The United States Senate has an opportunity to advance an important amendment that will protect America's small business owners and entrepreneurs from the burden of onerous regulation. The Freedom from Restrictive Excessive Executive Demands and Onerous Mandates (FREEDOM) Act of 2011 (Amendment #390 to the Economic Development Revitalization Act), is being sponsored by Senators Olympia Snowe and Tom Coburn. According to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council), the amendment is a critical and common sense initiative that is especially needed during this challenging economic period.
SBE Council will KEY VOTE the FREEDOM Act for our forthcoming Ratings of the 112th Congress. A vote for amendment number 390 is a vote for small business. The vote is expected sometime today.
As I noted in SBE Council's KEY VOTE letter to all members of the United States Senate: "Congress and the Administration must put the needs of small business and entrepreneurship first. The economy will simply limp along, and jobless Americans will continue to suffer until policies are advanced that lift small business costs and confidence. The federal government is fueling uncertainty and weighing small businesses down. Everything must be done to lift government-imposed costs and stabilize policies. The FREEDOM Act is a step in this direction."
The FREEDOM Act strengthens and enhances regulatory safeguards for small businesses. It expands the scope of the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) -- protections that currently exist in the law -- by requiring federal government regulators to assess the indirect impact of regulations in their analysis of a regulation's impact on small firms. This added assessment is critical. It is often the case that the indirect impacts of regulation are just as severe, or more so, for our economy and entrepreneurship than the direct effects.
The FREEDOM Act strengthens several other aspects of the RFA, which include:
• Enforcing existing periodic rule review requirements and penalizing agencies that refuse to conduct these reviews.
• Adding nine new small business review panels at federal agencies whose rules have the largest economic impact on small businesses. These panels have been effective in capturing the concerns and effects of proposed regulations on small business, where alternatives have been developed or regulators "go back to the drawing board" in developing the rule.
• Providing for judicial review at an earlier point in the federal rulemaking process.
• Extending the RFA to agency guidance documents, so that federal agencies must conduct small business economic analyses before publishing those documents.
As made clear by the jobs data released last week, small businesses are skittish about hiring. Uncertainty continues to grip small business owners. They are concerned about the cost impact of major laws now being implemented, and added burdens and costs that may be imposed as a result of regulatory proposals in the pipeline. A wide set of regulations are in the works that will impact the availability of capital, the cost of health coverage, the cost of energy, and the general cost of doing business. The cumulative impact of regulation is smothering small businesses, and something must be done to further protect our job creating sector.
If the Senate falls short in passing this common sense amendment, there's little hope that they will pass anything to help small businesses.
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO
Showing posts with label Senator Coburn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senator Coburn. Show all posts
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
Students, Employers, Career Colleges Getting Shafted by Controversial DOE Regulation
On May 4, after a year of obfuscation, the Department of Education (DoE) released its highly controversial “Gainful Employment” rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for final review. For many in the business community, the rule is considered both anti-competitive and anti-entrepreneurial to its core. It is a misguided rule that unfairly singles out for-profit colleges.
These career schools stand to be sharply penalized if graduates fail to meet arbitrary debt-to-income ratios. For-profit colleges have grown exponentially over the last decade because they are filling a huge market demand for training our workforce -- teaching specific skills required by the marketplace, meaning employers. The for-profits have moved into this market niche, developed online courses that far outstrip the capacity of their not-for-profit competitors, and are now being made to pay for their success because they have out-performed the "competition."
Along its circuitous route, the "Gainful Employment" rule has drawn fire from many across the political spectrum, but especially from leaders in minority communities. Nearly 40% of students at for-profit colleges and universities are African American and Latinos, and these students will be most at risk for losing their access to federal financial aid under the new rule.
The House, in an uncharacteristic display of bi-partisan unity, voted overwhelming to defund the rule, anticipating its dire consequences for workers and the economy. Why then is DoE rushing to release a rule that will result in a loss of jobs in a successful business sector while potentially killing college AND job options for hundreds of thousands of (especially, minority) students?
Further, why is DoE ramming through a rule that has been riddled with procedural problems? And why have questions about the rule-making process been stonewalled? Good government groups such as CREW have repeatedly called for an SEC investigation into an array of improprieties, among them a discredited Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and highly suspicious collaboration between a group of Wall Street short-sellers and proponents of "Gainful Employment" at the DoE. Senators Burr and Coburn called for an IG investigation into the DoE, which was initiated last week.
Plagued by charges of cover-up and lack of transparency, the DoE has now released the rule to the OMB without making the language public, although there are concerns that key financial analysts have been made privy. Is this any way to run a U.S. regulatory agency?
To be sure, there are many questions that need answers before the rule is finalized. At a minimum, the rule needs to be publicly posted so that affected stakeholders can develop their responses. Secretary Duncan and his agency continue to defy the call for full transparency. This closed-door process must be challenged. It’s no way to do business.
