U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

80–824 2013

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW: HAVE EXISTING 

REGULATORY BURDENS ON SMALL BUSINESSES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MAY 8, 2013 

Small Business Committee Document Number 113–015 

Available via the GPO Website: www.fdsys.gov 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER


Congress.#13
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri, Chairman 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

BLAINE LUETKEMER, Missour 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

RICHARD HANNA, New York 

TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

KERRY BENTIVOLIO, Michigan 

CHRIS COLLINS, New York 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

NYDIA VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Ranking Member 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

YVETTE CLARKE, New York 

JUDY CHU, California 

JANICE HAHN, California 

DONALD PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

GRACE MENG, New York 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANN McLANE KUSTER, New Hampshire 

PATRICK MURPHY, Florida 

LORI SALLEY, Staff Director 

PAUL SASS, Deputy Staff Director 

BARRY PINELES, Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL DAY, Minority Staff Director 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Hon. Sam Graves ..................................................................................................... 1 

Hon. Nydia Vela ́zquez ............................................................................................. 2 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Polly Torttenberg, Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy, United States Department of Transportation, Washington, DC ............... 3 

Jeanne Hulit, Associate Administrator, Office of Capital Access, United States 

Small Business Administration, Washington, DC ............................................. 5 

Cheryl Cook, Chief Information Officer, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC ..................................................................................... 7 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

The Honorable Polly Trottenberg, Under Secretary of Transportation for 

Policy, United States Department of Transportation, Washington, DC .. 30 

Jeanne Hulit, Associate Administrator, Office of Capital Access, United 

States Small Business Administration, Washington, DC .......................... 36 

Cheryl Cook, Chief Information Officer, United States Department of 

Agriculture, Washington, DC ....................................................................... 38 

Questions for the Record: 

None. 

Answers for the Record: 

None. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

(1) 

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW: HAVE EXISTING 

REGULATORY BURDENS ON SMALL BUSINESSES BEEN REDUCED? 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:00 p.m., in Room 

2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sam Graves [Chairman 

of the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Graves, Chabot, Luetkemeyer, 

Mulvaney, Tipton, Huelskamp, Schweikert, Collins, Rice, 

Vela ́zquez, Schrader, Clarke, and Chu. 

Chairman GRAVES. Good afternoon, everyone. I will call this 

hearing to order. And I want to thank our witnesses for being here 

today and taking time out of your very busy schedules, and I look 

forward to your testimony. 

We are here today to examine the results of a government-wide 

initiative to review existing red tape. Like an overgrown forest that 

needs to be thinned periodically, the regulatory system requires 

some regular pruning. 

All Presidents since President Carter have directed Federal 

agencies to review regulations, and Congress has ordered agencies 

to periodically review regulations that have a significant impact on 

a substantial number of small businesses. However, agencies’ past 

efforts to comply with these mandates have generally been inconsistent and quite ineffective. 

In 2011, President Obama issued Executive Order 13,563 directing Federal agencies to create plans for reviewing their existing 

significant regulations. And in 2012 the President issued Order 

13,610, which requires agencies to regularly report on the results 

of the retrospective review efforts. The President also instructed 

agencies to give special consideration to initiatives that would reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses. And with the government-wide regulatory review initiative well into its second year, 

this is an ideal time to examine the results that we have so far. 

Only a limited number of actions have been finalized that provide quantified reductions in costs or paperwork burdens. Some actions will provide meaningful burden reductions for small businesses, but other actions are less significant or make questionable 

burden reduction estimates. However, the small number of burdenreducing actions pale in comparison to the fast growing thicket of 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

2 

red tape, and a few recently released reports shine some new light 

on the regulatory burden. 

According to the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, in 

fiscal year 2012 there were 14 major rules alone that imposed an 

additional $14.8 to $19.5 billion in annual costs, which was the 

costliest year on record for federal regulation. As a point of comparison, there were six major rules in fiscal year 2003 that imposed 

only $1.9 to $2 billion in annual costs. A more comprehensive tally 

of 2012 agency regulatory cost estimates found that 539 final rules 

added about $215 billion in new burdens. 

Agencies have to do a better job to reduce overly burdensome and 

unnecessary red tape and paperwork to ensure that small businesses are able to survive and grow in a competitively global economy. And I look forward to hearing from all of our agencies today 

and our witnesses on what burdens they have seen or worked to 

reduce on small businesses as a result of their recent retrospective 

review efforts. 

And with that, I turn to Ranking Member Vela ́zquez for her 

opening statement. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take this 

opportunity to thank all the witnesses for being here today and the 

chairman for holding this important hearing. 

Our government’s regulatory structure profoundly influences the 

American economy. Certainly without many regulations, the public 

interest would be harmed. These rules make our water safe to 

drink, ensure our air is safe to breathe, protect workers from unnecessary risks, and protect consumers from unsafe products. Regulations also help our markets operate fairly. Without them, small 

businesses and entrepreneurs will often find their efforts to introduce new products and services stymied by large, entrenched companies who fear competition and seek to game the system. 

While regulation has a role to play, the challenge is ensuring 

these rules remain relevant and are carefully targeted to avoid unintended consequences. In that regard, retrospective reviews are 

critically important in achieving that careful balance. This process 

helps those of us in Congress as well as the agencies develop 

smarter, more effective regulations and to modify or eliminate rules 

whose purposes have been outlived. 

A number of mechanisms exist for evaluating these regulations. 

The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires an examination of all regulations that have a significant economic impact on small entities. 

Other agencies, like EPA, are required under the Clean Air and 

Water Acts to periodically review their own regulations. President 

Obama has reaffirmed these principles by issuing Executive Order 

13563, which calls for a government-wide review of regulations. 

This undertaking has already yielded a number of new ideas, some 

of which I expect we will hear about today. 

I know the Department of Agriculture is reducing information 

collection burdens on industry while also updating its lending processes. The Small Business Administration is also working to 

streamline its capital access application procedures. If done correctly, simplifying these rules will get more capital flowing to small 

firms at a time when our economy could use this boost. The Department of Transportation is working on 83 initiatives that will 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

3 

save the department effort, taxpayers money and reduce inefficiencies for industry. I am pleased to see these agencies are taking the 

president’s executive order seriously. 

Part of this hearing’s purpose will be to get a better grasp on 

how small firms might be affected by some of these challenges and 

what more can be done to further alleviate regulatory burden. Balancing regulatory costs against benefits is always a difficult challenge, but I am encouraged by initiatives we have seen thus far. 

These steps are a genuine effort to get it right, and I look forward 

to discussing what more can be done in that regard. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you very much. 

And our first witness is going to be Polly Trottenberg, who is the 

Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy at the Department of 

Transportation. Ms. Trottenberg was previously the Executive Director of Building America’s Future, which is a non-profit organization that focuses on infrastructure investment. She also served in 

the United States Senate for 12 years, and most recently was Deputy Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Senator Barbara 

Boxer. 

Welcome. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate you taking the 

time. 

STATEMENTS OF THE HON. POLLY TROTTENBERG, UNDER 

SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION FOR POLICY, UNITED 

STATES DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; JEANNE A. 

HULIT, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF CAPITAL 

ACCESS, UNITED STATES SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION; AND CHERYL COOK, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. POLLY TROTTENBERG 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Graves and 

Ranking Member Vela ́zquez and members of the Committee. I am 

pleased to be here today to testify on the Department of Transportation’s implementation of President Obama’s Executive orders 

which seek to reduce regulatory burdens. 

Through our ongoing review and revision of DOT’s rules and regulations under these two Executive orders, we have already saved 

U.S. businesses significant time and money over the last couple of 

years, and we hope to save them even more in the coming years. 

And we will do so while we continue our fundamental mission, saving lives and improving safety throughout our Nation’s transportation system, reducing the environmental impacts of transportation, and providing strong consumer protections for the traveling 

public. 

We know this Committee has a special charge to evaluate how 

our rules and regulations affect America’s small businesses. At 

DOT, we too are continuously mindful of the regulatory burdens 

small businesses face, and we try our best to balance them with 

the very significant legal and statutory requirements. 

DOT has one of the largest rulemaking responsibilities in the 

Federal Government. We are proud of our recent regulatory requirements, including CAFE standards, overhauling pilot rest reSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

4 

quirements, improving pipeline, auto, bus and truck safety enforcement, and strengthening aviation consumer protections. And we 

have done so with very robust public and private sector participation, the best science and economic modeling available, a commitment to trying to use plain, understandable English in our rulemaking, and seeking pragmatic, nonregulatory solutions where we 

can that will minimize burdens and costs for U.S. businesses. 

But we know we can do better in the regulatory arena, and I am 

grateful that the Committee is showing interest. We do look forward to working with you more on this issue. And I also want to 

thank the Committee for noting in today’s hearing memo that 

USDOT’s January 2013 retrospective regulatory review report does 

detail a wide variety of actions we have taken over the last few 

years on 89 rulemakings across all parts of the Department. These 

actions are designed to update, streamline, clarify or remove obsolete regulations, consolidate duplicative requirements, and reduce 

the number of entities subject to our regulations. 

The 64-page report details the extensive work that department 

experts have done, with the input of hundreds of stakeholders and 

members of the public, to improve the regulatory process and reduce red tape wherever we can. We are proud of the work contained in the report and I invite the Committee to review it on our 

website. The document is somewhat lengthy, because we are reporting on all the recommendations we have received from the public that we are addressing, and we welcome your input on how we 

might improve the format of the report. 

And within the report, at least 20 of the rulemaking actions listed will have a particular benefit for small businesses. The most 

dramatic of these actions is a proposal that the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration, FMCSA, is currently developing with 

its stakeholders to rescind an outdated 1978 requirement that 

truck drivers submit and trucking companies retain very burdensome paper driver vehicle inspection reports even when there are 

no defects found in the vehicle. FMCSA estimates that rescinding 

this 35-year-old requirement would save the trucking industry $1.5 

billion a year without adversely affecting safety. We know that 

FMCSA’s regulations can have a large impact on the trucking industry, particularly small and independent carriers, and this proposal could make a real dramatic difference for those small carriers. 

Other proposals within our report call for moving to electronic filing signatures and recordkeeping in a number of our industries, 

and simplifying our certification and complaint procedures, which 

are often complex, duplicative and time-consuming. And those 

items may not sound that flashy, but in addition to FMCSA’s $1.5 

billion proposal, these other proposed actions cumulatively could 

save small businesses, which include motor carriers, railroads, general aviation operators, additional tens of millions of dollars and 

countless hours of time and aggravation. They are really the quintessential definition of cutting red tape. 

And we will continue our efforts to uncover and implement more 

such actions. In fact, the President’s two recent Executive orders 

institutionalize many of the practices that the Department has long 

embraced under administrations from both parties, as the chairSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

5 

man mentioned. DOT has been regularly reviewing and revising its 

existing regulations for almost 35 years. And that said, we know 

we still have a lot more work to do. And that work also requires 

close collaboration with the NTSB, the GAO, our Inspector General 

and, of course, Congress, all of which play a very significant role 

in setting DOT’s regulatory agenda. 

In conclusion, let me once again thank the Committee for its interest in DOT’s work. We share your desire to continuously improve the safety, environmental quality and consumer protection of 

our transportation system in a sensible, scientific and cost beneficial way, while ensuring that American businesses, large and 

small, are treated fairly so that they can grow and thrive. 

Thank you, and I will be happy to take any questions. 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you very much. 

Our next witness is Jeanne Hulit. Ms. Hulit is the Associate Administrator for the Office of Capital Access at the Small Business 

Administration. Prior to her federal government service, Ms. Hulit 

was the Senior Vice President for Commercial Lending at Citizens 

Bank and she also worked for Key Bank as a middle market lender. 

