Helping Small Business & Veterans

On October 28, 2011, the President issued a memo to Federal agencies, directing them to  make it easier for businesses to access the full range of Government programs and services without having to waste effort navigating their way through the Federal bureaucracy.  We have a new small entities advanced search tool to help out on that end.

We also got a direct request from the White House CTO to tweak FR2 to help implement the small business initiative, and also to assist our nation’s veterans in any way we can. So first, for our returning vets, we added a suggested search to highlight regulatory documents and notices that relate to expanded employment and training opportunities for veterans.

This past week, we added a feature to our advanced search to help users find regulatory documents that impact small entities. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to consider how rules are implemented to keep burdens manageable, and also take into account the size of the regulated entity when trying to enforce compliance. Most agencies conduct regulatory reviews to continually monitor the effectiveness of regulations and where necessary, they can make changes to lessen impacts on small businesses.

Our small entities advanced search tool is a modest effort to help small businesses track regulatory actions that impose burdens on them. It can also be used by agencies to help them plan regulatory review programs aimed at improving the vitality of small businesses and expanding job creation. For example, here is an advanced search of all documents published so far in 2011 that have been designated by agencies as having an impact on small entities. This tool was developed by data mining the Unified Agenda, and is accurate as of the last issuance of the Agenda.