WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Committee on Small Business is holding a hearing titled “A Voice for Small Business: How the SBA Office of Advocacy Is Cutting Red Tape.”

Chairman Roger Williams’ opening statement as prepared for delivery:

Welcome and thank you for being here for today’s hearing, “A Voice for Small Business: How the SBA Office of Advocacy Is Cutting Red Tape.”

I want to thank our witness, Dr. Casey Mulligan, the Chief Counsel of SBA’s Office of Advocacy, for appearing before us today.

This hearing comes at a critical time for small businesses nationwide. Main Street endured inflation, burdensome regulations, and rising interest rates at the hands of the Biden-Harris Administration.

It is estimated that the total cost of regulations is now over $3 trillion a year, equal to 12 percent of the entire U.S. economy. To put this in perspective, the cost of regulations in the U.S. exceeds the entire economy of the United Kingdom.

To make matters worse, the Biden Administration’s regulatory onslaught cost Americans over $1.8 trillion due to new regulations.

Now more than ever, we must ensure that the federal government doesn’t make it harder for our job creators to thrive. That is where the SBA Office of Advocacy comes in. 

The Office of Advocacy is an independent voice for small businesses within the federal government and fights against burdensome regulations.

Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act, or the RFA, federal agencies are statutorily required to ensure that regulations have a limited impact on small businesses.

However, last Congress, this Committee investigated agency compliance, and simply put, agencies skirt the law and end up implementing a mountain of crippling regulations on Main Street America.

Despite their best efforts, the Office of Advocacy lacks the legislative authority to hold agencies accountable for ignoring the RFA. That must change.

Under President Trump, the Office of Advocacy has been pivotal in repealing burdensome, misguided regulations. This includes their work with FinCEN to roll back the burdensome Beneficial Ownership Information reporting rule.

I’m happy that so many of my colleagues are dedicated to fighting crippling regulations, including those who have joined my bill, H.R. 976, the 1071 Repeal to Protect Small Business Lending Act, which was reported favorably out of the Committee on Financial Services.

I genuinely hope that hearings like this will show how important it is to remove regulatory barriers that stifle American entrepreneurship, which should have bipartisan support.

I look forward to discussing how we can strengthen the Office of Advocacy’s role and how Congress can give it the tools it needs to continue advocating for Main Street.

I want to thank you, Dr. Mulligan, again for being here today.

With that, I will yield to our distinguished Ranking Member from New York, Ms. Velázquez.

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