On January 7, 2026, Chief Counsel for Advocacy Casey Mulligan testified before the House Committee on Small Business in a hearing titled, “A Voice for Small Business: How the SBA Office of Advocacy is Cutting Red Tape.” Below is Chief Counsel Mulligan’s opening statement:
Chair Williams, Ranking Member Velázquez, and Members of the Committee: I am honored to discuss Advocacy’s role in cutting red tape for small businesses. My testimony does not necessarily reflect the views of the Administration or the SBA.
The Biden Administration finalized 12,000 rules that would cost almost $6 trillion. Against that backdrop, President Trump was elected to stop the “ever-expanding morass of complicated Federal regulation….” He directed agencies to identify “regulations that impose undue burdens on small businesses.”
Advocacy is well positioned to help agencies follow that direction. During my nomination hearing, I committed to meeting small businesses where they are. I have done so together with our Regional Advocates who gather small-business perspectives nationwide and bring them into policy discussions here in Washington.
For years, small businesses burdened by regulations remained silent, fearing retaliation. Now they tell Advocacy that this administration is the first to listen and understand. One even said Advocacy “quite literally saved Christmas.”
We also helped cut foreign regulations. When Canada blocked a U.S. firewood manufacturer’s exports, we coordinated with USDA, State, and Congress to resolve it. Shipments resumed, making it America’s only exporter of that type of wood.
Agencies and White House offices have increasingly come to Advocacy for input on regulatory policy. We have flagged approximately 300 issues for this administration where deregulatory action would help small businesses. Many of these are rules giving large organizations an artificial advantage over small ones. Take the Outpatient Prospective Payment System that pays hospitals more for the same services than it pays independent physicians.
Small businesses also flag the proposed OSHA Heat rule. It would impose sweeping, one-size-fits-all, and often absurd requirements on workplaces where heat is above certain temperatures. During a meeting with Advocacy, an Arizona watermelon farmer understood that the rule would require shade structures even though harvesting occurs at night, when there is no sun to shade.
In contrast, well-designed deregulation increases competition and productivity. President Trump’s first term was a case in point. Prescription drug prices fell for the first time in decades. Deregulation sharply reduced internet-access prices. The RFA’s competition channel is a reason for both changes.
Another indicator of agencies’ unprecedented engagement with Advocacy is compliance with the RFA’s agenda-sharing requirement under 5 U.S.C. § 602(b). With only one or two exceptions, agencies in the prior Administration failed to comply. In contrast, during my first five months as Chief Counsel, more than sixty agencies have sought Advocacy input on their regulatory agendas. This is an increase in compliance of at least 3,000 percent.
While regulators are quick to sanction businesses that violate their requirements, they often fail to follow the rules Congress set.
A frequent practice has been to unlawfully certify important rules as not having a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. Such certifications are a pathway to capricious enforcement actions against small entities. They are also obstacles to oversight.
My recent report, “Unlawful Disregard for Small Business Regulatory Burdens,” examines thousands of certifications. In Orwellian fashion, sixty-five percent of the major rules from the Biden Administration were said to lack significant effects on small entities or otherwise not require consideration of effects on them. Small businesses were saddled with costs between 200 and 600 billion dollars, without acknowledgment of their magnitude.
The report identifies genres of certification fiction, including rules that acknowledge heavy paperwork burdens but certify anyway; rules that threaten entire business categories through product bans; and rules with detailed cost estimates that are ignored for RFA purposes.
The report is not merely a critique of past process failures. It is a practical roadmap for finding and fixing red tape that is already on the books. To that end, Advocacy has published a “Most Wanted” roster of regulations notorious for the unnecessary burdens on small businesses.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. As Chief Counsel for Advocacy, I will continue to listen and work toward better policy for all small businesses. I would be happy to answer any questions.