United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2001-04-24 monographic deposited born digital 14 p. GA 1.13:GAO-01-669T https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T P0b002ee180398ea7 f:d01669t DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-24 GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T GAO-01-669T Environmental legislation Agency proceedings Economic analysis Proposed legislation Reporting requirements Small business assistance EPA Toxic Release Inventory Testimony A00882

The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA) requires federal agencies to examine the impact of their proposed and final rules on small businesses, small governmental jurisdictions, and small organizations and to solicit the ideas and comments of such entities for this purpose. Specifically, whenever agencies are required to publish a notice of proposed rulemaking, the RFA requires agencies to prepare an initial and a final regulatory flexibility analysis. However, the RFA also states that those analytical requirements do not apply if the head of the agency certifies that the rule will not have a ''significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.'' The Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 was enacted to strengthen the RFA's protections for small entities, and some of the act's requirements are built on this significant impact determination. Although both of these reform initiatives have clearly affected how federal agencies regulate, their full promise has not been realized. The RFA does not define what Congress meant by the terms ''significant economic impact'' and ''substantial number of small entities'' and does not give any entity the authority or responsibility to define them governmentwide. As a result, agencies have had to construct their own definitions, and those definitions vary. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T.pdf GAO-01-669T https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-01-669T Testimony GAO-01-669T; Regulatory Flexibility Act: Key Terms Still Need to Be Clarified; Environmental legislation Agency proceedings Economic analysis Proposed legislation Reporting requirements Small business assistance EPA Toxic Release Inventory Title 5 Section 601 Title 5 Section 609 5 U.S.C. 601 5 U.S.C. 609 Title 42 Section 11001 Title 42 Section 13101 42 U.S.C. 11001 42 U.S.C. 13101