Thank you very much, and I appreciate you being here. 

STATEMENT OF JEANNE A. HULIT 

Ms. HULIT. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member 

Vela ́zquez and members of the Committee. I am pleased to be testifying before you on the Small Business Administration’s efforts to 

streamline its regulations. 

In the Office of Capital Access, we have taken several steps to 

ease the regulatory burden on small business. We have a proposed 

rule to streamline both our 7(a) and 504 loan programs, which just 

closed for public comment. SBA’s proposed rule will enable the 504 

and 7(a) loan programs to better serve small businesses. In addition to reducing paperwork requirements and cost, the new rules 

will ease some barriers to program participation while reducing 

risks to the SBA and our CDC partners. 

The two most significant changes are to the personal resources 

test and the affiliation requirement for both programs. Both of 

these proposed changes will increase eligibility for 7(a) and 504 

loans, allowing more small businesses to access these critical financing tools. 

By streamlining the documentation requirements for affiliated 

businesses, SBA will help applicants avoid submitting multiple and 

often duplicative tax returns and financial statements and significantly reduce paperwork requirements. Similarly, elimination of 

personal resources tests will streamline the application process, increase investment options for small business owners, and remove 

restrictions that could prevent the agency from approving projects 

with significant community benefit. 

These changes are estimated to reduce 93,800 hours of process 

burden for participants in the 504 and 7(a) loan programs, which 

is a 10 percent reduction for borrowers and lenders and a 5 percent 

reduction for the agency. 

In addition to regulatory reductions, the Office of Capital Access 

has implemented process improvements that have reduced the paSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

6 

perwork burden to key 7(a) programs, resulting in significantly increased participation. 

Changes in our Cap line program, providing revolving lines of 

credit, resulted in a 393 percent increase in loan volume in that 

program between 2011 and 2012. And year to date, the volume continues to double. 

Our Small Loan Advantage product was streamlined this past June, which has resulted in a monthly volume of $55 million 

versus $5 million before the program changes, a tenfold increase. 

Additionally, in August of 2012, the Office of Capital Access reduced the paperwork requirements for many participants in our 

surety bond program. The Quick Bond Guarantee Application, or 

Quick App, combines the contractor application and SBA surety 

agreement to one easy to use form. This reform significantly reduces paperwork and processing time for SBA-backed surety bonds 

on construction contracts of $250,000 or less. As a result, year to 

date we have seen an increase of 49 percent in the number of 

bonds guarantied over last year. 

In addition to these capital access improvements, there have also 

been significant regulatory and paperwork reforms in other SBA 

programs. For example, our Office of Investment has streamlined 

the application process for SBIC licenses. Harry Haskins, our Deputy Associate Administrator for Investment, was announced yesterday as a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America 

medal, a prestigious award dedicated to honoring America’s civil 

servants. Harry and his team were recognized for the work they 

have done to streamline and turn around our SBIC program, which 

has had three consecutive record breaking years. Our SBIC team 

helped reduce the processing time for new SBIC funds to just 5.4 

months, down from almost 15 months in 2009. 

And for the thousands of small firms that do business with the 

Federal Government, we have helped reduce the time it takes to 

get paid. The President’s Quick Pay Initiative cut in half, from 30 

days to 15 days, the amount of time it takes for the Federal Government to pay small businesses. Getting paid sooner means that 

small businesses can get funds more quickly to reinvest in additional working capital, marketing their products and hiring new 

workers. 

In addition to reviewing and revising its own regulations, the 

SBA has also engaged the small business community to find out 

how other Federal rules and regulations can be adapted to fit the 

changing needs of emerging entrepreneurs. In 2011, senior administration officials visited eight cities as part of the Startup America 

Initiative. At these roundtables, the SBA listened to small business 

owners, entrepreneurs and investors as they described improvements to processes and regulations that can help build a more supportive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Those ideas were described in a report encompassing a broad 

array of policy ideas from student loans to intellectual property, 

and we have shared it with our Federal partners and the general 

public. 

Finally, as a former regional administrator in New England, I 

can attest to the agency’s efforts to coordinate with the Office of 

Advocacy to ensure that new regulations do not overly burden 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

7 

small businesses. Our regional administrators conduct outreach efforts with regional advocates to respond to concerns voiced across 

the country. 

I believe that the SBA has made significant progress in reducing 

the regulatory paperwork burdens on America’s small business; 

however, work still remains, and we are committed to continuing 

these streamlining efforts. 

I wish to thank you for inviting me to testify on this important 

topic today. I look forward to answering your questions. 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you very much. 

Our final witness is Cheryl Cook, who is the Chief Information 

Officer for the Department of Agriculture. Prior to being named as 

the Chief Information Officer, Ms. Cook has served in a number of 

positions at the USDA. She also served as the Deputy Secretary for 

Marketing and Economic Development at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Executive Director of Keystone Development Center, which was a nonprofit that helps new and emerging cooperatives. 

So thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it. 

STATEMENT OF CHERYL COOK 

Ms. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Vela ́zquez, members the Committee. 

In the interests of getting right to the discussion, I would like to 

submit my full statement for the record and just summarize remarks about USDA’s efforts to reduce regulatory burden on small 

businesses and facilitate new business development through an 

array of research, financial and technical assistance programs. 

I have had the privilege of being the CIO for just over a year 

now. I was still in USDA Rural Development as Deputy Under Secretary when the Executive orders were issued, so I kind of bridge, 

you know, both of those roles, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to be the witness for USDA today, even though I am not 

necessarily an expert in some of things that your constituents 

might be raising with you. 

Small businesses, including farms and ranches, create a foundation for prosperity across rural America, providing an abundant 

and affordable food supply, fiber supply, and increasingly our renewable energy supplies. 

Under President Obama and Secretary Vilsack’s leadership, 

small businesses have been a critical element of our strategy to improve economic opportunity for those living in rural communities. 

We recognize that farmers, ranchers and rural business owners devote long hours and hard work to their trade and acknowledge our 

responsibility to ensure that their efforts are not weighed down by 

unnecessary and burdensome paperwork. 

Revising or repealing unnecessary, duplicative or overly burdensome regulations already was underway in USDA’s internal processes when the Executive orders were issued. Deputy Secretary 

Merrigan responded to the new orders by providing a more formal 

framework comprised of teams from around mission areas and 

agency levels to more formally review our regulations. 

We looked at several factors, most of them found in the Regulatory Flexibility Act, such as the continued need for the regulaSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

8 

tion, the nature of comments we have been receiving from the public, the complexity of the regulation, the length of time since the 

regulation had been evaluated, and the degree to which technology, 

economic conditions or other factors might have changed in the 

areas affected by the regulation. USDA also considered comments 

from stakeholders, internal resource capacity, and the potential 

need for statutory change to enable regulatory change. 

USDA invited the public to participate in this review through the 

publication of a request for information in April of 2011, along with 

an invitation to visit our open government website and provide 

comments directly there, an opportunity that still exists today. 

In addition, the Department’s largest regulatory and service delivery component agencies conducted independent public outreach 

activities, employing a variety of mechanisms, from social media to 

more traditional requests for information and customer focus 

groups. 

Through this effort over 2,100 public comments were received 

from a broad range of stakeholders, including individuals, regulated entities, trade groups, other governmental entities, including 

tribal governments, and USDA employees. 

USDA released its final plan for retrospective analysis in August 

2011, and in the subsequent months targeted eight areas for significant reduction on small business burden. 

Since then, we have made progress in many of those areas. For 

example, in January of 2012, the Food Safety Inspection Service 

published a proposed rule for electronic export application and certification fees to make the export component of the agency’s public 

health information system available as a much simpler and cheaper electronic alternative to the paper-based application and certification process that had existed before. Last November, a similar 

rule from FSIS for electronic imports inspection and certification 

was issued, and will save thousands of hours in finding and completing the necessary paper forms. 

Last month Rural Development’s Rural Business Cooperative 

Service published a proposed rule to streamline grant applications 

and reporting requirements. Personally I found this one very satisfying. We are finally moving past the accusation that you had to 

either be a professional grant writer or have enough money in your 

pocket already to hire a professional grant writer in order to access 

these assistance programs. We are now streamlining that process. 

USDA also has made significant investments in information technology to reduce red tape and make it easier to access our financial 

and technical assistance programs. While many of USDA’s 19 agencies have IT modernization efforts underway to push their programs to the Web, most notable is the Farm Service Agency’s 

MIDAS Initiative, which finally rolled out nationwide earlier this 

month. Through MIDAS, FSA employees finally have modern tools 

to provide better service to farmers and ranchers, logging into a 

single system rather than having to toggle back and forth among 

several systems, being able to incorporate GIS technology into their 

work finally electronically for the first time instead of having to 

print a paper map and then draw on it with a pen to outline which 

fields are going to be planted to what crops this year. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

9 

USDA continues to accept comments from the public on any of 

its regulations and continues to look for ways to advance the mission of our Department consistent with the Executive orders. Agencies continue to engage with stakeholders and provide ever more 

information online in formats that make doing business with 

USDA easier no matter what kind of device you might be using. 

USDA’s open government website still gives the public a format 

to provide input, and we welcome any suggestions on our services 

from the people who use them. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for the opportunity to appear 

today. I would be happy to address any questions you have at this 

point. 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you all very much. Again, I know you 

are all busy, and I appreciate you coming in. 

I have two questions actually for Ms. Trottenberg, and they are 

specific to aviation, but my first question is about there is a program out there called the Living History Flight Experience Program, and what that did was allow owners and operators of very 

historically significant aircraft, which can be very expensive to 

maintain and run—they used to be able to apply for an exemption 

to have some limited passenger carrying capability to be able to, 

you know, again, help pay for those aircraft. Two years ago the 

FAA eliminated that exemption and said they would come out with 

a rule in October of 2012, which was last October, and they have 

still yet to provide a rule. And I know a lot of these folks are just 

hanging out there waiting for an opportunity. 

But my first question is, why is it that you all closed the rule, 

or the exemption at least on that when—you know, just to be able 

to get the experience, I guess, of flying in one of these historic aircraft, but yet right now you can buy a ride on Spaceship 2 to experience space, as a commercial effort. It is okay to go into space and 

take a ride there, but it is not okay to take a ride on one of these 

airplanes, or at least allow these 501(c)(3)s to apply for an exemption to be able to give that. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. And I apologize, Mr. Chairman. I actually am not familiar with the Living History rule, so I don’t know 

what FAA’s reasoning was. I hear your concern, though, that it has 

taken a long time, and I certainly would like to get back to your 

staff on sort of what the status of it is. 

You know, in general, I know from the FAA’s point of view, you 

know, they do sort of a constant upgrade on their rules and regulations looking at safety issues, and, you know, I am not sure here. 

I would presume that might have been the reasoning behind it, but 

again, I would like to check and get back to on that. 

Chairman GRAVES. Well, then have your staff or yourself write 

down. There is three things that I want to know. You know, one, 

I want to know what the, you know, purpose behind this was, 

which is a very general question. The second thing is I want to 

know when the rule, the new rule is going to come out, because you 

missed the deadline by a long ways, as matter of fact, and you have 

got a lot of people out there depending, so I want to know when. 

And I also want to know how much you are involving the industry 

out there to help write the new rules, to make sure that these opportunities are safe and that they can continue to offer—or be able 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

10 

to apply for this exemption and offer these rides, you know, obviously with a waiver. 

The next thing is, is when it comes to the FCC, I mean the Federal Communications Commission, which recently issued a rule on 

ELTs, those are emergency locator transmitters. They are in every 

single aircraft that is out there. They are required to be in every 

single aircraft that is out there. They right now operate on 121.5 

megahertz. And basically you have airplanes and airlines that 

monitor that frequency all the time in case something goes down 

and so they can find that aircraft. 

