Anti-Safeguard Provisions in Small Business Reauthorization Bill Will Hurt the Public

For Immediate Release:
July 18, 2019

Contact: David Rosen, drosen@citizen.org, (202) 588-7742

Note: The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship introduced a comprehensive reauthorization of the Small Business Act today.

The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS) strongly opposes the inclusion of harmful and dangerous anti-safeguards provisions in the SBA Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2019, to be voted on in the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee next week. The anti-safeguards proposals are not just unnecessary and irrelevant to the measure’s broader objectives, they would also weaken our country’s system of regulatory protections for consumers, workers, children and the environment.

One such provision is the Prove It Act (S. 1339). This anti-safeguards bill seeks to provide the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy with more authority to block or weaken new regulatory safeguards, even though the office has historically worked to advance the interests of large businesses and powerful trade associations at the cost of placing the public more at risk of health, safety and economic security threats.

Other dangerous anti-safeguards “poison pill” provisions that have been included in the reauthorization bill include the Setting Manageable Analysis Requirements in Text Act (S. 1420) that CSS has previously opposed.

It is inappropriate to include such partisan and controversial provisions as part of a broad Reauthorization Act. CSS urges members of the Small Business Committee to oppose these provisions and the broader Reauthorization Act if such provisions are not removed.