Federal agency that issued each
such rule.
SEC. 3. NO ADDITIONAL FUNDS.
No additional funds are authorized to be appropriated to
carry out this Act.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The bill, as amended, shall be debatable for
1 hour equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority
member of the Committee on Small Business or their respective
designees.
The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams) and the gentlewoman from New
York (Ms. Velazquez) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams).
General Leave
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and submit extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2965, the Small
Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025, introduced by my friend,
Beth Van Duyne, from the great State of Texas.
Throughout countless Democratic administrations, we have seen
overregulation suffocate small businesses. The Biden-Harris
administration alone imposed regulatory costs totaling $1.8 trillion on
businesses in just 4 years.
The Committee on Small Business has heard testimony from hundreds of
small business owners from across the country who repeatedly tell us
that excessive regulation is stifling their operations and undermining
their bottom line. To revitalize the American Dream, Big Government,
one-size-fits-all mandates must stop.
The Trump administration fully recognizes this challenge and is
taking aggressive acts to give small businesses the relief they
deserve. In just the first 6 months of President Trump's second term,
Republicans have worked to put an end to burdensome regulations through
CRAs and carry out a deregulatory agenda.
We are responsible for $86 billion in reduced regulatory costs and
over 50 million hours of reduced paperwork burdens. That is why I am
proud to support this bill which would advance
[[Page H4988]]
President Trump's executive order, Unleashing Prosperity Through
Deregulation.
This straightforward bill would require the SBA to operate under a
regulatory budget of zero, meaning that for each new regulation
imposed, a costly or outdated regulation must be repealed.
This bill would also require the SBA to provide annual reports on the
true cost to small businesses imposed by government regulations. This
seemingly simple requirement would have a major impact by bringing
transparency to Federal regulatory actions each year and the true
burden of those actions.
The transparency measures in this bill are critical to expose the
harmful actions taken by bureaucrats behind closed doors and to
highlight the harm done to hardworking small and family-owned
businesses across the United States.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 2965, and I
reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2965, the Small Business
Regulatory Reduction Act.
Let me begin by stating that I wish we were here to talk about bills
to help small businesses grow or policies that address challenges they
are facing today, like tariffs and the cost of groceries and
healthcare. Instead, we are talking about an unworkable regulatory
budget.
To be clear, small businesses are not talking about regulations. It
ranks near the bottom of their list. Inflation, tariffs, and finding
good employees are some of the top challenges facing small businesses.
Take a walk down a Main Street, Mr. Speaker, and you will hear the
same concern from small business owners up and down the block: The
uncertainty and rising costs tied to the President Trump tariffs are
crushing their small businesses, plain and simple.
We should be working together on issues that matter: lowering costs
for small businesses. Instead, we are considering two regulatory bills
that will not help them one iota, while real problems go unaddressed.
H.R. 2965 may sound good on the surface, but it will have the
practical effect of limiting the SBA from issuing any rules, even if
the benefits outweigh the costs.
{time} 1510
The SBA needs to issue regulations to update programs, issue disaster
regulations, and even reduce recordkeeping requirements. That is good
government practice.
The majority fails to realize that agencies may be able to estimate
the cost of a regulation, but they do not have the hard data on the
costs that are imposed.
This bill will require the SBA to make assumptions that could turn
out to be incorrect. There is nothing in the bill that clarifies how
the agency is to implement a regulatory budget, and it is therefore
impractical.
Finally, the bill does not include an exception for national
emergencies, meaning that if this bill had been enacted before the
pandemic, small businesses across the country might not have received
PPP assistance in a timely manner, if they received it at all.
For these reasons, I oppose the Small Business Regulatory Reduction
Act, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may
consume to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Van Duyne).
Ms. VAN DUYNE. Mr. Speaker, every day, small business owners serve as
their own accountants, legal counsel, and managers while still handling
the day-to-day operations of their enterprises. That means they work
extra hours or they hire extra assistance just to keep up with and bear
the costly burden of complying with local, State, and federal
regulations.
To say that we are not going to save money and we are not going to
help small businesses save money by cutting resolutions is an absolute
lie.
Working hard has always been the standard for small business owners,
but when the Biden-Harris administration created $1.8 trillion in
additional regulatory costs for businesses across the country in just 4
years, small business owners felt the brunt of that pain.
H.R. 2965, the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025,
supports the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda by giving small
businesses the relief they need to grow and succeed, no matter what
industry they are in.
Put simply, this bill aims to ensure that any new rulemaking by the
Small Business Administration is at no cost to small businesses--not
$1.8 trillion, but no cost. The very agency that helps small businesses
start, grow, and build cannot also be the one that increases their
financial and regulatory burden.
In addition, H.R. 2965 requires the SBA Office of Advocacy to report
to Congress on the total cost of all Federal regulations impacting
small businesses. Unlike what we just heard from the other side of the
aisle, to be clear, this bill does not prevent agencies from issuing
new regulations, but rather, it requires them to eliminate those that
are duplicative, outdated, or don't reflect the intent of the law.
The PPP was a program that was established by Congress. It was not a
regulation established by the SBA. That is totally irrelevant.
In doing so, it creates a systemic culture of regulatory discipline
where agencies will have to consistently review regulations with
scrutiny.
Small businesses make up 99.9 percent of businesses in America, and
they remain the key source of economic prosperity across all of our
districts.
H.R. 2965 moves the needle toward empowering small businesses by
reducing red tape. To say that that doesn't save money to small
business, then obviously she has never been a small business owner.
If we want America to succeed, it starts on Main Street. I urge my
colleagues to join me in supporting the Small Business Regulatory
Reduction Act of 2025.