Well, the FCC came out with a rule that said that they can no 

longer be manufactured, they cannot be imported, they cannot be 

certified, they cannot be used and they cannot be sold, which 

means you have hundreds of thousands of aircraft out there with 

this equipment in there and now being required to buy new equipment, which is going to cost, you know, millions and millions of dollars to the industry and to a lot of small businesses out there. 

And my question is, and you may not be able to answer this either, but I do want an answer from you, I want to know if the FAA, 

Department of Transportation is going to oppose that FCC’s rule, 

because it is going to be extraordinarily burdensome. And these are 

small businesses and this equipment is very expensive. These are 

small businesses that are trying to operate. And, again, it comes 

right underneath what we are talking about and some of the things 

that are coming out, involving the industry out there, which it is 

not being involved, it is not being asked to take part in this process. And you probably aren’t familiar with that rule either. I will 

let you go ahead and comment. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Well, I know, Mr. Chairman, we have obviously a new chairman coming into the FCC, and actually the DOT. 

We have a lot of issues that we are setting up an agenda to speak 

to them about, so let me make sure this is on the list and get with 

FAA and get back to you with some answers on it. 

You know, there is a whole range in the transportation field, as 

you know, of spectrum and communication issues that, you know, 

involve our two agencies. 

Chairman GRAVES. Well, how soon can I expect an answer? Can 

I expect it in 2 weeks? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Let us try and get you something by the end 

of this week. How about that? 

Chairman GRAVES. Okay. By the end of this week. That is perfect. 

Ms. Vela ́zquez. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Every time we do hearings in this committee as well as other 

committees, but particularly this one, time and time again we hear 

stories on regulations from small businesses, the burden of those 

regulations, they don’t have the amount of money that would allow 

for them to hire the lawyers and accountants and so on. 

So the president offered a great opportunity for the federal agencies to review existing regulations based on his Executive Order 

13563, and that executive order provides specific instructions to the 

federal agencies as far as reviewing existing significant regulations. 

So I take issue with agencies that go beyond the scope of the execuSBREP-219 with DISTILLER

11 

tive order and review rules that are proposed rules, not focusing on 

the existing regulations. 

So my question is, why are agencies doing that? For example, 

Ms. Hulit, I would like to hear what the rationale is for SBA to include so many rulemakings in its report and not many existing regulations other than size standards, which we know SBA is already 

statutorily required to update? 

Ms. HULIT. Thank you, Congressman Vela ́zquez. The agency is in 

a constant dialogue with our lending community and our small 

business borrowers on how our programs are affecting them, 

whether they are useful, whether there are barriers to accessing 

the program. So in addition to the size standard issue that is required under the Executive order and reviewing our existing regulations, we have gone through a comprehensive process with our 

borrowers and with our lenders to get feedback on our loan programs. Some of that feedback has been existing regulatory issues 

that are problematic that they would like to see us change. And so 

we have to work comprehensively just not only on the Executive 

order, but on other issues that we hear from our client base, the 

borrowers and the lenders, on what we—— 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Of all the completed actions that you have 

taken, can you name at least three regulations, that are existing 

regulations, that have been included in the report? 

Ms. HULIT. I know that there are several size standards that 

have been submitted to OMB. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Size standards, statutorily SBA has to update—— 

Ms. HULIT. Right. I understand that. And we—— 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. So that is beyond the scope of the executive 

order by the president, which specifically asks to review existing 

regulations. Look, you have in your books regulations that are 

dated 10, 15 years that do not make sense in today’s economic reality. If we are seriously committed to take this opportunity to review those existing regulations and decide through economic impact analysis and everything that you have to do whether they 

make sense or not, then that is what the president wants and that 

is what we expect. 

I would like to ask Transportation, each of the agencies here 

today have been reporting for over a year now on retrospective reviews, and so I just would like to ask you, will the sequester hurt 

DOT’s ability to carry out those initiatives? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yes. Thanks for the question. And I think you 

have heard our Secretary, Ray LaHood, and a number of our modal 

administrators, including FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, have 

pretty much talked at great length about a lot of the impacts of sequester. Now, obviously we are grateful that Congress recently 

passed legislation that will enable us to mitigate some of the effects 

within the FAA, but clearly we have at DOT been planning for the 

sequester essentially for a year, and a lot of parts of the Department, we have engaged in a hiring freeze, and now luckily furloughs will be minimized, but the agency has had to cut expenses 

in a lot of ways. Clearly it has an effect on our operations. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. And SBA and then USDA, the same question on 

the sequester. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

12 

Ms. HULIT. Under the sequester, we have six accounts that had 

to be reduced under the sequester, and we have been executing 

those cuts accordingly. Fortunately at this point we don’t have to 

have furloughs, but we have had to reduce our program authority 

as well as some of our grant support. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Ms. Cook. 

Ms. COOK. Largely the same answer. Our Food Safety Inspection 

Service was facing fairly significant furloughs that would have had 

an immediate impact on—— 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. But—— 

Ms. COOK.—meat packers, but we have managed to avoid that. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. My question is will the sequester impact the review of existing regulations? 

Ms. COOK. It doesn’t impact the review. To the extent that the 

review concluded that we might need a new IT system, for example, our ability to contract out is diminished by the resources that 

have been sequestered, of course, but it doesn’t stop us from moving forward with the review. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. One area where the success of this executive 

order will be defined is whether or not there is coordination among 

agencies. And I know that historically this has been a problem and 

very difficult to accomplish. Such interagency consultation is absolutely critical to reduce regulatory burden. For instance, the EPA 

and DOT were able to do so regarding fuel economy standards. Has 

the USDA taken similar steps where appropriate to coordinate 

with other agencies? 

Ms. COOK. USDA has coordinated with other agencies. For example, last year we put out a joint notice of funds availability with 

the Economic Development Administration, leveraging our resources with theirs so that, again, people who might not be a professional grant writer can get to one system and reach both agencies’ financial assistance programs. 

Within USDA coordination can be a challenge. As you know, we 

are a department of 19 different agencies and 10 staff offices, and 

sometimes just keeping our own cats herded can be a challenge. 

Where this came up for us in last year’s review process really was 

in the area of tribal consultation. We are absolutely committed at 

USDA to consulting with tribal partners, but we were killing them, 

frankly, with the number of consultation opportunities we are offering across 19 agencies, and so our Secretary’s Office of Tribal Relations stepped in to help us better coordinate that consultation activity and give them, I think, a more manageable bite at our regulatory agenda. 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. Ms. Trottenberg, do you have any example 

where you have been coordinating with other agencies? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. I mean, again, particularly speaking 

about aviation, one of the new provisions FAA will be implementing is creating an unmanned aerial craft program, a pilot program, and that is a program that clearly requires coordination 

across the Federal Government, with DOD and NASA and the 

FCC. And so, yes, we are going to make sure we talk to all the affected agencies and jurisdictions so that we don’t later run into 

complexities and problems that would slow the program down. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

13 

Ms. VELA ́ ZQUEZ. And Ms. Cook and Ms. Hulit, have you worked 

together in terms of the assisted loan programs? 

Ms. COOK. Sure. USDA and the Small Business Administration 

actually has a memorandum of understanding committing ourselves to working together on our programs. In many cases one 

picks up where the other leaves off. 

Chairman GRAVES. Quick follow up. When you mentioned working with agencies across the federal government, which is great, 

what about involving those businesses or those associations that 

are going to be affected by some of these rules? UAVs a perfect example. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. I mean, there we are doing a lot of outreach with businesses and local communities. And I would say all 

of us that travel around the country, we are regularly meeting with 

communities that are interested in their business communities that 

want to put in applications and participate in the program. So we 

are getting a lot of terrific input. And, you know, there are a lot 

of challenging issues there, particularly privacy issues. As you 

know, now a lot of local communities are starting to pass ordinances saying they don’t want to have those types of aircraft in 

their communities. So there are a lot of legal, privacy, technical 

and business issues to work through, but I think we are going to 

get a lot of great input and it is going to be a really terrific program. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Luetkemeyer. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all the 

witnesses today for their agencies’ efforts to try and streamline 

things and take the burden of regulation off our small businesses. 

They are our job creators, and when you hamper them, you hamper 

the ability of them to produce the jobs that are going to get us out 

of this mess. 

Today I want to talk to Ms. Trottenberg. I have got a couple 

questions for you. And first I want to thank your agency for the 

help. I know Congressman Graves and I worked on the hours of 

service issue and, you know, we had a little problem with it and 

you were willing to sit down and your agency was willing to sit 

down and review the issue and review our concerns about it, and 

then we were able to get something done in a timely fashion. I 

hope that you would be willing to work on that issue with another 

issue I am not going to bring up here. 

My staff should have briefed you or your staff with regards to my 

issue I am going to bring up today, which is the reinterpretation 

by your agency with regards to the FMCSA interpretation of the 

exemption of the rule of farmers transporting hazardous materials 

by requiring them to have a CDL along with alcohol and drug testing within a 150-mile radius. Originally the rule was 150 miles 

within the State, and the new language, according to the new statute, is 150 air miles regardless of boundary, whether it is a road, 

whether it is a political subdivision line, State line or it is a river, 

whatever, 150 air miles, and yet your agency made the statement 

that FMCSA treats as equivalent to the farm vehicle drivers, which 

is the previous definition, of operators of a farm vehicle. 

So as a result, we have gone back to the old definition and sort 

of muddied the waters, and now we have farmers who are getting 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

14 

ready to go in the field that are unable to transport their things 

without having to go through the process of getting a CDL license. 

And so I guess my comment to you is can we expect some help? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Absolutely. I think—and I am looking over 

here at the staff. I think the good news is we have been talking 

to your staff and the Farm Bureau, and I think we are going to 

have a good solution very shortly, and we can brief your staff on 

the details. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. When is that ‘‘shortly’’? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I think the ‘‘shortly’’ is end of May, early 

June, so within the next few weeks. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. Ms. Cook, how important is this to get 

this done real quickly? You represent all the farmers. 

Ms. COOK. Farming is a seasonal activity, to be sure. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. And so what is happening right now? 

Ms. COOK. Well, it depends on where you are in the country what 

is happening right now. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Well, I am in the Midwest. Most of this is 

going on in Missouri, where I am from. What is happening? 

Ms. COOK. What is happening right now is the farmers are beginning to do their planting. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. So how important is it to get this done 

ASAP? 

Ms. COOK. It is important. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Would you make that into a request of Ms. 

Trottenberg to get that done? 

Ms. COOK. I would be happy to work with Ms. Trottenberg and 

the DOT. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Let us see what we can do to hurry it along. 

I take your point about the timing issues on—— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. It is very important. I know this is a problem 

we had with the hours of service issue. And, again, it was a situation where the farmers were in the fields right now. This has to 

be done immediately, otherwise you are going to lose a whole planting season and these folks are going to be in a situation that is 

going to be cross-wise with what they want to try and do here. 

And remember, farming is a small business. These folks are business people who are trying to make a living and do the right thing 

as well. 

And I am curious, whenever the rule was proposed, did you go 

back to the congressional statements that were made during the 

debate on this bill and use that as a guideline for the intent of 

what this rule was supposed to—whenever this was put into law? 

Did you go back and review that so that you understood the intent 

of how this was supposed to be handled? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. I mean, when we do rulemaking like 

this, we do go back and look at congressional intent. I think here 

clearly, you know, I think we would admit we didn’t get it right 

and, you know, we are trying to fix it as quickly as possible. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. Well, that is kind of curious, because 

I know this is what Mr. Lankford of Oklahoma, and he was representing the Panhandle and using that as an example of the 150 

air miles, because obviously looking at Oklahoma, it has got just, 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

15 

you know, a sliver of land out there. So obviously the intent was 

to be able to go across State lines, so I have a hard time understanding how this could happen. 

