Regulatory Flexibility Act

Regulatory Flexibility Act
Great Seal of the United States
Long titleAn Act to amend title 5, United States Code, to improve federal rulemaking by creating procedures to analyze the availability of more flexible regulatory approaches for small entities, and for other purposes
Acronyms (colloquial)RFA / "the Reg Flex Act"
Enacted bythe 96th United States Congress
EffectiveSeptember 19, 1980
Citations
Public law96-354
Statutes at Large94 Stat. 1164
Codification
Acts amendedAdministrative Procedure Act
Titles amended5 U.S.C.: Government Organization and Employees
U.S.C. sections created5 U.S.C. ch. 6 § 601 et seq.
Legislative history
  • Introduced in the U.S. Senate as S. 299 by John Culver (DIA) on January 31, 1979
  • Committee consideration by Committees on the Judiciary of the U.S. House and Senate; Committees on Small Business of both Houses
  • Passed the House Small Business Committee on 17 July 1979 (39-0)
  • Passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on 7 May 1980 (unanimous voice vote)
  • Reported by the joint conference committee on 9 September 1980 (Senate bill passed in lieu of House bill); agreed to by the U.S. Senate on 6 August 1980 and 9 September 1980 (unanimous voice votes) and by the U.S. House of Representatives on 9 September 1980 (unanimous voice vote, suspension of the rules)
  • Signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on September 19, 1980
Major amendments
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA), P.L. 104-121, 1996

The Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) is perhaps the most comprehensive effort[according to whom?] by the US federal government to balance the social goals of federal regulations with the needs and capabilities of small businesses and other small entities in American society. In practice, the RFA attempts to "scale" the actions of the federal government to the size of the groups and organizations affected.

Passed in 1980, the RFA has been gradually strengthened in the intervening years, and has historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support.[citation needed]

Since the federal government began calculating the economic impact of the RFA in 1998, the law is estimated to have saved small entities (and the US economy as a whole) more than $200 billion[1] without undermining the broad purposes of the regulations it affects. More than 40 US states, as well as a number of other nations, have adopted similar approaches.

  1. ^ "Regulatory Flexibility Act Annual Report of the Chief Counsel for Advocacy U.S. Small Business Administration". sba.gov. US: Small Business Administration. Archived from the original on December 5, 2010. Retrieved 2013-11-26.