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO
These career schools stand to be sharply penalized if graduates fail to meet arbitrary debt-to-income ratios. For-profit colleges have grown exponentially over the last decade because they are filling a huge market demand for training our workforce -- teaching specific skills required by the marketplace, meaning employers. The for-profits have moved into this market niche, developed online courses that far outstrip the capacity of their not-for-profit competitors, and are now being made to pay for their success because they have out-performed the "competition."
Along its circuitous route, the "Gainful Employment" rule has drawn fire from many across the political spectrum, but especially from leaders in minority communities. Nearly 40% of students at for-profit colleges and universities are African American and Latinos, and these students will be most at risk for losing their access to federal financial aid under the new rule.
The House, in an uncharacteristic display of bi-partisan unity, voted overwhelming to defund the rule, anticipating its dire consequences for workers and the economy. Why then is DoE rushing to release a rule that will result in a loss of jobs in a successful business sector while potentially killing college AND job options for hundreds of thousands of (especially, minority) students?
Further, why is DoE ramming through a rule that has been riddled with procedural problems? And why have questions about the rule-making process been stonewalled? Good government groups such as CREW have repeatedly called for an SEC investigation into an array of improprieties, among them a discredited Government Accountability Office (GAO) report and highly suspicious collaboration between a group of Wall Street short-sellers and proponents of "Gainful Employment" at the DoE. Senators Burr and Coburn called for an IG investigation into the DoE, which was initiated last week.
Plagued by charges of cover-up and lack of transparency, the DoE has now released the rule to the OMB without making the language public, although there are concerns that key financial analysts have been made privy. Is this any way to run a U.S. regulatory agency?
To be sure, there are many questions that need answers before the rule is finalized. At a minimum, the rule needs to be publicly posted so that affected stakeholders can develop their responses. Secretary Duncan and his agency continue to defy the call for full transparency. This closed-door process must be challenged. It’s no way to do business.
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Department of Education Needs to Answer Congressional Inquiry
When business owners receive a letter or inquiry from the federal government, they are required to comply with the information request. The federal government should do the same when Congress requests information, or makes a specific request.
On November 17th, in a joint letter to Department of Education Inspector General Kathleen Tighe, Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) requested an internal investigation as to whether the organizational protocols adopted for negotiated rulemaking were followed by both non-federal negotiators and Department staff. In the letter, the Senators assert that publicly available documents show that the Department of Education may have leaked the proposed “gainful employment” rules to short sellers and others that stand to benefit from the collapse of the industry.
To date, nothing has been heard from the Department of Education in response to the letter from Senators Burr and Coburn. How can the Department stand by and allow even the appearance of impropriety to permeate? Publicly available documents raised enough concern to urge a letter from Members of the Senate calling for an investigation. To that end, the Department of Education has remained silent and failed to make the necessary inquiries into the events that led up to the issuance of the proposed regulations regarding the gainful employment rule.
In addition to steps taken by Senators Burr and Coburn, recent efforts by Representative John Kline (R-MN), Chairman-elect of the Committee on Education and Labor, should be applauded. In a December 10 Bloomberg article, Kline said he would not support legislation from Senator Harkin’s HELP committee. Kline argues that the proposed regulation in its current form is unnecessarily harmful to for-profit colleges and their students, as the arbitrary proposals would limit higher education options for students.
We hope that before the Department of Education issues the rule as expected in January, it has done its due diligence by issuing an internal audit into possible wrongdoings that threaten the integrity of the programs it administers.
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO
On November 17th, in a joint letter to Department of Education Inspector General Kathleen Tighe, Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) requested an internal investigation as to whether the organizational protocols adopted for negotiated rulemaking were followed by both non-federal negotiators and Department staff. In the letter, the Senators assert that publicly available documents show that the Department of Education may have leaked the proposed “gainful employment” rules to short sellers and others that stand to benefit from the collapse of the industry.
To date, nothing has been heard from the Department of Education in response to the letter from Senators Burr and Coburn. How can the Department stand by and allow even the appearance of impropriety to permeate? Publicly available documents raised enough concern to urge a letter from Members of the Senate calling for an investigation. To that end, the Department of Education has remained silent and failed to make the necessary inquiries into the events that led up to the issuance of the proposed regulations regarding the gainful employment rule.
In addition to steps taken by Senators Burr and Coburn, recent efforts by Representative John Kline (R-MN), Chairman-elect of the Committee on Education and Labor, should be applauded. In a December 10 Bloomberg article, Kline said he would not support legislation from Senator Harkin’s HELP committee. Kline argues that the proposed regulation in its current form is unnecessarily harmful to for-profit colleges and their students, as the arbitrary proposals would limit higher education options for students.
We hope that before the Department of Education issues the rule as expected in January, it has done its due diligence by issuing an internal audit into possible wrongdoings that threaten the integrity of the programs it administers.
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO
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