Did you contact the Farm Bureau at all with regards to making 

this rule before the rule was implemented? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. I mean, I can check with—I believe we 

did contact the Farm Bureau. But, look, obviously, you know, I 

think we recognize here we made some mistakes, we need to fix 

them. And I take your point, we need do it expeditiously. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Okay. I appreciate that. With that, again, I 

follow up on Chairman Graves’s comment a minute ago, I am kind 

of curious as well, you know, we are talking about working across 

agencies here. Did you contact the Department of Agriculture and 

find out what kind of impact this is going to have whenever you 

put this rule out? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I am looking over at the staff to see. I presume we did. I think we usually are pretty—— 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Ms. Cook, do you know? 

Ms. COOK. No, sir. I would have no reason to know. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I think on these types of rules, we are in pretty regular communication with USDA. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Hmm. And USDA didn’t throw a fit over this 

one? 

Ms. COOK. I didn’t observe any fits being thrown. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Well, I hope you do next time. 

Ms. COOK. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Because I am going to throw one here if we 

don’t get this changed, because this is a really big deal to lots and 

lots of farmers around the country. And as you well know now, 

Farm Bureaus are interested in this, all the ag groups are interested in this. This is a really, really big deal. So I appreciate your 

looking into it and we will look forward to working with your agency. Thank you very much for your time. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman GRAVES. Ms. Chu. 

Ms. CHU. Yes. Ms. Hulit, I am interested in the access to capital 

for small businesses. And you stated that you were streamlining 

the paperwork burdens for the 504 and 7(a) loan programs. To 

what extent do you predict that these changes to the paperwork 

will reduce the regulatory burden hours for small business, and 

will there be an increase of lending to small businesses as a result 

of these changes? 

Ms. HULIT. Certainly. As I mentioned in my testimony, we do expect a significant decrease in the burden hours, but we do expect 

an increase in availability of capital and increase in our loans. We 

project about 47,000 loans over a 5-year period will occur as a result of these changes, resulting in about $30 billion in additional 

financing, supporting about half a million jobs over the 5-year period. 

Ms. CHU. And how have you reduced the regulatory burden for 

these small businesses? 

Ms. HULIT. Well, the two key areas are the personal resources 

task and the affiliation requirements, and those are significant paperwork burdens that are required to demonstrate a small business 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

16 

is a small business. The affiliation rule, for example, is the same 

rule, the demonstration requirements for government contracting 

apply to the loan programs, which is a disincentive for making an 

application through our 504 loan program. We have seen a voluminous amount of tax returns and financial statements needed to 

demonstrate that they are not affiliated with a larger company, so 

we streamlined the affiliation rule to mirror what we did in the 

SBIC program. 

Ms. CHU. And how did you happen to focus in on these? Did your 

agency work with lenders and small businesses in coming up with 

these new requirements? 

Ms. HULIT. Thank you for asking. We have conducted extensive 

outreach. We conducted over 120 roundtables with small businesses across the country over a 1-year period to hear what were 

the most complicated factors about our loan programs and what 

they would like to see changed. 

Additionally, we worked with NADCO, the trade association for 

the CDC community over a 6-month process. We called our Reinvigoration Committee to get their priority list on what would be 

most impactful, both statutorily, regulatorially, as well as our SOP 

changes to make the program more user friendly. So we had a lot 

of outreach. 

And these two changes, the personal resources test and the affiliation test, were the number one and number two priority changes 

that were identified. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. 

Ms. HULIT. You are welcome. 

Ms. CHU. Ms. Trottenberg, I wanted to commend the Department 

of Transportation for your efforts in implementing the President’s 

Executive order. I have no doubt that the extensive regulatory review that your agency conducted was very time consuming and 

labor intensive. And like DOT, all agencies face a tradeoff in allocating their limited resources and conducting regulatory reviews as 

other mission critical activities. 

From your experiences, what would you consider the most effective way to conduct regulatory reviews and ensure that the agency 

is getting the greatest net benefit from these reviews without utilizing resources that would be better used in other activities? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. Thank you, Congresswoman. And I 

think one of the things we are trying to do a better job of, and I 

hear some of the members on this Committee having concerns 

about it, finding new ways to do better outreach to the public, to 

small businesses, to all the interested stakeholders. And there are 

a lot of new technologies out there. Federal agencies are—I mean, 

there is a CIO here, but we are often a little lumbering when it 

comes to adopting the latest technologies and using social media, 

but in terms of our outreach now and the regulatory process and 

in all the other things we are doing, we are really trying to improve 

on that score. And I think you can reach a lot more people, we are 

trying to use a lot more online tools, dialogues, webinars, you name 

it, where we can get a lot more input and reach people and businesses all over the country, but, you know, potentially reduce costs 

by not having to fly us or fly them all over the place. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

17 

So I think there is a lot we are trying to do there and I think 

it is really yielding some good results. When we put out things for 

discussion and comment, we can now get thousands of people engaging in live debates where they can go back and forth online, and 

it is producing some really great results. 

Ms. CHU. And would anybody else on the panel want to respond? 

Ms. HULIT. I would just like to say as well, in addition to the outreach that we have done across the country, not just on the capital 

access side, but our other departments in the agency, we have gotten a lot of personal feedback, but our social media tools have been 

critical. We have a much more enhanced interactive ability to communicate with small business borrowers. We have the hits on our 

website are significant, as well as through, you know, Facebook, 

Twitter, et cetera, we get our message out. 

Ms. COOK. USDA is blessed with a network of almost 3,000 local 

offices, and our employees are going to the grocery store, they are 

going to church, they are sitting at Little League games, the very 

people that they are working with, so we have had an excellent 

network for getting customer feedback for a long time. 

In addition, though, the advent of social media has just really 

taken off for us in ways that, frankly, my office had not anticipated. Now in my current role, the thing that keeps me up most 

at night is the constant demand for more network bandwidth to accommodate social media. And, you know, I see no end to that. It 

is the thing that we are working on the most every single day in 

the CIO’s office. 

Ms. CHU. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Schweikert. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You actually just said something that has completely changed my 

direction of the question. And forgive me if I mispronounce. Is it 

Hullett? 

Ms. HULIT. Hulit. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Hulit. Okay. Sorry. 

Ms. HULIT. Hulit. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. It always helps if I actually put these on, because I can’t actually read any of the name plates from here. 

First of all, for SBA, standard operating procedure manual, how 

big is it? 

Ms. HULIT. Hefty. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And mechanically when you have done sort of 

these reviews, sort of the mechanics and duplication and sort of the 

bureaucratic mechanics, is that one of the things you really spend 

time delving into, saying, this is our standard operating procedure? 

Ms. HULIT. Yes. As a matter of fact, we are in the process of updating our 50.10.5 SOP, which is our loan origination SOP, our 

loan servicing origination and oversight. And what we are trying 

to do there is really simplify and streamline the SOP, make it 

much more user friendly. I can attest to the fact that, coming from 

a lending environment where our credit policy manuals are pretty 

hefty too, there is content that needs to be there, but it needs to 

be presented in a way that is user friendly, and we are working 

on that. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

18 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, if I remembered your resume, you had 

been a mid market lender at one point. 

Ms. HULIT. Correct. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. So you have had this sort of experience with 

here is our standard—or here is—actually, you refer to it, or your 

agency refers to it as standard operating procedure. I assume you 

also mean best practices, because as you know, sometimes best 

practices, saying we do it in this format, don’t have to be nearly 

as specific, you know, in line-by-line detail. 

Ms. HULIT. I guess I am not sure where you are going with that. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I am trying to understand, as you go back and 

are reviewing your standard operating procedures, does it really 

have to be, as you call it, hefty? 

Ms. HULIT. I think it can be improved, as I said. And we are 

working on improving it and getting more clarity to our lending 

partners so they understand what the expectations are without 

having to go through volumes of paperwork. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And now to the point where your previous testimony sort of changed where I was going to go with this, are you 

using your social media platform to help you refine that and make 

it simpler and easier to understand? 

Ms. HULIT. Our SOP is a available through our sba.gov website 

and the lender portal that our lenders utilize for—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. You have to have a really big bandwidth to be 

able to download it all. 

Ms. HULIT. They don’t need to download it all. They can go to 

sections that are pertinent to their activities. 

We also obviously, we have about 90 percent of our loan applications are submitted electronically through our e-tran system. So we 

have several initiatives, not just what we are doing currently, for 

electronic application for our loans, but we have a process called 

SBA One, which is in the President’s 2014 budget, which will 

streamline and make electronic the application process from the 

borrower’s experience, the lender, the lender to the agency and for 

our oversight. So we have an initiative that is underway to use 

technology to make our SOP and our process a lot more streamlined. 

But your concern about the depth of our SOP, yes, there is room 

to improve not only what we are trying to communicate in the SOP 

in terms of direction to our lending partners, but also how it is presented. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. And that goal is simplification? 

Ms. HULIT. Absolutely. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Because I have had the pleasure about a 

month or two ago sitting down with a number of my SBA lenders 

in Arizona, and they have had good relations with sort of the regional offices, but there is a sense of frustration that things change, 

and the notification process back to them, and often they are filling 

it out the way they know how, and then they get a rejection saying, 

oh, you missed something, we changed that a month ago. 

Ms. HULIT. Uh-huh. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Fair criticism? 

Ms. HULIT. Fair criticism. Our changes are published both electronically, they are available on our website, and our district offices 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

19 

should be communicating that, and they are training with their 

lending partners as well, but there is always room for improved 

communications. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Well, Mr. Chairman, just sort of a final comment. The old saying, I believe it had something to do with there 

is two ways to keep people from knowing something: don’t tell 

them, or tell them so much they are overwhelmed. And as you say, 

when something is hefty and certain changes happen into it, it is 

often going to slip through the cracks. So I hope that is—because 

that was the one real frustration I was getting from my lenders, 

is we need a simplified way to know we need to change how we 

put data on this line or the mechanics. 

Ms. HULIT. I would like to say that exactly the feedback that you 

are talking about is precisely what we are incorporating into what 

we are trying to do in our next version of the SOP, which is to simplify our programs and simplify the SOP as well. So that feedback 

has been heard loud and clear in the agency. It is an ongoing process and we are working in that direction. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I appreciate it. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Yield back. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Schrader. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Well, it all sounds very complicated to this little country horse 

veterinarian still, so I hope my other small business colleagues can 

find their way through the processes that you all have out there. 

Very specifically, I guess, Ms. Cook, I also serve on the Ag Committee, and there has been a lot of discussion by the chairman and 

the ranking member both of the challenges USDA faces with technology. Indications were, at least a year or two ago, that we are 

still primarily a cobol-based system and cloud computing, and desktop technology was not really there yet in USDA. Is that still an 

accurate view of USDA? 

Ms. COOK. Again, USDA is a collection of 19 different agencies 

and 10 staff offices, each of which get their own appropriations for 

things like IT, and we have haves and we have have nots. 

I don’t think I can overemphasize the significance of MIDAS 

coming out. That is 10 years in the making. Getting that—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. But the backbone of USDA is still cobol-based 

technology? 

Ms. COOK. The agencies that I came from, the rural development 

agencies, many of our programs are still mainframe cobol-based. 

Mr. SCHRADER. You have been hit by the sequester, like every 

other agency out there, some $2 billion or whatever. Given the different opportunities you have had and some of the work like 

MIDAS, what role has technology played hopefully in helping you 

still deliver good service with these tough, tough reductions? 

