Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

25. Small Business Administration · Notable · Needs Congress

Amend the RFA to require 60-day pre-proposal review by Advocacy

Not started

752 25. Small Business Administration

“Amend the RFA so that all agencies are required to provide a copy of any proposed rule (other than bona fide emergency rules) along with initial regulatory flexibility analysis to the Office of Advocacy at least 60 days before a notice of proposed rulemaking is submitted for publication in the Federal Register. … The Office of Advocacy’s pre-proposing comments would be published on the agencies’ and its own websites.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The Regulatory Flexibility Act is unamended. The bill that would do this — H.R. 421, and its identical Senate companion S. 5178, whose text is cited here because H.R. 421 was introduced four days before the evidence window opened — rewrites 5 U.S.C. 609 so that an agency must notify the Chief Counsel for Advocacy and hand over the draft rule and its materials *before* publication, convene a review panel within 15 days, and receive Advocacy's report within 60 days of the panel convening. That is the substance of the Quote, arranged differently from its "60 days before" formulation, and it has gone no further than being ordered reported by House Small Business 13–12 on 2025-06-10; the Senate companion S. 5178 was introduced 2026-07-30 and referred. Committee action and referral are not rungs (§3b). Nothing in the bill or in any instrument requires Advocacy's pre-proposing comments to be published on the agencies' websites.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • H.R. 421, Small Business Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act — introduced 2025-01-15, referred to Judiciary, Small Business and Oversight, and ordered reported in the nature of a substitute by House Small Business 13–12 on 2025-06-10. It has never been voted on the floor. Under §3b, “ordered reported, marked up, or placed on a calendar” is still not started. Text read at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr421ih/html/BILLS-119hr421ih.htm

  • S. 5178, the Senate companion, was introduced 2026-07-30 and referred to Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. No action since.

  • H.R. 1163 / S. 495, the Prove It Act — H.R. 1163 was placed on the Union Calendar 2026-05-04 and S. 495 had a Senate Small Business hearing on 2025-11-19; neither passed a chamber, and the Act would let small entities challenge an agency’s RFA certification rather than change the analysis the RFA requires.

  • The two bills that did pass the House in this territory — H.R. 2965 (2025-12-03) and H.R. 4305 (2025-12-03) — cap the SBA’s own regulatory budget and put Advocacy’s Red Tape Hotline in statute. Neither touches the RFA provisions this Quote names. See #2043’s notes.

  • Executive substitute: none. No presidential document published since 2025-01-20 contains the phrase “Regulatory Flexibility Act” or “Office of Advocacy” — see the cluster negative search in the Chapter 25 log.

  • The Quote has two limbs: the 60-day pre-proposal transmittal, and publication of Advocacy’s pre-proposing comments on agency and Advocacy websites. Neither exists. Advocacy does publish its post-proposal comment letters at advocacy.sba.gov/letters, which is not the same thing.

Action
other
Object
Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA)
ID
2040