Office of Advocacy for Small Businesses Announces Attendance at Tribal Consulations

During the panel with Outlook Law and the Small Business Administration (SBA), during the Alaska Native Village Corporation Association’s Annual Conference, the Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy announced it will begin to attend tribal consultations to more fully understand the impact of regulations from all agencies, including SBA, have on  federally and state recognized tribes as well as Alaska Native Corporations.  Understanding and including all small businesses is critically important to fully appreciating the impact regulations have on all small businesses.  Thank you to the Chief Counsel, Major Clark III.  As the first Chief Counsel said:

“The Office of Advocacy will, if we are successful, be a key point of effective
spokesmanship and policy leverage for small business within the executive branch of the
Government….There is surely challenge enough here for anyone with an appetite for
hard work and a zest for entrepreneurship of ideas and program policy innovation.”
– Milton D. Stewart, first Chief Counsel for Advocacy (1978 – 1981)

While housed in the same building as the SBA, the Office of Advocacy is independent of the traditional SBA functions and actively reads and responds to the regulations of all agencies that may affect small businesses–and advocates using the Regulatory Flexibility Act to lessen or work with agencies to eliminate regulations harmful to small businesses.  In a recent report, just documenting accomplishments from 2017-2020, the Office of Advocacy Reported the following:

Since 2017, Advocacy has reviewed annually from 1200 to 1500 public regulatory notices. Through its electronic e-notify system, Advocacy also annually receives from agencies about 600 notifications of regulatory activity. More than 500 regulatory proposals are annually reviewed in confidential interagency consultations prior to their publication. From FY 2017 through FY 2020, Advocacy hosted 54 regulatory roundtables on a wide variety of issues at which public stakeholders and agency officials could share information in an informal setting. In addition, Advocacy held another 43 Regional Regulatory Reform Roundtables in 31 states in connection with its Regulatory Reform Initiative in furtherance of the purposes of Executive Orders 13771 and 13777. During the same period, Advocacy submitted 86 formal public comment letters to 33 agencies throughout government. Advocacy also provided Regulatory Flexibility Act training 664 policymakers and regulatory development officials in these agencies. From FY 2017 through FY 2020, the office’s regulatory advocacy resulted in one-time cost savings of $4.2 billion, with annually recurring savings of $3.8 billion.  https://cdn.advocacy.sba.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/09101916/Background-Paper-Office-of-Advocacy-2017-2020-web.pdf