Ms. COOK. You know, technology has been the promise for a long 

time in USDA. We have seen the number of offices reduced, we 

have seen the number of staff reduced. We have brought technology 

to the extent funds allowed. We just last year completed the process of upgrading servers and routers in those local offices—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. Great. 

Ms. COOK.—really for the first time since 2000, 2001. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

20 

Mr. SCHRADER. Do you have an ongoing account deferred maintenance, our how ever you want to term it account, to help upgrade 

over time? 

Ms. COOK. We do for the field-based agencies, for the Farm Service agencies, Natural Resources, Conservation Service, and Rural 

Development. 

Mr. SCHRADER. But not so much the rest, so—— 

Ms. COOK. Not so much the rest. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Okay. New program, micro loan program. How is 

that working? It sounds like you are getting some real good applications. 

Ms. COOK. Yeah. The Farm Service Agency has initiated a new 

micro lending program specifically to be more risk based in their 

lending, let them serve smaller producers for whom that $15,000 

or $20,000 for even a used tractor or a piece of equipment makes 

all the difference in being able to stay in operation or not. It is 

going very well. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Very good. Is there an increase in applications? 

It is a fairly new program. 

Ms. COOK. It is a fairly new program, but the outreach has been 

good. FSA also enjoys a network of State and regional offices, local 

offices that have been providing outreach to producers. 

Mr. SCHRADER. I appreciate that. There are a lot of small farmers. They are not all huge agribusinesses out there, and—— 

Ms. COOK. No, they are not. Most farmers actually have other 

sources of income in addition to their farm income. And, you know, 

keeping them on the land and in their community has been one of 

or objectives since the Lincoln administration. 

Mr. SCHRADER. I guess the last question for me would be for all 

three of you. We have focused on rules and regulations that your 

agencies put out, and you are reviewing those and deciding which 

are perhaps appropriate in this environment and which are not. 

How about looking at what we tell you to do, the statutory guidelines? And I know it is always tough to take on the egos here in 

Congress, but it would be perhaps easier to deal with the regulations if you are able to get rid of some of the laws that we pass, 

all in earnestness and maybe with good intent, maybe appropriate 

20, 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago, but in today’s transportation, small 

business and agricultural systems really don’t apply. 

Has there been any attempt as you have gone through the President’s directive and your own internal workings to look at some of 

the laws and statutes that really perhaps take more time than they 

are actually worth, and maybe give this Committee and other Committees in Congress some guidance about, could you consider reviewing, however politically correct you want to be, consider reviewing some of these brilliant ideas you had to the past? 

Let’s start with you, Ms. Cook. 

Ms. COOK. Okay. Well, as you know, USDA gets much of its statutory authority in 4 to 5-year increments through the periodic enactment of what is called a Farm Bill, generically. We are overdue—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. Yep. 

Ms. COOK.—by a year, and so part of our regulatory review process—— 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

21 

Mr. SCHRADER. We will be fixing that in 2 weeks. 

Ms. COOK. Cool. 

Part of our regulatory review process was indeed looking at anticipated statutory changes in what would have been the 2012 

Food, Farm and Jobs Bill—— 

Mr. SCHRADER. Okay. 

Ms. COOK.—to see whether there might be areas to streamline 

regulations by first streamlining legislation. And to give you just 

one example out of Rural Development, because I lived it for 11 

years in the field and here in D.C., we have currently 11 different 

statutory definitions of the term ‘‘eligible rural area,’’ and as you 

are trying to streamline your application processes and, you know, 

even be able to put up one map on the website that says this is 

rural, this isn’t, we can’t do that yet. And it confuses us, let alone 

the people that we serve sometimes trying to determine whether a 

particular project in a particular location is eligible for this program but not that program over there. And, you know, we can do 

better than we have been doing. 

Mr. SCHRADER. Well, my time has expired. I don’t want to take 

a lot, but if you have other—if you could get those to my office, and 

Ms. Hulit and Ms. Trottenberg, get something like that to our office 

and maybe even the Committee as a whole, I would sure appreciate 

that, so we can, you know, do a real introspective review. 

And I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Collins. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

To start with, I will share my bias. I have spent 35 years as a 

small business owner. I think we have too many regulations. So 

that is a bias, so I will start with that. 

I am just curious, you know, when you come to work and use the 

word ‘‘vision,’’ do you think we have just the right number of regulations, do you think we have too many regulations, or do you think 

we need more regulations, kind of as a start maybe for a little give 

and take here. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I am happy to jump into that. And I think I 

will agree with you, we have too many, but I think I—I think it 

is worth—and actually it goes a bit to the previous gentleman’s 

question about why we sort of find ourselves where we are. 

I think at DOT when we were preparing for this hearing, I 

asked, well, where do all our regulations comes from? The majority 

of them come from the authorizing committees of Congress. You 

know, I will give you a good example. MAP-21, we just had an authorization bill passed in transportation last year. It was a very 

popular bill, passed with bipartisan majorities in the House and 

Senate, President signed it. It has 100 new legislative mandates for 

DOT, which we estimate will incur 50 to 60 new rulemakings, half 

of which will be done by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. 

Mr. COLLINS. Not to cut you off, but I am just curious. Ms. Hulit. 

Ms. HULIT. I would agree. My—— 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. I’m just trying to set the stage. 

Ms. HULIT. Yes. Certainly. 

Mr. COLLINS. Ms. Cook? 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

22 

Ms. COOK. I would agree, although for us it is more qualitative 

than quantitative. 

Mr. COLLINS. All right. So if we come to work, and we all know 

and small business knows we have too many, and I will be audacious enough to say 50 percent too many, 25 percent, a really big 

number. And if we agree there is too many, is there an attempt by 

any of the agencies to actually numerically reduce the number, like 

to come to work and say today we are going to delete 10, or this 

week we are going to delete 100 or this month 1,000, and do you 

track it? Do you know, for instance, over the last year, how many 

new regulations have gone in? I mean, that is a specific number. 

And how many, if any, you have deleted? So has the number gone 

up, down, or stayed the same? And if our goal is, and we all agree 

we have too many, I would like to think every month somebody 

should say, we just introduced 100 new regulations and we deleted 

120, so net negative 20, we are getting where we need to go. Does 

that thought process even exist within your agency or does anyone 

track it or not? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I mean, I think the thought process exists to 

see if there are ones that we can eliminate, but again, most of our 

regulations are statutory. 

Mr. COLLINS. No. I hear that, but—— 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. They come from Congress or they come 

from—— 

Mr. COLLINS. No. I hear that. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG.—the NTSB or GAO has made. So I—— 

Mr. COLLINS. In my world, that is defending the fact that they 

keep growing. 

Ms. Hulit? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. It is not defending it, but it is just the agency 

can’t unilaterally undo a congressional mandate. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. I call it defense, but go ahead. Ms. Hulit. 

Ms. HULIT. I would agree with Ms. Trottenberg. It sounds easier 

than it is. We are in the process of making some simple changes 

to our loan programs, it has taken us over a year. It is very challenging. 

Mr. COLLINS. Ms. Cook? 

Ms. COOK. I would look at the diversity of the communities that 

we serve. I don’t know that a total number really gives you, again, 

a qualitative view at whether life is better or worse for a farm or 

ranch, compared to a meat packing plant, compared to an energy 

company, compared to a school providing school breakfast to know 

that you have made life better or worse. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I guess what I will do—I kind of pretty much 

anticipated this. And I just would give you my observation. If we 

all agree, and we did, we have too many regulations, the way to 

have fewer is to measure where we are and to measure it quantitatively, daily, weekly, monthly, to have a report, but also to have 

a process that would say our goal here is to reduce it, and pick a 

number, you know, pick some audacious number, we want to cut 

10 percent of our regulations. How many is that? Is it 1,000, is it 

5,000? If you don’t measure it, if you don’t hold yourself accountable, but are defensive to say Congress in fact by passing laws is 

creating more and more regulations, we are never going to get 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

23 

where we all started out agreeing. We have too many regulations. 

You have to measure it. You have to hold yourself accountable. And 

I would hope maybe you could take that back and at some point, 

if I said what is the data, did we go up, did we go down, did we 

stay the same, you could snap your fingers and that number would 

come out, because we are never going to get a reduction of regulations if that is not one of the reasons we come to work every day. 

Just don’t know if you will agree or disagree. I got 20 seconds. Do 

agree or disagree that is reasonable? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. I mean, I understand your approach. Again, 

I feel like the challenge we face—I mean, I mentioned MAP-21. 

Mr. COLLINS. So you disagree. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. You know, we didn’t write them. 

Mr. COLLINS. Ms. Hulit? 

Ms. HULIT. I don’t think I can answer that question as simply 

as it is stated. 

Mr. COLLINS. Okay. It was kind of a yes-no, but go ahead, Ms. 

Cook. 

Ms. COOK. Speaking from my own personal experience, when we 

tried this in the 1990s a lot of things moved out of regulation, 

where there was public comment and transparency, and into the 

very handbooks and other things we have been talking about that 

don’t have opportunities for public comment and don’t necessarily 

have transparency. So, again, I am not sure a total number of reduction actually gives you a better result at the end. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I thank you all for your—I know my time is 

up, but I would say I think we need more of a focus on reducing 

regulations, and I am disappointed somewhat to hear that is clearly not likely to happen. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Rice. 

Mr. RICE. Thank you, sir. 

I am real concerned about American competitiveness. And I have 

got some graphs and figures here that show that, you know, in fact 

regulations have just ballooned in the last 4 years, growing by, you 

know, 30, 40 percent. And I see reports here from CBO that the 

regulatory requirement complying with it costs small businesses 

over $10,000 a year. And I have watched over decades, you know, 

we lose millions of American jobs every year. We blame people for 

outsourcing, but in fact—you know, and you say it is because of low 

wages, and I am sure some of that is true, but I also am convinced 

that the second highest reason is because of our regulatory framework. Complying with that is too expensive, too time-consuming 

and it forces businesses overseas. And I don’t think we take seriously enough the threat that this regulatory framework is to our 

economy and, in fact, the very sovereignty of this country. You 

know, I serve on the T and I Committee, Transportation and Infrastructure, and the scariest thing I have heard since I have been in 

Congress is that the Port of Miami has been trying to get Federal 

approval to dredge their own port with their own money for 14 

years. You know, that goes to the very competitiveness of our country, goes to the core of our national security. And if we don’t take 

this seriously and do something about it, I don’t see—you know, it 

is just going to get worse and worse and worse. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

24 

So my plea, my very strong and sincere request is that we take 

this extremely seriously and we hit the reset button. You know, I 

hear people—I am a CPA and a tax lawyer. I hear people talking 

all the time about zero-based budgeting, that we should start from 

zero every year. Actually, I am less concerned about that than I am 

about zero-based regulation. Maybe we should just throw this stuff 

out and start over again, because truly, if it takes 14 years to get 

that kind of approval—we are working on trying to get a permit 

for I-73 in South Carolina, we have been working for 6 years now, 

and the end is not in sight. You know, we have very limited dollars 

for infrastructure investment. It is so hard to find those dollars, yet 

we spend such a large percentage of those very limited dollars on 

complying with, you know, this enormous regulatory structure. 

I know I am picking on you in transportation. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. And, Congressman, listen, I think we agree 

very much that the permitting process in transportation takes way 

too long. USDOT has been putting a lot of effort into that, as has 

the administration. Speaking of the question of agencies working 

together, we have a whole cross-agency effort to try and improve 

the permitting time. And we agree port dredging takes way, way 

too long. But, again, I guess I have to reiterate, if you wanted to 

start all over again, again, many—all of the regulatory framework 

is statutory. It does—I mean, not to say agencies don’t have a role, 

but much of what we do is mandated by Congress, and so if we 

wanted to peel it away, we would need do that with you. 

