Small Business Owners to Hear from Congress
By Steve Walsh, Bloomberg Government

Call it “reverse lobbying.” Republicans on the House Small Business Committee think the companies they serve don’t know enough about pending regulations, and they intend to change that.

The committee plans to send monthly e-mails highlighting as many as 10 proposed rules to a list of 210,000 businesses with fewer than 500 employees. A link inside will take them to a page where the business owners can find out about the potential effects of proposed regulations and links to make it easy for them to post comments.

The goal is to identify proposed rules that need to be modified rather than to try to block new regulations, said 
Darrell Jordan, communications director for the committee.

The list of companies was built by Chairman Sam Graves during his four years as the panel’s top Republican, including the last two as chairman. He wants to add to the list as the committee hears from more businesses.

“Most small businesses don’t have lawyers or lobbyists who focus on regulatory compliance, like larger corporations may have,” the Missouri Republican said in a statement. “Our committee wants to help them participate in the federal government rule-making process. Not all regulations are bad, but many can be unnecessarily burdensome."