Small businesses take the biggest hit under new regulations.
A large corporation can handle the new regulations but often those same costs can wipe out a small business's profits, force layoffs, or even drive it out of business altogether. GAO officials testified that if EPA had examined those industries, it would have found over 1,000 small businesses facing heavy additional costs from the rule. In another case, EPA' s failure to fully consider the small business impact of its rulemaking also threatens to hurt the environment. One Missouri small business owner who testified today echoed the GAO's concerns. Tim Kalinowski, Vice President for Operations, Foam Supplies, Inc., of Earth City, Missouri, described how the EPA proposed a regulation to ban the use of products containing CFC urethane foams, including a patented HCFC-22 foam his firm spent years developing.