Mr. RICE. Well, here I come to Congress, I have been here for 4 

months, I am a tax lawyer. What I need is your suggestions, because I want to know where we start in reducing this red tape and 

getting these approvals for the Port of Miami. You know, there is 

two ports on the East Coast that are going to be able to take these 

post-Panama ships. Two. If we started digging today—— 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. A lot more argue that they will. 

Mr. RICE. If we started digging today, they wouldn’t be ready. 

We have got Baltimore and we have got Norfolk. Florida wants 

one. What is it going to take to get the approval? You know, 

Charleston, Savannah. I mean, go down—this is at the very 

heart—this will absolutely destroy millions of American jobs. 

We had the representative of Maersk Shipping Line, the largest 

shipper in the world, was in our subcommittee last week, or 2 

weeks ago. He said they were building transfer stations in the Caribbean so they wouldn’t have to deal with the United States Government. It wasn’t that long ago people would come here because 

they wanted to deal with us versus other people. Now it is reversed. 

We have to take the burden off. We have got to reduce this pile 

of regulation. We have got to get very serious about it. And it is 

not happening. I mean, despite your earnest effort, and I am sure 

they are earnest efforts, these reports that I have got here show 

in fact the regulatory burden is growing at an ever-increasing pace, 

faster than it ever has. So we have got to find a solution. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman GRAVES. Ms. Clarke. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

25 

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I thank 

the ranking member in absentia. I understand she will be rejoining 

us shortly. 

I would like to also thank our witnesses for their testimony 

today. And my question is for Ms. Trottenberg. Section 610 of the 

Regulatory Flexibility Act already requires agencies to review regulations within 10 years of their adoption for their impact on small 

businesses. Do you believe that Executive Order 13563 has basically made Section 610 reviews unnecessary? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. No, I don’t think they are unnecessary. And, 

again, at DOT, as I mentioned in my testimony, we have been 

doing a regular regulatory review for 35 years and we have that 

10-year cycle, but obviously the President’s Executive order, I will 

admit they put a new focus in our agency and brought together 

really dozens of experts throughout all our modal administrations 

to really take a fresh look and to again engage I think in a very 

robust process of public outreach, outreach to businesses, outreach 

to stakeholder groups. And we got—you know, again, we got dozens 

and dozens of creative ideas, and now we are tracking them on this 

report that we are putting out every year. 

Ms. CLARKE. And would the other witnesses agree or do you have 

a different take on the comparative nature, assuming that some of 

it may be duplicative? What is your take on it? Ms. Cook, Ms. 

Hulit? 

Ms. COOK. Section 610 of the Regulatory Review Act does provide 

the criteria that we used in responding to the Executive order, so 

one informed to the other rather than duplicated. 

Ms. HULIT. I would agree. And as a small agency, we have constant contact with our client base and we are constantly looking at 

our regulations and seeing what we can do to be more streamlined. 

Ms. CLARKE. Mr. Chairman, that is basically it for me. I yield 

back the balance of my time. 

Chairman GRAVES. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Huelskamp. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I regret I only have I guess 5 minutes for a pretty important 

topic. I sure wish someone was here from the EPA and/or the IRS. 

That would probably be number one and two for complaints, but 

the USDA is here, and I appreciate that. I want to note particular 

regulatory issues that I did bring up with the Secretary nearly 2 

years ago. Under RUS apparently there is an effort underway to 

limit construction of a power plant in my district because USDA 

would like to have some major environmental reviews because they 

happened own other property on the site. Are you aware of this situation in western Kansas, and what has the Secretary done to 

allow this project to go forward and create hundreds and hundreds 

of new jobs? 

Ms. COOK. Congressman, I am not aware of this particular issue, 

so let us back get back to you. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. I appreciate that. It would be related to 

the Sunflower power plant. 

A second issue, which actually brings up the—has had the most 

constituent complaints over the last 2 years for my office, and that 

would be your proposed changes and mandates to the school lunch 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

26 

program. And we are well aware that was coming, because the 

folks that run those programs said it is going to be a major disaster, and it has turned out to be the case. Plenty of evidence that 

good intentions don’t always work, especially when you are trying 

to mandate from Washington what should happen in 100,000 

school districts. 

And I have looked at the legislation that did pass, and I don’t 

believe it required restrictions, for example, on how much fruits 

and vegetables a school district could actually serve. Can you explain how the USDA reached a decision that they wanted to limit 

access to fruits and vegetables in the school lunch menu? 

Ms. COOK. No. So let us get back to you on that as well. You 

know, I am familiar the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, but I 

would be reluctant to try to answer that particular question. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Okay. And a second one to follow up on that 

would be related. Can you explain why the USDA decided to limit 

access to meats and dairy in that same particular program? I presume you don’t have an answer to that, but the third one and a 

follow-up would be, for many of my rural school districts, kindergartners and seniors in high school actually go through the same 

service line in these small districts. Under your regulations, the 

limits placed on the kindergartners as far as what they can be 

served in terms of calorie limits are the same ones placed on an 

18-year-old. I would like a response from the USDA of exactly why 

that actually makes sense. And those are three of those areas. 

An issue for DOT I would like to ask about that has been coming 

up particularly for those in the harvest business, I am a farmer 

myself, but the transportation of modern farm equipment that 

might exceed the normal lengths for moving equipment, moving 

across roads and—is there any update on what DOT is trying to 

do to make sure we meet the 21st century requirements in modern 

agriculture? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. MAP-21, again, the transportation bill 

that Congress passed last year has actually tasked us with doing 

a very comprehensive new look at all the truck size and weight 

issues, and actually we have that process underway. We are going 

to be doing outreach and obviously reaching out to the agricultural 

community, the business community, truckers, you name it. So we 

are hoping, yes, to take a look at how we—you know, we have a 

patchwork system with different State regulations overlaid with 

Federal law, and we are going to try and look at, you know, what 

might be a 21st century solution to some of those questions. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. Do you think we are going to actually make 

progress on that? I wanted stronger language in there. I don’t 

think Congress has been too specific on that, but curious to what 

you actually think will occur out of that. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Well, I hate to prejudge it, because I have to 

say, you know, we have talked about some contentious issues 

today, and this one might be the most contentious that we face in 

transportation. As you are probably aware, there are strong feelings on all sides. And, again, I know there were a lot of folks in 

Congress who were hoping to get actual legislative language telling 

us what to do, and the best they could agree upon is to have us 

study it. You know, we are going to do a really thorough job. We 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

27 

are well aware of the desire in the agricultural community and the 

business community to try and, you know, up truck size and weight 

in different places. We also have a very, very strong safety advocacy community, as you know, who feels very strongly that we 

shouldn’t. And, you know, again, just as we try and do in our rulemaking, I hope we are going to get good public input and use good 

science and good economics to try and come up with some good solutions. 

Mr. HUELSKAMP. I look forward to that. 

And lastly for the USDA, if we could have some comments on the 

proposed listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken. Again, that is another agency. What is frustrating to me is, you know, my farmers 

and ranchers and oil and gas folks, they could care less which 

agency it is, all they know is it is coming from Washington and 

they recognize the listing of this Lesser Prairie Chicken will have 

a significant impact on the future of agriculture in western Kansas 

and five other States. And I haven’t seen any comments from the 

USDA about this, because it is another agency. So I look forward 

to if the Secretary could step up and defend agriculture, as hopefully I believe I will expect him to do. 

So I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman GRAVES. Mr. Tipton. 

Mr. TIPTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I would like to echo my colleague’s comments in regards to 

Greater Sage Grouse and the Prairie Chicken. We have got the 

overlapping regulatory issues that are certainly coming in, and we 

would like to hear that as well. It is of great concern. 

I would like to thank our panelists for taking the time to be able 

to be here today. And all of your respective agencies did comply 

with the Regulatory Flexibility Act and consider the potential negative effects that new regulations have on businesses? We can just 

go down the line. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. We certainly do. And we also try and consider 

very much the cumulative effect that potential rules and regulations have. It is a very big part of our review process, and we really 

do try and do the math on it and make sure that we are reducing 

the burdens as best we can. 

Mr. TIPTON. Good. Ms. Hulit? 

Ms. HULIT. I would say as well we take it very seriously. We 

have the Office of Advocacy within the SBA. We work very closely 

with the Office of Advocacy of what they are hearing and inform 

our decisions. 

Mr. TIPTON. Ms. Cook? 

Ms. COOK. Yeah. I would agree with that. We are looking on the 

regulatory side both at making it easier to find the rules and comply with the rules through electronic permitting and certification. 

We are also trying to reduce the paperwork burden for our financial and technical assistance programs as well. 

Mr. TIPTON. Great. So we have unanimous agreement that, you 

know, we are striving to be able to reduce that. 

And I would like to go back to some of the previous questions 

that have been asked. We have the evidence that it has come to 

this Committee that we are spending $10,585 per employee for 

small businesses to be able to comply. I understand that we have 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

28 

the 10-year review process, we have the Executive order from the 

President. And does this remind you a little bit of being on a treadmill? We run in place, we don’t really reduce any regulations? 

Can you point to me, going to the point of the hefty manuals as 

an example, and I am not trying to be mean spirited on that, because you have to try and comply, but how many rules, how many 

regulations over the last decade have we pulled back compared to 

how many we have added? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. I admit, I think we have pulled back 

very few. And, again, as I was saying, you know, one of our agencies, I think one that gives this Committee some frustration, last 

year Congress has tasked them with another, I think it is about 

30 new rulemakings. So even if we could pull a couple back, there 

is no question in terms of the net number, it is increasing. But, you 

know, I guess my plea would be, the agencies have their role to 

play, but Congress, the NTSB, there are a lot of different entities 

involved in sort of the rulemaking structure that we have in place. 

It is not just something agencies can unilaterally repair. 

Mr. TIPTON. Let me ask just kind of a general question that 

many of us have discussed here. Would it be useful before your 

rules go final to bring them back to the authoritative committees 

for approval? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Well, that is a good question. 

Mr. TIPTON. Would you agree to that? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. It is probably not up to me to agree to it. I 

think that is something Congress could tell us to do any time they 

would like to. 

Mr. TIPTON. Director Jackson of the EPA just told me no. She 

didn’t want to be able to come back. 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Oh. 

Mr. TIPTON. Don’t you think, because you are doing interpretation effectively of legislative intent—— 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Correct. 

Mr. TIPTON.—which may lead the agencies to be making determinations which in fact may not comply with legislative intent, so 

wouldn’t it be a good commonsense proposal to be able to bring 

those back to the Committees and say, we agree with you or we 

disagree with you in these areas, to be able to help you achieve the 

goal that you are aspiring to? 

Ms. TROTTENBERG. Yeah. And I would have only two thoughts on 

that. I mean, one is as we do our rulemakings, we are involved in 

the Administrative Procedures Act, which, again, is a lot of congressionally-mandated steps, so in terms of when we can go back 

to Congress and what you can tell us to do, believe us or not, I 

would like to consult the legislative framework that we work 

under. 

I would also say that we frequently in the agencies go back to 

Congress to try and get congressional intent. I would point out, 

let’s look now that we have a divided Congress, sometimes congressional intent can be not as easy to divine as you might hope. And, 

you know, this Committee is charged with reducing—you know, 

one of the things you are looking at is reducing regulatory burdens 

on small businesses. Our authorizing committees, who are the ones 

who give us a lot of our regulations, they are meanwhile very much 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

29 

urging us to hurry up and start doing these rulemakings. So sometimes Congressional intent can be complicated, even contradictory. 

