Paul Coverdell: “there has been an assertion that this would unleash a flood of regulatory burden on the agencies. I want to make the…”

“there has been an assertion that this would unleash a flood of regulatory burden on the agencies. I want to make the point again that quite the reverse would be the case. There has been a regulatory flood on the small businesses of America. As I said in my opening statement, if I want to pick where I want that burden to be, it ought to be on the Government side, and not on the backs of all these small companies with 4 or less employees, or 50 or less employees, which is almost all the companies in America except for 6 percent. Last year, 116 rules were swept up by the net of the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the act that is already in place. Now, this idea that we would have 800, I think, is an unfounded assertion. If this had been in effect last year, it would have swept up 116, just as it did last year. Because there is a judicial review, there could be changes that would add some. I think it is most difficult to assert that we will have 500 or 1,000 new rules that would require action under this amendment. Assuming, again, that there is more burden, it ought to be on the back of the Government and not on the back of the small business. We should be trying to protect the small businesses, not the regulators. That is where our concern is properly fixed--helping small businesses to generate new companies, new jobs, and expand.”