Nearly Three-Quarters of Business Roundtable CEOs List Regulations as one of the Top Three Cost Pressures Facing their Businesses
As part of a 2014 growth agenda that includes expanding trade, restoring fiscal stability and reforming America’s tax and immigration systems, Business Roundtable member companies believe passage of the Achieving Less Excess in Regulation and Requiring Transparency Act of 2014 (H.R. 2804) – the ALERRT Act – would help create a regulatory environment that is more conducive to increased economic growth and job creation. The ALERRT Act combines four bills that would make the regulatory system more fair, more transparent and more open to public participation:
- The Regulatory Accountability Act would improve several key elements of the U.S. regulatory system by promoting greater and earlier public engagement by stakeholders in the rulemaking process, including businesses and nonprofits. The Act would result in better information quality, smarter rules and more objective cost-benefit analysis.
- The All Economic Regulations Are Transparent Act (ALERT Act) would create a more open and transparent regulatory process by requiring the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to publish information about pending rules and regulations and related cost-benefit studies online. It would also require federal agencies to assign docket numbers to rulemaking entries and update their “regulatory agendas” on a monthly basis.
- The Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act would improve the ability of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) to make the federal regulatory process friendlier to the needs and capabilities of small businesses and nonprofits by applying the RFA’s provisions to interim final rules and guidance documents. The bill would also require federal agencies to consider costs they impose on businesses indirectly through new rules applicable to states.
- The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act would allow any affected party the opportunity to intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to compel some action by a federal agency, making it possible for more parties to participate in the process of ensuring that agencies meet their obligations under the law.
Learn about Business Roundtable’s recommendations to address costly, counterproductive U.S. regulations in its report, Achieving Smarter Regulation. Read Business Roundtable’s previous statements in support of the Regulatory Accountability Act and ALERT Act.