But I understand the spirit of, you know, what you wish we could 

do, which is in the end produce a product that those in Congress 

who wanted us to produce it feel achieve their ends. 

Mr. TIPTON. Well, one, we can give you a little bit of insight, or 

at least from my perspective. We had had the rules that were coming out of the Department of Transportation, out of the EPA in 

terms of light trucks, which is going to be another, what, $8.8 billion in terms of costs that are going to be associated. This is harmful when we are struggling to be able to create jobs. And the goal, 

in my sense, right now when we have massive unemployment in 

rural America, we have a struggling economy with only pockets of 

prosperity in this Nation right now, it is not to add on more burden, more regulatory authority, but to be reducing this, to unleash 

American entrepreneurialism. 

And my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank 

you, ladies. 

Chairman GRAVES. Any other questions? 

Seeing none, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here 

today. And we will continue to monitor agency efforts to review existing regulations, and we would just ask that the agencies, all the 

agencies renew their efforts to identify regulations that affect small 

businesses and consider ways to reduce burdens. 

And with that, I would ask unanimous consent that all members 

have 5 legislative days to submit statements, supporting materials 

for the record. Without objection, that is so ordered. And with that, 

the hearing is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

30 

A P P E N D I X 

STATEMENT OF 

POLLY TROTTENBERG 

UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLICY 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Agency Progress Implementing 

Executive Order 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory 

Review and 

Executive Order 13610, Identifying and Reducing Regulatory 

Burdens 

MAY 8, 2013 

Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Vela ́zquez, and Members of 

the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the 

subject of agency progress implementing President Obama’s Executive Order (EO) 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review, and EO 13610, Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to present the work of the U.S. 

Department of Transportation (DOT), under the leadership of Secretary Ray LaHood, in the area of regulatory reform and what our 

Agency is doing to reduce the burdens and costs of compliance for 

small businesses. 

Through our ongoing review and revision of DOT’s rules and regulations under those two executive orders, we have been able to 

save American businesses significant time and money over the last 

two years, while continuing to improve safety throughout our Nation’s transportation system, reduce the environmental impacts of 

transportation, and provide important consumer protections for the 

traveling public. 

We are proud of the work we have done on behalf of the American people, and that the U.S. has one of the safest transportation 

systems in the world, but we know that we can always do better 

in the regulatory arena, and I thank the Committee for their interest. We hope to work with you to address the ongoing challenges 

we face. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

31 

DOT has, by some measures, one of the largest rulemaking responsibilities in the Federal Government. Some of its modes, like 

the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Federal Railroad 

Administration (FRA), and the Federal Transit Administration 

(FTA) combine regulatory duties with other programs such as infrastructure development; others, like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Federal Motor Carrier 

Safety Administration (FMCSA), and the Pipeline and Hazardous 

Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), focus primarily on safety regulations and enforcement. 

The rulemaking and enforcement environment is extremely important—done right, it helps to prevent crashes and save lives, 

mitigate environmental damage, reduce carbon emissions, and provide consumer protection in a cost-beneficial way. The regulatory 

process has produced some of DOT’s and the Obama Administration’s most important accomplishments, including raising Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, overhauling pilot 

rest requirements, improving pipeline, auto, bus and truck safety 

enforcement, and strengthening aviation consumer protections. 

And we have done so with robust public and private sector participation, the best science and economic modeling available, a commitment to using plain, understandable English, and seeking nonregulatory and pragmatic solutions that minimize burdens and 

costs for American businesses wherever we can. 

The regulatory process is incredibly detailed—building upon decades of legislative history—contentious, and often litigious, since it 

affects the operations and costs of the regulated industries, such as 

airlines and aircraft manufacturers, automobile manufacturers, 

commercial truck and bus operators, railroads, pipelines, and transit systems. 

And we know this Committee has a special charge to evaluate 

how our rules and regulations affect America’s small businesses. At 

DOT, we too are continuously mindful of the burdens small businesses we regulate can face. We constantly seek opportunities to 

reduce these burdens—as discussed later in my testimony—while 

advancing our statutory safety, environmental, and consumer protection missions. 

Congress itself plays a very large role in the regulatory area. 

While all of DOT’s regulatory agenda is authorized by statute, a 

large portion of it is not self-generated but is either specifically 

statutorily-mandated by Congress or in direct response to recommendations of the National Transportation Safety Board 

(NTSB), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) or the Inspector General (IG). The vast majority of statutorily mandated 

regulations originate from regular authorizing legislation for our 

operating administrations. 

For example, last summer Congress reauthorized our Nation’s 

highway and transit programs in the ‘‘Moving Ahead for Progress 

in the 21st Century Act’’ or MAP–21. The bill, which passed with 

strong bipartisan support, contained approximately 100 statutory 

mandates for DOT, which we estimate will result in 50–60 separate 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

32 

1Proposed rulemaking entitled: ‘‘Inspection, Repair, and Maintenance; Driver-Vehicle Inspection Report: (RIN #2126–AB46). 2 Notification of statutory exemptions: ‘‘Statutory Amendments Affecting Transportation of Agricultural Commodities and Farm Supplies’’ http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-10-01/pdf/ 

2012-24106.pdf 

rulemakings in a two-year period of which over half are assigned 

to FMCSA. 

MAP–21’s statutorily mandated rulemakings cover areas that all 

of us would likely agree are important priorities—new safety responsibilities, especially in transit, pipelines and motor carriers, 

environmental streamlining to save project sponsors time and 

money, and moving to a more performance-based transportation 

system. But some of these rulemakings will add further complexity 

to our existing regulatory scheme and possibly burdens to small entities, while some we believe will streamline it. 

And we know that one of the most active areas of regulation has 

been under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 

which does have a large impact on the bus and trucking industry, 

particularly small and independent carriers, which are essential 

partners with DOT in moving people and goods throughout the 

country. 

To that end, we have been extremely proactive in our regulatory 

review efforts since the President’s signing of EOs 13563 and 

13610, with FMCSA leading the charge. One such effort is a proposal 1 under development to rescind the requirement that truck 

drivers submit, and trucking companies retain, burdensome paper 

driver-vehicle inspection reports when there are no actual vehicle 

defects found. 

FMCSA estimates that rescinding this requirement will save the 

trucking industry about $1.5 billion per year, without adversely affecting safety. The savings from each report is modest, but when 

you consider it provides almost daily savings for millions of drivers 

it has a large impact. 

Additionally, the Agency developed this proposal in response to 

a request from industry to rescind the requirement on a much 

smaller population of carriers. The Agency decided it was appropriate to seek public comment on a rulemaking proposal to apply 

this regulatory relief to a much larger segment of the motor carrier 

industry. Since many motor carrier operations are small businesses, this is precisely the type of regulatory review that provides 

a direct improvement to the bottom line of many small businesses. 

This rule is currently under internal review at DOT. 

FMCSA has also implemented key provisions in MAP–21 that reduce the regulatory burden on small farmers, by expanding an 

hours-of-service (HOS) exemption for farm-related operations during the planting and harvesting seasons as well as exemptions 

from other operating regulations for certain farmers. They published guidance on October 1 to ensure our State partners were 

aware of the regulatory relief provisions in MAP–21 so that farmers could take full advantage of the statutory exemptions.2 The 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

33 

3http://www.dot.gov/regulations/plain-language 

guidance was followed up by a final rule published in March of 

2013. 

Also, as directed by the Regulatory Flexibility Act, DOT routinely 

seeks out ways to reduce the effects of its regulations on small 

businesses. Two examples of this are (1) indexed hazardous materials carrier registration fees, which allow small businesses to pay 

a lower rate than their larger counterparts, that saved small businesses $54 million dollars last year and (2) allowances for small 

railroads to use abbreviated safety procedures, in recognition of the 

lower level of risk inherent in their operations. 

The President’s signing of EO 13563 and EO 13610 successfully 

institutionalized many of the regulatory practices that the Department has long embraced. In addition to our efforts under EO 13563 

and EO 13610, DOT has long recognized the importance of regularly reviewing its existing regulations to determine whether they 

need to be revised or revoked and has had a system in place to do 

so for almost 35 years. In order to carry out President Obama’s executive orders, the Department took swift action and developed an 

aggressive implementation plan seeking broad input from all our 

key stakeholder groups and the American public on our plan for 

identifying and reviewing existing rules that might be outmoded, 

ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome. 

Our results were encouraging. We held a Department-wide public 

meeting that had about 200 participants, and we received roughly 

150 comments as a result of our outreach, all of which were placed 

into a public docket for review. Commenters ranged from large industry and labor groups to State Departments of Transportation, to 

small businesses such as owner-operator motor carriers. The comments received from these groups were just as varied as the 

sources—ranging from detailed critiques of our prior regulatory 

analyses, to suggestions to improve the grant management process. 

In addition to the Department-wide public outreach, FMCSA recently tasked its Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee 

(MCSAC) to provide FMCSA with ideas and concepts to make its 

reviews under the Regulatory Flexibility Act more effective for both 

the Agency and the private sector. MCSAC provided its recommendations in April, and they suggest ways of increasing the 

level of public engagement to ensure we fully address the concerns 

of small businesses. 

We are also committed to using plain English so that small business owners and the general public can understand what we are 

proposing, understand our methods for estimating the costs, and 

understand how to respond to us in a way that allows us to consider other alternatives for addressing the safety challenge, at a 

lower cost. All of our proposed rules and communications with the 

public incorporate a robust effort to make sure they are understandable. Our guidance on this can be viewed at our plain language website.3

To make certain our rules are reviewed in accordance with these 

requirements, DOT publishes a plan listing all our regulations and 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

34 

4http://www.reginfo.gov/public/jsp/eAgenda/StaticContent/201210/Preamble—2100.html 5The report can be accessed at: http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/january-2013-dotrrr-report-final—0.pdf 6Proposed rulemaking entitled: ‘‘Electronic Signatures’’ (RIN# 2126–AB47). 

7 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled: ‘‘Hazardous Materials: Revision of Requirements for 

Fireworks Approvals’’ (RIN# 2120–AC41). 8 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking entitled: ‘‘Rules of Practice for Federally-Assisted Airport Enforcement Proceedings’’ (RIN# 2120–AJ97). 9Proposed rulemaking entitled: ‘‘Hours of Service Recordkeeping Amendments’’ (RIN# 2130– 

AC41). 

assigns each to a particular year for review over a 10-year period 4. 

We then update the plan each Fall, including brief reports on the 

progress made on the reviews. 

In addition to the motor carrier rules mentioned earlier, I would 

like to outline for you some specific rules that we identified in our 

most recent Retrospective Regulatory Review Report that may have 

implications for small businesses.5 That report lists 89 rulemaking 

actions that are underway in response to EO 13563, including at 

least 20 that will have a positive effect on small business. These 

include, among others, the following: 

• FMCSA will propose a rulemaking 6 concerning e-signatures that would amend various sections of the Federal Motor 

Carrier Safety Regulations to enable the use of e-signatures in 

support of electronic recordkeeping. This would save the industry millions of dollars each year by explicitly allowing electronic records and electronic signatures in place of the more 

burdensome paper records. 

• PHMSA is evaluating comments and developing a final 

rule 7 that would allow for the certification of fireworks by government-approved laboratories, similar to the process that the 

Consumer Product Safety Commission uses. It is intended to 

maintain the current level of safety in certification, but would 

greatly speed the process, freeing PHMSA’s resources from the 

certification process and saving money for the private sector 

through quicker certification decisions, potentially saving the 

industry up to $19 million per year. 

