EPA has an obligation to the public to collect the information it needs with the least amount of paperwork burden imposed on the public, especially small businesses. Swimming against the tide of federal paperwork doesn't help families earn a living and doesn't help small business create new jobs to support the economy.
Mandatory paperwork is one of the most time-consuming duties of operating a small business.
EPA imposed 109 million burden hours in Fiscal Year 1995, increasing to about 119 million hours in Fiscal Year 1998. EPA, for its part, claimed this 10 million hour increase would have been higher by an additional 24 million hours but for EPA's reinvention and reduction efforts. The 1995-98 increase in paperwork burden came over the same time period the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 mandated a 25 percent reduction in federal agency paperwork burden. Bond was particularly concerned that EPA misled Congress with its claims. Agency officials made the same claims to my Small Business Committee this winter.