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may
consume to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Alford).
Mr. ALFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank our chair for his leadership and the
ranking member for her leadership, as well.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2965, the Small
Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025.
For 4 long years under the previous administration, America's small
businesses, the backbone of our economy and the heart of Missouri's
Fourth Congressional District, have been smothered by an onslaught of
overreaching Federal regulations that have made goods less affordable
in the United States of America.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, small businesses were hit with
an unprecedented $1.8 trillion--not billion--$1.8 trillion in new
regulatory costs while inflation soared over 20 percent.
Where do you think that cost goes, Mr. Speaker? It goes to the
consumer. Main Street cannot thrive under that kind of bureaucratic
chokehold. Americans are demanding affordability, and this is a good
step in that direction.
This bill, championed by my colleague Congresswoman Beth Van Duyne,
finally puts a stop to it. H.R. 2965 requires the Small Business
Administration to report on the regulatory costs imposed by other
Federal agencies on small businesses.
It is transparency. It is all about transparency. It is going to show
the American people exactly where the Democrat blue tape is strangling
growth in America.
This legislation supports President Trump's regulatory rightsizing
agenda and gives our job creators the relief they desperately need to
start, to grow, and to succeed once again.
Mr. Speaker, do you want to make things more affordable in America?
Do you want to cut down on overregulation? This is the bill to do it.
Let's all stand with America and our small businesses and our
entrepreneurs, our family-owned businesses, and support H.R. 2965.
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may
consume to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Schmidt).
[[Page H4989]]
Mr. SCHMIDT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member
for this debate on the floor today.
I rise in strong support of H.R. 2965, the Small Business Regulatory
Reduction Act of 2025.
I certainly join those remarks of my colleagues on this side who have
advocated for the bill. I would like to back up a bit and talk more
generally about regulatory burden and how this bill is an important
step in dealing with a much larger problem.
The chart on my right shows the number of pages in the Federal
Register. The year I was born, 1968, there were about 50,000 pages.
Today there are almost 200,000 pages. In my lifetime, the number of
rules and regulations written by unelected Federal bureaucrats, the
people in the real world that we all represent--in my case in eastern
Kansas--must comply with, has quadrupled.
I will guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, that is a silent tax increase on
every American and every small business in all of our States.
The estimated regulatory compliance cost for businesses in the United
States is about $3 trillion per year. As has been mentioned, about $1.8
trillion of that was added in just the 4 years of the prior
administration. To put that in context, the entire Federal budget is
about $7 trillion per year.
Do you know what the difference is between a tax and a regulatory
command, Mr. Speaker? With a tax, the Federal Government says to, in
this case, a small business owner: Give me your money, and we will
spend it on priorities that we decide. With a regulation, the Federal
Government says to that same small business owner: You take your money
and spend it on the priorities that we decide. Not on hiring more
people, not on growing and expanding, not on giving charitable support
in our communities, not on doing all of the things that small
businesses do, but as people in this town have decided. That is what is
at stake here. That is why we have to take this action.
Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this measure because it is one step
toward peaking that mountain of regulation, making small businesses
freer to do what they do, making life more affordable to all the people
I represent who buy and sell on Main Street each and every day.
{time} 1520
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I will close with this: Trump's tariffs, not
regulations, are crushing small businesses. I know that it is painful
for the other side of the aisle to discuss or even debate the issue of
tariffs and how it is negatively impacting small businesses. The
President of the United States said that on day one he will lower the
costs. Yet, here we are.
Witnesses have testified before our committee that the costs of
tariffs are harming their small businesses. The uncertainty resulting
from the on-again, off-again pronouncements by Trump has halted
investment and expansion of small businesses, and it has hindered basic
business decisions, like when to put in an order or how to plan for the
holiday season.
I know they don't want to talk about tariffs and, instead, we are
debating these two bills.
The American Action Forum estimates that Trump's tariffs are costing
small businesses $85 billion a year, and that is not including the cost
of navigating the uncertain environment or complying with the tariffs
themselves.
The tariffs disproportionately harm small firms, which operate on
thinner margins and have virtually no buying power. Yet, we are focused
today on a regulatory budget that is unworkable.
The bill has no exceptions for national emergencies. Let's look back
to 2020. SBA issued scores of rules to provide relief to help small
businesses during the pandemic, so the author of the bill is incorrect
when she claimed that SBA didn't issue regulations to make sure that
people accessing the money from PPP will not commit crime, abuse, or
fraud.
The Paycheck Protection Program imposed significant compliance
burdens on small businesses, but I believe we can all attest to the
fact that the PPP helped millions of small businesses stay afloat that
otherwise would have gone out of business. Clearly, the benefits of
those regulations at the time outweighed the costs.
Had a regulatory budget been in place in 2020, it would have been
extremely challenging for SBA to cut existing regulatory programs to
offset the cost of the Paycheck Protection Program. Moreover, many of
the lending rules ensure accountability and fair access. Cutting them
to free up funds for PPP would have compromised the integrity of the
program.
Moreover, these funds needed to be disbursed quickly. Imposing a no-
new-spending-without-cuts approach would have delayed or reduced aid to
small businesses.
The bottom line is that this bill is slogan over substance and would
harm small businesses rather than help them, particularly in a crisis.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill, and I yield
back the balance of my time.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2965 will make sure that the cost of new SBA
rulemakings is at zero to ensure that only necessary regulations are in
place. We must support Main Street, starting with our work here in D.C.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this
legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
Pursuant to House Resolution 916, the previous question is ordered on
the bill, as amended.
The question is on the engrossment and third reading of the bill.
The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was
read the third time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on passage of the bill.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Ms. VELAZQUEZ. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
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