• FAA has proposed a rulemaking 8 to update, simplify and 

streamline rules of practice and procedure for filing and adjudicating complaints against airports, including small business 

complaints. It would improve efficiency by enabling parties to 

file submissions with the FAA electronically, and by incorporating modern business practices into how the FAA handles 

complaints. Small businesses, including general aviation operators and aviation service businesses who are often involved in 

complaints, would benefit from this rule because it would decrease time spent and volume of paper documents needed to 

process complaints by allowing parties to file electronically. 

• FRA is also developing a proposed rule 9 to take advantage 

of advancements in technology, which would allow small and 

commuter railroads to use electronic recordkeeping to maintain 

the records for review, without submitting them to FRA, which 

would reduce recordkeeping burdens by approximately 200,000 

hours annually for the regulated railroads. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

35 

These are only a few of the regulations that we have reviewed 

in order to carry out our duties under the relevant EOs and the 

statutory requirements that mandate agency retrospective regulatory review. We invite the Committee to view the entire report, 

which will give you a much better sense of the breadth of our continuing efforts in this regard, and we stand ready to provide more 

information or a face-to-face briefing as needed. The January 2013 

report can be found on DOT’s website: 

http://www.dot.gov/sites/dot.dev/files/docs/january-2013-dot-rrr-report-final—0.pdf 10

In conclusion, let me once again thank the Committee for its interest in the Administration’s and DOT’s work in reviewing and reducing regulatory burdens on small businesses. We share your desire to continuously improve the safety, environmental quality, and 

consumer protection of our transportation system in a sensible, scientific, and cost-beneficial way while ensuring that American businesses—large and small—are treated fairly so that they can grow 

and thrive. 

I am happy to take your questions. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

36 

U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20416 

TESTIMONY OF 

JEANNE A. HULIT 

ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR CAPITAL ACCESS 

U.S. SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 

BEFORE THE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

MAY 8, 2013 

Thank you Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Vela ́zquez and 

members of the Committee. I am pleased to be testifying before you 

on the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) efforts to streamline 

its regulations. 

In SBA’s Office of Capital Access (OCA), we have taken several 

steps to ease the regulatory burden on small business. We have recently streamlined both our 7(a) and Certified Development Company (CDC) loan programs. The two most significant changes have 

been to the ‘‘personal resources test’’ and the ‘‘size affiliation requirement’’ for the programs. Both of these proposed changes will 

increase eligibility for 7(a) and CDC loans, allowing more small 

businesses to access these critical financing tools. 

We have also streamlined the 504 loan closing process. Through 

this change, SBA is implementing efficiencies in SBA counsel’s document review process. This significantly reduces the review time 

required by SBA counsel and will result in speedier loan package 

reviews and faster loan closings. 

OCA has also reduced the paperwork requirements for many participants in our surety bond program. The Quick Bond Guarantee 

Application—or ‘‘Quick App’’—combines the contractor application 

and SBA’s surety agreement into one, easy-to-use form. This reform significantly reduces paperwork and processing times for 

SBA-backed surety bonds on construction contracts of $250,000 or 

less. 

In addition to these OCA improvements, there have also been 

some significant regulatory and paperwork reforms in other SBA 

programs. For the thousands of small firms that do business with 

the Federal government, we have helped reduce the time it takes 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

37 

to get paid. The President’s ‘‘Quick Pay’’ initiative cut in half—from 

30 days to 15 days—the amount of time it takes the Federal government to pay small businesses. Getting paid sooner means that 

small businesses can more quickly re-invest those funds in additional working capital, marketing their products, or hiring new 

workers. 

SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance (ODA) reform efforts have focused on further reducing the time it takes to approve loans to disaster victims. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, ODA developed a 

pilot ‘‘auto-approval’’ process that uses credit scores and gross income from an applicant’s Federal tax return as the basis for the approval decision. If expanded beyond the pilot, the streamlined approval process would significantly reduce SBA’s processing costs for 

smaller disaster loans. 

In addition to retrospectively reviewing and revising its own regulations, SBA has also engaged the small business community to 

find out how other Federal rules and regulations can be adapted 

to fit the changing needs of emerging entrepreneurs. In 2011, senior Administration officials visited eight cities as part of the Startup America initiative. At these roundtables, SBA listened to small 

business owners, entrepreneurs and investors, as they described 

improvements to processes and regulations that can help build a 

more supportive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Those ideas were described in a report encompassing a broad array 

of policy areas—from student loans to intellectual property—and 

we have shared it with our Federal partners and the general public. 

I believe SBA has made significant progress in reducing the regulatory and paperwork burdens on America’s small business. But 

work still remains, and we are committed to continuing these 

streamlining efforts. 

I wish to thank you for inviting me to testify on this important 

topic today, and I look forward to answering any questions you 

may have. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

38 

Statement of Cheryl Cook 

Chief Information Officer 

United States Department of Agriculture 

Before the House Committee on Small Business 

May 8, 2013 

Chairman Graves and members of the committee, I am pleased 

to have this opportunity to discuss the Department of Agriculture’s 

efforts to reduce regulatory burdens on small businesses, and to facilitate new business development through cutting-edge research 

and an array of financial and technical assistance programs. Small 

businesses, including farms and ranches, create a foundation for 

prosperity in rural America. They provide millions of jobs, provide 

an abundant and affordable food supply, and increase our Nation’s 

energy independence. Under President Obama and Secretary 

Vilsack’s leadership, small businesses have been a critical element 

of our strategy to improve economic opportunity for those living in 

rural communities. USDA has taken steps to support the productivity and viability of small farming and ranching enterprises, crate 

new opportunity for local and regional marketing, expand conservation efforts and provide support for rural small businesses to expand, grow and hire more. Across each of these efforts, we recognize that farmers, ranchers and rural business owners devote long 

hours and hard work to their trade—and we have a responsibility 

to ensure that their efforts are not weighed down by unnecessary, 

burdensome paperwork. 

Given the unique nature of USDA’s work, its close relationship 

with rural America, and its related sensitivity to the small businesses that foster economic growth, the Department was eager to 

undertake a review of its regulations and paperwork activities as 

required by Executive Orders 13563 and 13610. Our goal was to 

identify significant rules and information collections that were obsolete, unnecessary, unjustified, excessively burdensome, or counterproductive to our efforts to revitalize rural America. 

USDA has taken steps to revise or repeal regulations that are 

unnecessary as a result of changed circumstances, or are duplicative or inappropriately burdensome. To accomplish this, USDA has 

internal procedures that establish a process for the development 

and review of all regulatory actions to ensure that USDA’s regulatory actions foster economic growth; respect the role of State, 

local, and tribal governments; and do not impose unreasonable 

costs on society. The procedures cover the full rulemaking cycle, 

starting when the need for a regulatory action is first identified, 

and carries through drafting, technical, legal, policy, and interdepartmental review, publication of proposed rule in the Federal 

Register, receipt of public comments, and publication of a final rule 

for inclusion in the Code of Federal Regulations. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

39 

In order to implement Executive Orders 13563, ‘‘Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review’’ and 13610, ‘‘Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens’’ Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan directed a retrospective review team comprised of mission area and 

agency-level regulatory review coordinators and work groups. The 

team initiated a review of USDA regulations that focused on increasing the public’s access to critical USDA programs, particularly 

those programs where access could be simplified and the reporting 

burdens reduced. The intent was to minimize burdens on individuals, businesses and communities attempting to access programs 

that promote economic growth, create jobs, and protect the health 

and safety of the American people. 

The review encompassed the activities of the largest regulatory 

and service delivery organizations in the Department: RD, RMA, 

FSA, National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the Food 

Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Forest Service (FS), and 

the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). These 

agencies offered the best opportunities to achieve President 

Obama’s goals for promoting regulatory innovation and reducing 

reporting burdens, while simultaneously reducing administrative 

and operating costs. 

In order to identify candidates for analysis, USDA considered 

several factors in setting priorities. A number of these factors are 

outlined under Section 610 of the Regulatory Flexibility Act including: the continued need for the regulation; the nature of comments 

or petitions received concerning the regulation from the public; the 

complexity of the regulation; the extent to which the regulation 

overlaps, duplicates, or conflicts with other Federal regulations, 

and, to the extent applicable, with State and local government regulations; the length of time since the regulation has been evaluated, and the degree to which technology, economic conditions, or 

other factors may have changed in the areas affected by the regulation. For the purposes of implementing E.O. 13563, USDA also considered the urgency for improving customer service by simplifying, 

streamlining, or improving quality for information collection procedures; comments from stakeholders; resource capacity and potential approval process timelines; and need for statutory change. 

USDA invited the public to participate in its review through the 

publication of a Request for Information (RFI) in the Federal Register on April 20, 2011. USDA also invited the public to participate 

through its Open Government Web site. In addition, USDA’s largest regulatory and service delivery organizations conducted independent public outreach activities employing a variety of mechanisms, including social media and traditional RFI’s to continue 

seeking input from the public. Through this efforts, over 2,100 public comments were received from a broad range of stakeholders, including individuals, regulated entities, trade groups, and USDA 

employees. 

Based on USDA’s evaluation and public input, USDA released its 

Final Plan for Retrospective Analysis on August 18, 2011. The final 

plan, which was subsequently updated to reflect input for Executive Order 13610, identifies 13 initiatives that would significantly 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

40 

reduce regulatory burdens and several initiatives aimed at reducing paperwork burdens. Of these, eight were featured in USDA’s 

Fall 2012 Statement of Regulatory Priorities as regulatory actions 

that would significantly reduce burdens on small business. 

Since the release of its Final Plan for Retrospective Analysis, 

USDA has made progress in implementing these initiatives. For example: 

On January 23, 2012, FSIS published a proposed rule for Electronic Export Application and Certification Fee to make the export 

component of Agency’s Public Health Information System (PHIS) 

available as an alternative to the paper-based application and certification process. 

On November 27, 2012, FSIS published a proposed rule for Electronic Import Inspection and Certification of Imported Products 

and Foreign Establishments, which is intended to reduce the information collection burden on importers by approximately 10,000 

hours. We are moving forward with a proposed rule to expand 

FSIS’ use of generic labeling. 

On April 12, 2013, RD’s Rural Business Service published a rule 

that proposes to streamline grant application requirements. The 

final rule is expected to reduce the information collection burden by 

reducing the number of hours it takes to complete a technical report for projects with total project costs (TPC) of more than $80,000 

to $200,000; eliminating the requirement for a technical report for 

projects with TPC of $80,000 or less; and reducing the number of 

hours it takes to complete the application. 

USDA also has made significant investments in information technology to reduce red tape and make it easier to access USDA’s financial and technical assistance programs. While many of USDA’s 

19 agencies have IT modernization efforts underway to push their 

programs to the Web, most notable is Farm Service Agency’s Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) 

initiative, the first phase of which was implemented in FSA field 

offices this month. MIDAS aims to provide FSA employees with 

better tools to provide stronger service for producers by logging into 

a single system rather than toggling among several and, for the 

first time, fully integrates GIS technology with information about 

farm, fields and crop histories. 

USDA continues to accept comments from the public on any of 

its regulations and continues to look for ways to advance the mission of USDA consistent with the Executive Orders. Consistent 

with the need for periodic review of its regulations, USDA has continued to employ its Open Government Web site to give the public 

an ongoing forum to provide input and discuss the retrospective 

analysis of regulations, and to help USDA formulate plans for future reviews. If, at any time, members of the public identify possible reforms to streamline requirements and to reduce existing 

burdens, USDA will give those suggestions careful consideration. 

USDA is committed to identifying inefficient, duplicative, or obsolete regulations and to identify ways to reduce program burdens 

and increase access. 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER

41 

That concludes my statement for the record. I would be happy to 

answer any questions. 

Æ 

SBREP-219 with DISTILLER