Ralph Lee Abraham: “I will say we felt, of the various responsibilities at the Small Business Administration, the advocate's office is, in…”

“I will say we felt, of the various responsibilities at the Small Business Administration, the advocate's office is, in effect, a somewhat independent figure whose principal responsibility under current law would seem to be very consistent with the responsibility of trying to protect small businesses with regard to promulgation of new regulations. We thought that was the logical place to impose this responsibility. Also, the mechanism seemed to exist to do some of the study that is entailed in putting forth these recommendations. We thought that this semi-independent status of the advocate, combined with the authorities already given it, were ones that justified and supported the notion of allowing that.”